It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town

From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk

The local dailies have duly noted this week’s Boston University School of Medicine shindig to kick off a seven-year, $16 million study called DIAGNOSE CTE, which will examine the relationship of head injuries to the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

That, of course, is a subject the National Football League has a $12 billion a year interest in.

Interestingly, that interest got very different play in yesterday’s local papers.

Kay Lazar’s Boston Globe Metro Page One piece:

Study to test brain damage in living

Why do some athletes who suffer repeated head injuries develop a devastating brain disease, while others seem immune? And can this degenerative disease be treated or even prevented?

A team of scientists from across the country gathered Wednesday at Boston University School of Medicine to launch a pioneering study aimed at detecting chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a disease that silently destroys the minds of athletes after years of repetitive blows to the head. But this time, unlike so much of the research preceding it, the studies will be conducted in people who are alive.

The NFL connection was relegated to the story’s final graf.

[A] congressional committee last week issued a scathing report saying it found evidence top NFL officials improperly tried to influence the selection of scientists for government-funded research on CTE. That interference, the report found, concerned the grant eventually awarded to the team led by BU’s [Robert] Stern.

But the National Finagling League’s interference was headline material in Lindsay Kalter’s Boston Herald report.

Doc: we won’t fumble

Despite NFL cries, CTE project rolls on

Boston University neuroscientist Dr. Robert Stern said his groundbreaking study on head trauma, which was officially launched yesterday, will not be sullied by the long-brewing controversy over the NFL’s alleged attempts to strip him of his funding.

“I’m just so unbelievably excited to get this science moving right now,” Stern told the Herald. “This is the time to do this science.”

He added, “We’re now going to move forward.”

As will the Boston dailies, each on its own track.