[BostonCard]

When Matt Hazeltine was diagnosed with ALS Forty Niner doctors emphasized how extremely rare the disease was. When ex-teammate Muddy Waters was diagnosed they said it was an almost impossible coincidence. When ex-teammate Gary Lewis was diagnosed they said it was not a coincidence.

The injuries suffered by Stanford the last two years and still coming don’t seem like a coincidence either. If Robinson was hurt in practice in contact drills it may be time to stop contact drills.

Except that the lifetime risk of ALS is 1 in 350 for men, so you would not expect any cases on a football team, and certainly not more than one.  Three sporadic cases in a cohort of 50 or so would be a vanishingly unlikely event.

The overall injury rate for football is 8.1 per 1000 exposures according to NCAA data.  An exposure is defined as any practice or game, so the average player will have 13 games and many times as many practices; probably over 100 “exposures” in all.  

With a much higher background rate it is much higher to distinguish random variations from a true pattern.  It sure seems excessive, but we all have a habit of finding patterns in data that is just noise,

BC

[BostonCard]

When Matt Hazeltine was diagnosed with ALS Forty Niner doctors emphasized how extremely rare the disease was. When ex-teammate Muddy Waters was diagnosed they said it was an almost impossible coincidence. When ex-teammate Gary Lewis was diagnosed they said it was not a coincidence.

The injuries suffered by Stanford the last two years and still coming don’t seem like a coincidence either. If Robinson was hurt in practice in contact drills it may be time to stop contact drills.

Except that the lifetime risk of ALS is 1 in 350 for men, so you would not expect any cases on a football team, and certainly not more than one.  Three sporadic cases in a cohort of 50 or so would be a vanishingly unlikely event.

The overall injury rate for football is 8.1 per 1000 exposures according to NCAA data.  An exposure is defined as any practice or game, so the average player will have 13 games and many times as many practices; probably over 100 “exposures” in all.  

With a much higher background rate it is much higher to distinguish random variations from a true pattern.  It sure seems excessive, but we all have a habit of finding patterns in data that is just noise,

BC