Summary of Jeanne Marie Laskas's Concussion chronicles the story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-born forensic pathologist known for his seminal research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease largely found in people who have sustained repetitive brain trauma. In 2002, while working as a pathologist at the Allegheny County coroner’s office in Pittsburgh, Omalu autopsied the brain of Pro Football Hall of Fame center “Iron Mike” Webster of the Pittsburgh Steelers. This led to his groundbreaking discovery of CTE in the brains of relatively young and otherwise healthy football players. When he published his first report on CTE in 2005 in Neurosurgery, Omalu assumed that the National Football League (NFL) would rejoice and take steps to ensure player safety. Instead, this report would lead to a decade-long battle with the NFL, which refused to acknowledge the connection between football’s dangers and the resultant health of its players…
