NFL Giving Campaign Contributions to Lawmakers Reviewing Concussion Research

In continuing to learn about the long-term impact of concussions and head injuries, the NFL is giving campaign contributions to various lawmakers who review research on concussions. 

According to a report published Wednesday by Elliott Almond of the San Jose Mercury News, the NFL's gridiron PAC has donated "money to 42 of 54 members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee that began informal hearings last week on one of the league's most pressing safety issues."

The report comes one week after NFL senior vice president for health and safety Jeff Miller said there is a direct link between football and neurodegenerative diseases, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy—commonly known as CTE—while at a roundtable discussion organized by the United States House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce, per ESPN.com's Steve Fainaru. 

Miller also said the important thing moving forward "is what that necessarily means, and where do we go from here with that information?" The NFL said in a statement included in Fainaru's report that Miller's comments "accurately reflect" the league's views. 

There have been studies published detailing the link between CTE and football, with PBS' Frontline releasing a report last year after researchers at the Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University found 87 of 91 former NFL players examined tested positive for the degenerative brain disease.   

MapLight, which is an organization that tracks the influence of money in politics, confirmed to Almond the NFL's gridiron PAC contributions, adding that since 2008, the PAC has given $293,000 to energy and commerce committee members. 

The NFL has taken some precautionary measures on the field to make the game safer, penalizing players for hits directly to the head and for launching their bodies into opponents.