An open letter signed by the players’ wives, siblings and children says the study published in the May 6 issue of Frontiers in Psychology suggests their struggles caring for loved ones was due to “media hype” about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, rather than the disease itself. The implication that “caregiver concerns are ‘inevitable’ due to ‘publicity’ is callous, patronizing, and offensive,” they said.
“The burden we experienced did not happen because we are women unable to differentiate between our lived experience and stories from TV or newspaper reports,” they wrote in the letter. “Our loved ones were giants in life, CTE robbed them of their futures, and robbed us of our futures with them. Please don’t also rob us of our dignity.”
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