Jan. 7: Look At the Evidence, Dr. Casson

By Sylvia Gurinsky

Evidently, Dr. Ira Casson isn't a fan of the television show "Hawaii Five-O."

On "Journey Out of Limbo," a 1972 episode of the long-running police program, Dr. Bergman (played by Al Eben), the Five-O physician/coroner, compared the bout of amnesia by Five-O detective Dan Williams (played by James MacArthur) to the temporary amnesia suffered by National Football League players with concussions. That's almost 40 years ago.

But Casson, who recently stepped down as co-chair of the NFL's committee on concussions, has decried any link between concussions and brain injuries, and did so again Monday during a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing in Detroit. He complains that it's politics, or maybe steroid use.

Never mind that a number of former football players who are personal evidence to the contrary also testified Monday. Never mind the recent firing of Texas Tech University Coach Mike Leach over his treatment of a player who had received a concussion.

And never mind the decades of details, not just on fictional television shows, but in hundreds of news reports and university studies.

That's not politics, Dr. Casson. That's evidence.