This Guardian article cites recent scientific research showing the force to the head when heading the ball, especially off of goal kicks and punts. It's scary. Research reveals footballers are still heading for serious trouble | Sean Ingle | Football | The Guardian
I mentioned this E60 show in the Other Team thread, but thought it might be better placed here under Sports Medicine. This TV piece covered Amy Griffin, women's GK coach at Univ of Washington. Griffin started a list of athletes she knew who got cancer (most commonly lymphoma), and discovered that a high percentage were goalkeepers. One of the GKs she coached was Austen Everett, who dated former Quakes player Matt Luzunaris before she died of lymphoma. The Huffington Post wrote about the show: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/espn-report-turf-dangers-cancer_5638f8efe4b00a4d2e0c12df
I agree that more emphasis on data would have helped. Overdramatizing the story of the poor kid that died after years of chemo did not make the story more credible. I remember a couple of years ago sitting at a turf field comparing notes with other parents who'd read research on the dangers of turf. The focus in this piece was on the pellets, but I find the offgassing problematic, and other parents agreed. Some artificial turf seems worse than others in that regard. Maybe the state of the Washington will analyze enough data to take these concerns out of the realm of "anecdotal." Even if they can't pinpoint the cause, if there's a strong correlation, that should be enough to get serious attention.
I viewed the segment and found it balanced about what is known and unknown, and there were a number of facts mentioned, including the fact that "tire crumbs" have carcinogens within them (that did not appear to be disputed) and that the current head of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency admits on camera EPA doesn't know whether or not tire crumb turf fields are, as a result, a causal factor for lymphoma and won't until EPA investigates. I would impose the burden of proof on federal and state regulators as opposed to ESPN, which has simply called the issue to our attention -- which, after all, is the media's job. We can then judge for ourselves whether to be alarmed. I, for one, find the anecdotal evidence concerning. When a soccer coach has had eight players come down with cancer, all of them goalkeepers, it strikes me as more than a coincidence. Of course, the coach wasn't testifying under oath. (But why would he lie? And why would Julie Foudy, whom I've met and respect, want to willfully undermine the soccer infrastructure in this country unless she perceives a real potential problem?). And the statisticians can go to work on all the data, which may or may not dispel conclusions drawn from the anecdotes. I expect the statistical analysis to be a significant portion of any bona fide investigation. Meanwhile, I think it's reckless to be having kids play -- at least goalkeeper -- on these rubber fields.
They referenced some study to determine if there is a statistically valid correlation or something like that, but the results won't be known until sometime in 2016? Are they using long division or something, like really long division?
You're assuming they have gathered all the data from which to perform the statistical analysis. My guess is that it's not neatly packaged already.
Well, the long division thing was a joke of course, but even to gather the data, does it really take months? I suspect that it is just going onto a bureaucratic pile somewhere. "Yeah, we'll be sure to take a look at it as soon as we can get to it!".
You're evidently not very familiar with how government works. Try asking someone at the City of San Jose how many tire crumb turf fields exist in their parks. Try asking who within the City might know. Then try replicating this goose-chase over the innumerable municipalities nationwide, or constructing a defensible sample size regarding which municipalities against whose civic walls you are going seek to bang your head. Sometime in 2016 seems a fairly optimistic timetable under the circumstances.
The states have cancer registries, but they collect demographic and other information, not sports participation. So finding out which cancer patients used turf fields will require an extra level of investigation. Also, I would say that Washington/Oregon may be unique in that they have land constraints (as we do), reasonably warm temperatures year round, but a lot of rain, making it harder for them to rely on grass fields. Other parts of the country may use fewer artificial turf fields because it's too miserable to play outdoors during most of the year or because they have enough open space that they can trash a grass field and then let it recover for a few weeks while they practice elsewhere.
A study with controls is often not realistic. When a few dozen people were poisoned by Chipotle food, it would not have been helpful for Chipotle to produce a few dozen healthy customers. The correlation between eating at Chipotle and illness was so much higher than expected that it was sufficient to necessitate an investigation
I'm not following you? Isn't the correlation between playing goalkeeper on a tire crumb field and coming down with cancer so much higher than expected that it is sufficient to necessitate an investigation? I think the ESPN report amply establishes this. The ensuing question is whether the investigation (or "study") will be scientifically valid and prove to reasonable satisfaction whether or not tire crumb fields were a causal factor. I'm no scientist, but I would expect a control group would be required as part of the study.
Epidemiology is as much art as science. Most of these sorts of studies rely on meta-analysis of a wide range of smaller, less-focused studies.
I don't know the context of the study they referenced. I think we are all just taking wild swings w/o knowing more. But on the face of it, seems like it should not take a year. Either the data is there or it isn't. This is not an experiment that is starting today. Presumably they would be analyzing historical data. In some cases it may be harder to collate the data than others, but how hard can it be such that it would take a year? And you don't necessarily need to go nationwide - going back to the question - what is the scope? You could analyze just the bay area for example. As I said, I'm guessing it is on some kind of bureaucratic backlog.
the good news about media stories like this is that California is doing its own investigation in 2016. I think they said it would take 2 years to complete. But in the end, we will get real data. The problem is, they have to show higher incidence among kids on turf versus what, kids on grass? Playing soccer or lacrosse, football, baseball... Might be really hard to even collect that data, as Don has pointed out. In fact now that I think about it, turf fields are becoming so prevalent in CA, it might be hard to find a control group that plays entirely on grass! Or if you pick a group in central CA, then they probably have lots of pesticide exposure.
Whenever I played at Mayfield in the summer, it felt like the smog of LA that I grew up in, which is usually ozone, a highly reactive chemical. So the sooner the industry invests in research to replace tire crumb, the better. Skyline College is using cork. But I guess any particulate is going to create a problem.
Turf is only prevalent in relatively affluent areas because it's so expensive. So it should be relatively straightforward to compare the incidence of childhood lymphoma/leukemia in communities with and without those fields. Of course, then you have to control for pesticides and other factors! To hear those coaches talking about multiple soccer players with lymphoma...as far as I know, we haven't had any around here. If four of my kids' friends had gotten sick, I'd be asking more questions.
Yes, for that woman to have coached so many cancer cases, I wonder if it is just a cluster. Like maybe someone was applying some pesticide in that area, which stressed the kids' immune systems. Or maybe turf fields in that area got their tire crumb from a specific source... like LA.
When the Quakes put in turf at Stanton Filed at SCU they used an orgainic fill that was not the crumb rubber. You can also buy virgin epdm rubber crumb (in a myriad of colors!) that is likely cleaner than chopped up tires. Both solutions are likely more expensive, but what is another ten grand or two when putting in a field that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars?