Brett Favre, who we spoke to a year ago about his views on life and using CBD to ease his many lingering aches and pains, renewed his campaign to prevent younger people from playing tackle football due to the dangers of concussions.
In the process, he offered a take about getting the COVID-19 vaccine that may have been influenced by suffering said concussions during his playing career.
Favre, who played in the NFL for 20 seasons and set a record with 297 consecutive starts, appeared in a public service announcement released Tuesday by the Concussion Legacy Foundation and warned parents not to let their children play tackle football before the age of 14. Per the PSA, a child’s odds of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) double every additional three years they play tackle football.
“Having kids play before high school is just not worth the risk,” Favre said. ”CTE is a terrible disease, and we need to do everything we can to prevent it for the next generation of football players.”
When it comes to preventing the spread of COVID-19, Favre’s stance is not quite as strong. Appearing on CNN to promote the PSA, the 51-year-old expressed ambivalence about whether NFL players should be vaccinated.
“There’s a great deal of uncertainty,” Favre said on CNN. “You hear one thing one day, and you hear something that’s totally different the next. And this is from experts, experts on both sides of the argument. You know, the vaccines that have been administered within the last six to eight months didn’t go through a 20- or 30-year human trial study that the FDA requires. So we’re sort of the human trials, if you will and I think some people are frightened by that and the conflicting info that we’re all getting. It’s not my place to say, ‘Get the vaccine,’ or, ‘Don’t get the vaccine.’ I think that’s a matter of choice.”
While he didn’t discuss the vaccine on an appearance on TODAY, Favre did reveal he won’t be encouraging his three grandsons to play football.
“If they choose to play I will support them, but I’m not going to encourage them in any way to play. That surprises a lot of people, but I’m just fearful of what concussions can do,” Favre said. “And it only takes one. Maybe I have had a thousand … It’s just too risky. I’m not going to encourage them to play until there’s a treatment.”
There is a treatment, albeit a preventative one, for COVID-19. Hopefully, he encourages them to get that.
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