Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy: Is It a Pandemic?

I’m sure you heard about the 27-year-old man who drove from Nevada to NYC last week, entered what he thought was the headquarters of the NFL, and killed four people and critically injured a fifth before offing himself. “Luckily,” he left a note of explanation: He believed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma, which causes symptoms including memory loss, confusion, and aggression.

The disease is common in football, with 99% of donated NFL player brains indicating CTE.

The thing I don’t understand about the CTE story is why it is always about football players. If it’s caused by repeated small brain concussions, where are all the stories about old boxers getting CTE? If you count the head blows they suffer in training, they must endure far more head trauma than football players do.