Massachusetts Lawmakers Consider Bill to Ban Youth Football

State lawmakers in Massachusetts are considering a bill banning tackle football leagues for children up through the seventh grade.

Supporters of the bill, “An Act for No Organized Head Impacts to Schoolchildren," say it would protect kids from brain disease, according to the Boston Herald.

Children who start tackle football at 5 years old are 10 times more likely to develop Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy than those who wait until age 14, according to a new Boston University study, the newspaper noted.

And safety advancements will not stop long-term brain impacts, warned Robert Stern of BU’s CTE Center.

“Football is to CTE is what smoking is to lung cancer,” Chris Nowinski of the Concussion Legacy Foundation told members of the Joint Committee on Public Health at the state House. “The more you do it, the longer you do it, the greater your risk.”

But Paul Dauderis of the Massachusetts Youth Football Alliance said: “Banning youth tackle football is a tremendous overreach into the rights of parents to allow their children to play a game.”

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