The NFL will spend up to $1 million funding up to five studies that will examine how to better help players ease their pain and find alternatives to opioids.
Among those potential alternatives: marijuana and other cannabis-derived products.
The league announced its call for research proposals Tuesday. The league and the NFL Players Association formed a joint pain management committee in 2019 to help find alternatives to opioids and give players and league medical staffs information on pain management.
Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL's chief medical officer, said there are a lot of great ideas and important research that need to be funded.
“This is really not an NFL issue or a sports issue,” Sills said. "This is a societal issue, which is how can we better understand and treat pain and what are the alternatives that may be out there for treatment in addition to opioids which have long been used.”
Some retired NFL players, including Nate Jackson and Kyle Turley, have spoken out about their use of marijuana during their time in the league and said it's a better way of managing pain than the drugs prescribed by team doctors. The league prohibits marijuana use by players.
Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president overseeing player health and safety, said the league’s policy on substance abuse is not changing, with Tuesday’s announcement focused only on proposals and research.
The pain management committee held two forums in 2020 to learn more about cannabidiol science and manufacturing and now wants more information on how cannabinoids not only affect pain but the performance of NFL players.
Dr. Kevin Hill is co-chairman of the joint pain management committee and wrote a book titled “Marijuana: The Unbiased Truth about the World's Most Popular Weed." He said players have been asking about cannabis and cannabidiol CBD. Hill said they've tried to provide the best information on a controversial topic.
“Unfortunately, the level of interest right now far exceeds the level of evidence supporting the use of medical cannabis for pain,” Hill said.
Hill, also director of addiction psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said there are flaws in each of the controlled trials despite some evidence supporting the use of medical cannabis for pain.
“That’s why we put out this request for proposals so that we can collectively with the PA, the players association, move towards finding better treatments for pain. Those treatments may include cannabis, and they may include CBD,” Hill said.
The NFL opened the application process Tuesday. The league wants initial proposals studying how cannabinoids can help players manage pain daily and after surgery, how cannabis or cannabinoids affect players' athletic performance, and how other non-pharmaceutical treatments can benefit players.
Proposals must be submitted by July 31 with the pain management committee paring down submissions for formal presentations. Those will presented in November with a final decision the week of Dec. 6.
Plant-based meat giant Beyond Meat's reign over the fast food world continues, as McDonald's announced that it is expanding its test of Beyond's McPlant burger, to nearly 600 restaurants, an increase from the eight that it's been testing in since November. This comes less than two weeks after Beyond Fried Chicken made its nationwide debut at KFC restaurants, the first time that plant based chicken has been widely distributed in a fast food capacity. Arun Sundaram, Senior Equity Analyst at CFRA Research explains why these latest collaborations may be proof that Beyond Meat products could slowly be becoming an unlikely staple in the fast food and chain restaurant world as consumers opt for more healthy food options.
BD Veritor is a variation of the at-home COVID test that uses a smartphone to interpret the results. The test is taken via a nose swab test strip that is then scanned by your phone’s camera with the result clearly displayed as positive or negative. James Walker, vice president of integrated diagnostics USA for BD, joined Cheddar to discuss how the test hopefully takes the "guesswork out of testing." Walker also went into what BD is doing to deal with the surging demand for at-home tests amid the omicron spread. "While we don't disclose how much we produce, we have capacity to manufacture up to 12 million rapid antigen tests per month and are delivering on our commitments to distributors and retailers," he said.
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: Sidechef CEO breaks down how it's building a platform to make recipe shopping easy; Luum CEO explains the process of having a robot put on eyelash extensions; A look at Curiosity Stream's new original series, 'Evolve.'
Moderna launched a clinical trial of a COVID-19 booster shot specifically targeting the omicron variant. The first participant has already received a dose, and Moderna expects to enroll about 600 adults total, split between two groups. In the first group, participants will have previously received two doses of the Moderna vaccine, and in the second, participants will have received its booster. Dr. Paul Burton, chief medical officer at Moderna, joined Cheddar’s Opening Bell to discuss the trial, yearly boosters, and what lies ahead for the company.
With the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics right around the corner, experts are warning that climate change is threatening not only the event but also the future of snow sports. Despite being the world's top polluter, China is hoping to use the event to demonstrate the country's commitment to fighting climate change, and pledging to host a "low carbon" games. Xubin Zeng, professor of hydrology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona, joins Cheddar News.
New research is suggesting that giving extra cash to low-income mothers can actually influence the brain development of their infants. These findings provide the first rigorous evidence of how payments and monetary support can affect children in the early years of life. Authors of the study, Nathan Fox, professor in the department of human development at the University of Maryland, and Sonya Troller-Renfree, postdoctoral research associate at Teachers College at Columbia University, join Cheddar News to discuss.
Communities of color are disproportionately affected by climate change and continuously feel the impacts. Mark Magaña, founding president and CEO of Green Latinos joined All Hands to discuss.
