i am committed to open up 100 new charter schools over the next four years, but we do need to get the legislature to lift the cap, just as louisiana has done, because we are about to hit it. i think arne is right to do so. we will also urge the state legislature to provide funding for facilities, just as new york city is doing for other schools. charter schools are public schools. people forget that, and all public school children deserve to share in the resources that the state has. do not do so is an outrage, and if the state does not get this done, i have gotten with the chancellor to sue. another major step that raced to the top has us to take is reforming schools. . us to take is turning around our

lowest performing schools. since 2003 we've closed 91 schools in new york city and the schools that have replaced them have graduation rates 15 points above the citywide average. secretary arne jalabert states to turn around the last five performing schools. arne, we see the 5% and we are going to double it. our goal is to turn around the lowest performing 10% of city schools the next four years by closing them down and bringing in new leadership and holding everyone accountable for success. and this is to reform something called the absent teacher research poll. right now when we close the schools and teachers don't get hired back on and many find jobs elsewhere. but some teachers to get hired back on and many find jobs elsewhere but some don't. those teachers can go into a reserve pool and stay on the payroll indefinitely. when we combine the poor with a

rubber room it's costing more than $100 million a year of money that don't produce better education for our kids. we just can't keep wasting that money. and as arne can tell, chicago has a one-year limit for displaced teachers and we urge our state legislature to adopt the same. all of the reform secretary duncan and i have talked about today share something in common. the make sense. they are not space ideas or republican ideas. they are common sense ideas and the we to make progress in government is by combining common sense of political courage which the obama administration is doing. the race to the top is challenging the education establishment in a way that i think has never happened before. and new york city is ready, willing and able to help the charge. the year ahead will tell a lot about whether we are going to bring our schools and to the 21st century. whether our schools and our students are going to be left

clinging to the 21st century is more and more countries pass us by. the president and secretary duncan have set the bar high and if they keep the bar height we really can give our children more great teachers and great schools. they deserve it. parents demanded both here as well as to deliver it. thank you very much kati haycock, president of the education trust and she is well worth listening to. kati? [applause] >> thanks. you know, arne and mike have just outlined some very big and very bold, some might say earthshaking changes for education system. i doubt i need to remind most people in this room why the big changes are so important. yes over the past decade we have made some progress in this

country and raising achievement of american children especially elementary grades. and yes, the children furthest behind, low-income kids, kids of color, students with disabilities, english-language of learners have made more progress than other kids substantially narrowing the gap between the kids in other young americans. and yes, despite the contention that we don't know how to improve our lowest performing schools and an awful lot of those schools actually have gotten a lot better in recent years proving beyond the shadow of doubt as arne said so clearly were kids can achieve high levels when we teach them at high levels. but the truth of the matter is we have made gains only been measured by an old yardstick. of basic skills. when you ask the question differently, when you ask the question are our kids leaving high school with the knowledge and skills that the need to be

successful in college, and careers, the knowledge and skills they need to make our democracy work for far too many of our young people especially low-income youngsters and youngsters who are black or brown the answer is not even close. and that, my friends is the yardstick that truly matters to the american people. and it matters to the kids. to them the good news of the games we've made in fourth grade math and fourth grade reading feels small and irrelevant. what looms much larger for them is the bad news. the horrendously high dropout rates and high rates of college remediation and the depressingly low college graduation rates. that's the top we've got to race to and the yardstick where we are not even close. when you look at the most recent data on the 12th graders one and

three of the 12th graders don't even read at the basic level. they are still trapped in that very dangerous category called below basic. for african-americans and latinos, about half of our kids are still trapped at that below basic level. when we look over to mathematics, for in ten of our tenth graders are still not even doing that math at the basic level for african-americans and latinos it's about seven ayaan ten. the numbers and science are even more depressing. fewer than one and five, about 18% of our 12th graders are performing what we call the proficient level in science for latinos its 5%. for african-american 12th graders its 2% performing at the below -- or the professional level. we don't like the wolf creek levels, how about a ct levels for the most recent bridge

building plus? amongst our graduating white high school seniors about six out of ten performed at the college ready level in reading for latinos 35% for african-americans, 20%. the numbers in mathematics or even worse. about 50% of our white high school graduates performing at the college ready level in math. for latinos, 27%, for african-americans, 12%. why do we have to be bold this time? simply because of that. american people are watching this race to the top initiative. i think we all know that. some of them frankly are watching with the hope that we will fail. with the hope that they can say sure we gave them the money and they couldn't get it done. but far more americans are watching us with the hope that we will succeed. with the hope that we will

succeed in being boulder this time than we have before. what does that mean? it means being bolder in implementing big system reforms, but bolder also in something even more important, and that is looking established interest in the eye and saying no, not this time. this time we are not going to just to equity when it's convenient for the adults that work in the system. we are not going to do equity as an afterthought putative from the beginning this time we are going to both do serious system change but built in fairness from the very beginning. thank you very much. [applause] have a seat wherever it is most

comfortable. >> thank you for a terrific remarks about this very important time in american history for public education. we have got to get serious about getting this job done, making our country a leader in education again instead of -- and eliminating the kind of statistics that kati talked about, and all three of you set forth bold ways to do it. mr. mayor, let me ask what are you going to do with your state legislature now? have you had conversations about your proposals today with them and are you encouraged about support? >> i think it is easy to say they will never do anything and they are the problem. you can do the same thing about the unions. but number one michael blease thought where there's life there's hope and based on experience keep in mind our state legislature did give the mayor the control of the system and did we knew that so they are

not just saying no, and our unions did work with us. today we have performance pay based on schools which to me always made more sense than based on individual teachers simply because when kids go from one cluster to another it's hard to identify who is really providing the service said to me i always thought at the school of politics more sense. the teachers teach the equivalent of 25 days more year. they have gotten a lot of increase in pay but they also changed a lot of the work rules and i think it's fair to say the progress we have made that shul has made and dennis has made and our students and teachers and for what is made has been done with the unions. brandywine barbara, no matter what the press wants to make that big fights, she and i got together every few weeks for breakfast, she got together with julca a lot and together we made progress. and her successor replace what i think is the kind of guy we can work with as well. there's quite be rough patches, there's always going to be disagreements. that's what negotiations are all about. but i really am optimistic that

the state legislature will come together. the yelling and screaming, it will take some time. but in the end we've made progress with them and there is no reason to think we cannot go forward. >> terrific. kati, you travel around the country constantly, you and secretary duncan must be the biggest travelers for education and this country. where do you see the leadership of the state level, the kind of dramatic changes that we need that will be permanent that have widespread support in the state's? >> one of the things i have been fascinated about is the place is even we would have half of what kind of more in terms of education policy and education sort of progress the last few years there are folks lining up in the state capitals to make the kind of changes. right now that we thought would

probably take a decade. this race to the top of thing has had quite fascinating affect. i don't think that i have ever seen as much state policy activity on hard issues in a short period of time as i have seen the last six months. it's really interesting times. and i am not sure whether you are wanting me to name particular states. >> you can. >> but actually, you know, it's pretty broad right now. i'm pretty excited. >> terrific. secretary duncan, tell us a little about the schedule how you're going to go forward. when do you expect to announce these grants? and how do you expect the results of them to affect the reauthorization of the sea? >> the first grants will go out this spring.

folks are still waiting for us to give money to the 50 states. people don't believe, and i think there will be a real week op call but i promise everyone in this room this isn't to be a 50 state winner situation. this will be a very high bar, and to me i equate this to olympics. it's like the gold medal. we have a low largest to get into the competition, that's to make the olympic team but now it is about winning the competition. so there is a very high bar. we hope to work with a relatively small number of winners who can demonstrate to the country what's possible, and they shall in dredging capacity in all these issues. everyone who doesn't win the first round will get an individual letter back about what things they need to do to improve and there will be a second round that will follow in the fall. and so this is a process we want to continue to learn and grow and folks who don't get in the first time shouldn't be discouraged. we hope those numbers will increase as we go into the second round. there should be probably north of of billion dollars in that round as well. so again, huge amounts of money

for the two rounds of the funding. >> terrific. mayor bloomberg, so the states are responsible for putting together the biggest to the top application. have you and the chancellor started conversations with the state leaders? >> merrill tisch, the board of regents who lives two doors away from me and probably see her in the streets of a couple of days, joel and she covers all the time. one of our assembly women who has led the charge in the state assemblies for reforms certainly understands the need and i think has done a great amount of work in helping us to go forward. and we will submit all i hope, i think and i suspect agreed application. but i think the answer is we would love to win the competition and get the money but our objective is to improve the schools. that is what aharoni wants us to do. that is what he's trying to incite us to do and we have an

obligation to our students. so the citizens of new york to give our kids the kind of education tddj@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where disco you see progress being played on that? >> there is, as you know, nothing more important to closing long-standing gaps in achievement than getting strong teachers to the kids who most need them. yet on virtually every measure we have, poor kids and kids of color get less than their fair share of our strongest teachers. that has been probably the most difficult needle to move in the last decade. people would really, really

have a hard time sort of facing that issue honestly, looking at the data and figuring out sort of what to do. hard time facing that issue honestly looking at the data and figuring out sort of what to do. we are beginning i think to see some efforts to change that. one of the most interesting is hamilton county, tennessee we're using a real database identified some of their strongest teachers and provided them incentives to come in groups to their lowest performing schools, and they have also paid the teachers in those schools who are strong performers more as well and the results in the schools or op as a result, the fer county north carolina is another system that has taken this issue on and made some real progress. houston independent school district is to make some interesting work around the teacher distribution and performance as well, and i think some of these cities will help

lead the way as we figure out what is the right combination of strategies, how much of this is about real important, is about school leadership, because we know that having good leaders in schools is one of the strongest magnets we can have a first-round teachers. but how much of this is impeded by contract provisions that we need to change. having some of these cities and now finally states take this issue on and move out ahead will help us learn more about what works and what doesn't. >> terrific. secretary duncan katella about your plans of the reauthorization of the sea. are you going to announce a proposal? it is like a crowded agenda for next year in congress. what do you expect or are you not reading the tea leaves? >> i don't know if i can read the tea leaves. there's a small number of folks working on health care and we need to get past that and

through that plan actually convinced that education is maybe the best issue for bipartisan support, and as we move into the new year we want to be prepared to come back with a comprehensive plan of what reauthorization would look like. we have had great conversations with leaders on both sides of the aisle, and again we are not going to grant every issue but there is a lot of durham, 70, 80% where there is a great common agreement and so we would love to move forward we want to focus on graduation rates. it's got to be third pretest scores or important and you can't get a job on the third great test score so i'm focused on outcomes. i said a lot that was broken with no child left behind was the lowest type mix. los on goals and tight on how you get there. we're going to be tight on goals, old folks accountable for hitting a high bar but give them the flexibility to get there and then continue to build on the philosophies we talked about in

the race to the top. great teachers matter, are matters, transparency around data coming getting great teachers and principals to the community that had those historical. it's a hugely important a fundamentally turn it around failing schools. so the philosophy the strategies of going "race to the top" cliche where we go in nclb. why give the administration credit for is the achievement gap. that is something we didn't like to talk about, folks like kati championed it for a long time. those make folks uncomfortable because the picture is not pretty and an overwhelming majority of places in the country and continue a laser light focus on closing that achievement gap is something we are absolutely going to stay with. >> i would like to open the session to the audience. i would like to begin with the press. if there are any prez questions. yes, in the front row. and please, say who you are and use the microphone.

>> mr. secretary and mr. mayor, lacking in this discussion has been security. is that part of an education agenda? race to the top we have our kids and new york and as you know sadly racing home to a scape bullets. where does that -- >> with a second, that is it fair. we brought crime down to the lowest in recorded history. yes there were a few tragedies but given we have 1,001,000 schools that go to school every day they don't raise home. as a matter of fact by making schools safer and removing disruptive kids from the classrooms, and by raising standards i don't think any school system has ever raised standards the way we did when we ended social promotion. that's the fundamental basics of all of this. we are able to attract -- the last few years we had between 50 to 60,000 teachers from around the country apply to come to work in the new york city school system. and you can walk -- if you are a woman you can walk in any neighborhood in the city during the day without having to look over your shoulder. our kids don't have to worry in

going to schools. it is safe and people are moving into the city to send their kids to the new york city public school systems whereas before they used to move out to avoid them. >> all i meant to suggest was argue looking for national legislation on gun control -- sprick there's no question -- >> [inaudible] >> it's to a the students, to eight adults and copps. i couldn't agree more. it's one of the seminal things we have to focus on. and arne duncan -- he said to me one time as important is fixing the education he thinks it is getting guns off the street from his experience in chicago the scene is true with us we've got 500 mayors working together in a coalition to get guns off the streets unfortunately we cannot get washington the legislature in this capital city to do something about it and it is a national problem.

>> secretary duncan, was wondering if you could talk about the safra, the student financial responsibility act. the administration leaning on groups to lobby to have this legislation passed. isn't this a violation of the 2009 omnibus act? also voucher program why is it the at the restoration still doesn't support even though the "washington post" and "the washington times" which i am part of have not called on the administration to continue the program? >> i think your first point is wrong. we haven't lobbied anyone to do that. we have said we have $87 billion that is now subsidizing banks. we think much better use of taxpayer resources to invest in children. and we think that's the right thing to do. the house passed this with a

strong support. it's now going before the senate and that passes the chance to invest $87 billion in higher education and early childhood education is hugely important, and so we are hopeful that that will pass the senate. you're second question, what i said repeatedly is i just think at the end of the day we fought hard as you know to keep children in schools, in those schools and not to displease them. at the end of the day the goal is about fixing the system, and i think we have to be more ambitious. as a country like to save one or two children in the neighborhood and let the other 500 around and go home and sleep at night. we have to be more ambitious as the federal government, federal government, local district our goal is to save every single child. this turnaround effort we are talking about the is that and i can take you to the schools of chicago and in philadelphia. i can take you to schools in new york where the overwhelming majority of students are failing. and by turning the schools around the overwhelming majority of the students are succeeding.

not pulling one or two out to save them, the entire community. there's a school in philadelphia, a charter, where a few years ago was the second ma most violent school in the city of 20% of kids were at great level. two years later the same children, same building, families, seen in the eckert, same socio-economic alleges, 85% of those kids are passing. the fact like close to the achievement gap in the suburbs. not seeking to children, but the entire community to get that's what's possible. i don't think folks understand how serious we are about that yet. >> the man with the bow tie in the back. >> good morning. robert from the d.c. federation of civic association education committee. to ms. haycock, in the race to the top evaluation, what advice would you have to many district of columbia parents and community education advocates who feel they are intentionally walked out of the district education reform oppose vouchers

and whose accomplishments the mayor and chancellor are misrepresented in the media? >> what advice why have? >> yes come to the community education advocates and parents who are locked out of the reform. it isn't that they oppose reform, it's about the mayor and the chancellor do not include them in the reform efforts. >> well, i guess i have a slightly different perspective as a former parent of adc ps student i am strongly supportive of the reform of work going on here in d.c., and speaking as a parent, ausley appreciate, as i am sure many other d.c. parents do, how urgent the need for

change is. so i appreciate the sense of urgency the chancellor is bringing to this effort you to join her in the effort to make fast change. >> [inaudible] >> if she is not opening up to the community -- it's not that they are opposed to it but she is locking them out. she testified in congress she isn't including the parents and the community. [inaudible] the -- other than seen as opposing reform because it's hard to be part of free-form because she won't let them in. >> how about we talk afterwards about creating a then you to sit down together? this is not somebody that i perceive as being hostile to the parent interest. on the contrary she is interested in doing what most d.c. parents want to happen and

that is big change for their kids right away so why don't we talked afterwards? >> this is a question for mayor bloomberg. my question is you worked with the unions on the school bonus program. did you work with them on today's announcement on tenure? in other words to nuclear and part for secretary duncan i wonder do you have any comment on today's tender announcement? >> well, law is the law. as we read it it says we can for this year use the data in evaluating whether or not somebody deserves tenure. we used to do it. our lawyers before said to would have to start but now they say we can probably go ahead and if anybody would challenge us in court we would win. and we plan to do that. and i think in all fairness to the unions don't have any more

interest in keeping teachers who can't teach in the classroom any more than anybody else does. their approach might be take more time to immediate problem but we have no interest in throwing teachers out that we can't help. if we can help them become great teachers we are going to do that but i think the teachers union and all americans understand that our kids deserve equality in education and the education system should be room for the kids and not those that work in it. after all of your body that works in this room in the private sector every day goes to work and they have to perform or they are going to lose their jobs. >> [inaudible] >> i didn't consult with them but they certainly know my views which have expressed many times. we should use all means that we have to evaluate the better teachers are, promote them, pay

them more if we can come and at the same time, those who are not up to standards give them the remedial work that will make them into a great teachers and if after all of that they can't cut the mustard the line sorry they cannot work in our school system that our school system is there for the kids. in the elected department of education. it isn't fair for me. we have an obligation and we are going to fulfill that obligation >> one last question. >> my name is joseph williams and i'm with the "boston globe," and i would like anyone of the panel to talk about who is doing things right as far as closing the achievement gap. everybody knows this is a consistent problem districts are having trouble getting their arms around to raise the bar. boston is one of them. who's doing it right? who's doing successful work in closing the gap between african-americans, latinos, and white students?

>> well -- there are certainly some states that have made substantially more progress than others in recent years. interestingly, florida is one of those where when you look at both reading and math you see substantial progress for all groups of kids over the l which means basically the gaps are narrowing. the state of virginia has made substantial progress. the state of maryland has made substantial progress. again, these are states where you see all kids going up, but the rate stops for latino and african-american kids, which is exactly what we want to see. everybody gaining, but kids that are behind gaining faster. [inaudible] >> i think there are a combination of approaches, but one of them that is important is providing lots more guidance to teachers about what to teach. one of the big worries that

johnson and many other have is are teachers just teaching to the test? what we are finding is that when districts and states provide more help to teachers, more guidance about how to teach the standards, more christmas home run support, more lessons, units and assignments they can draw on, that helps teachers aim hirer in bringing kids who are behind up. is the expectations over time just get watered down. and so, the districts and states that are actually making more progress or confronting the issue directly by providing teachers help in raising their expectations but they are also dealing honestly with underperforming schools moving

new leaders and a stronger teachers into the schools and a combination of these things seem to work. >> in new york we have cut the debt essentially in half. we should be proud of that. what we shouldn't be proud of is we haven't raised overall standards, and that's what we are asking the state to do. merrill tisch, the head of regions, is in favor of that and we are going to work with her and give her as much support as we possibly can. we should keep raising the standards while addressing this issue, and the ways that you address the issue is to raise accountability. for too long i think in this country said while some kids can't learn. i don't accept that. we said some kids are not worth bothering with. i don't accept that. we are going to try to get every single one of our kids quality education and we are going to expect them and their families to be part of that. they have a responsibility as well. >> we have run over on our time this morning. thank you, gentlemen and kati

come for joining us today. [applause] -- for this very important >> coming up next on c-span, u.s. korver patroler of the si talks about banking regulations. then a discussion of the role of the media. and the house hold a hearing on injuries suffered by national football league players. and george mitchell announces a deal reached with israel on west bank settlements. >> eight weeks ago, army general stanley mcchrystal ol requested an additional 40,000 troops be sent to afghanistan. the white house says the president has made a decision

on afghanistan strategy and will announce it tuesday night. you will be able to watch it on our c-span network and cspan.org, with a simulcast on c-span radio. president obama's speech from west point begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. >> this thanksgiving holiday we've got four days of book tv on c-span 2. beginning thursday morning we will feature books on history, public policy and politics. you can see taylor branch on his newest book, "the clinton tapes" and hear from two of the little rock noun. and learn about government contractors. you will see norman from the recent miami book festival. watch book tv on c-span 2. to get the full schedule, go to book tv.org. happy thanksgiving.

>> now, comptroller of the currency, john dugan. he recently spoke at a meeting of the american bar association. it is 45 minutes. >> it is important to note that in addition to superadvising the national banks and agencies of foreign banks operating in the u.s. and serves as director of the fdic, he is also chairman of the joint forum on banking supervision and the international association of

insurance supervisors. as we know, international coordination are key issues. and due to john's leadership, there appears to be close to universal agreement on this point. i like to introduce a speaker with a few fun facts that the audience might not otherwise now. here are three. john a athletic. he is a an expert skier, consistently taking on double diamond runs. but my memory is you skied the back base of mountains. i made that one up. john is a lover of literature. he has participated in moot court arguments on whether shack spear actually authored all of his great works. le i'm not sure -- i'm not sure which side john took. john is also a gifted teacher.

he seems to have inherited this skill from his father who was is university professor. i have watched him hold men and women spellbound, walking them through complicated laws. i am sure he will hold us all equal spellbound. please welcome john dugan, the 29th controller of the american currin see. >> sorry i made that up. >> it is always dangerous to have a friend and former client introduce you. expert skier would be a little strong, and my wife would told you i have come down the mountain a couple of teams on a tobogan with a broken collarbone. i will spend a few minutes giving some informal remarks about where we see things at

the moment and then open it up for questions on anything you would like to ask me about and i will do my best to answer them. i don't think it is possible to give remarks now without talking about the crisis and where we are in the crisis. so what i would like to do today is talk to you about that and how it frames the debate on the issues going forward. i usually talk about this as a crisis with three phases, but today i've added a fourth, which i will get to in a minute. the first phase was pretty clearly the liquidity panic phase. if we were having this conference a year ago, a, i wouldn't be here. and b, it was a time that was heroing in terms of fear in the marketplace, runs not only on deposits but all kinds of financial instruments. all caused by credit and

relaxed standards. in the meantime, creating a huge asset bubble in housing, which, when it burst caused all the liquidity runs in all the markets, from commercial paper to money market funds and the interbanking funding. it cationed the massive government response that took many forms in the united states and abroad, whether it was opening up the discount windows in a way we had never done before. emergency lending from the federal reserve, the increase in for the insurance both by statute, but also on a temporary systemic basis for transaction accounts. the extraordinary u.s. government guarantee of balance sheets of banks in this country and around the world as they issued debt. and of course the tarp capital investments that were made. i think it is fair to say that there were mistakes made as we

went along this path of trying to respond to the crisis, but i think any fair reading of what happened would also get to the conclusion that it really did work to address this first terrible crisis of confidence that we had during this phase. and it did help restore reconfidence at a time when people were really doubtful about what was going to happen the next day in financial markets and in financial assets around the world. so thankfully, this first phase i believe it over. if i had some wood up here, i would knock on it. but i think it is pretty fair to say that we have moved back from the brink. the second phase is what i call the credit loss phase, and we are squarely in the middle of this phase. the financial craze as it unfolded rulled in real losses in the economy and the recession we are working through, and that has

translated to losses in the banking system in just about every class of credit that banks provide. we saw it first, of course, in anything that touched residential real estate, particularly on the consumer side, where losses ramped up in subprime credit, but spread to other types of mortgages, home equity, credit cards, you auto lending and other types of consumer credit. i would say now that we are well into that phase of the credit part of the cycle. and while the hard numbers that we continue to see show losses continuing to climb, there are signs. i think if you pulled some of the bankers in their room and their chief credit officers, they would tell you there are signs of the consumer credit piece, the losses beginning to slow down, delinquencies and signs of losses getting better. still way too early to predict we are really on the way out of it, and of course it is always on true on the consumer side,

much depends on the state of the economy and unemployment. on the commercial side, i would say we are more at the front end of what the problems are. we haven't seen the same kinds of losses in commercial and industrial lending. and on commercial real estate, it is kind of two stories. anything related to residential housing, particularly one to four-family development, we have already seen terrible losses at record levels. but if you get to other kinds of commercial real estate, income-producing, offices, warehouses and the like, there we are likely at the front end of what is going to happen. how much worse it will get is obviously the big question. but i think the conventional wisdom is that is getting worse as the consumers are getting better. whether theyoff set each other or whether commercial gets much better will depend on the strength of the economy. i do think that kind of loss from income-producing real estate sometimes take a long

time to play out. if the economy gets better, as we have been seeing with some kinds of life and growth in the third quarter, then time may help to mitigate the effects of what we see on the commercial tied. through all this, of course this is a more are practice additional -- traditional thing that banks of to deal with, credit losses, and banks are working their way through it. for the larger banks, i think it has been a story of raising a lot of capital. that is really what came out and became possible again as a result of the stress tests that were announced last april. and building loan loss reserves. those are the two things that we as supervisors have been focused on. banks raising capital, the quality of their capital and building loan loss reserves to sustain all of these losses and still fulfill their fundamental

mission of providing credit to the economy. in the smaller institutions, we have had a lot of bank failures. we went through a period -- i like to call it two years of peace time and two years of war time. we went through the longest period of the company the longest period without a bank failure. we went four years without a failure. and now there have been 145. and we have had 25 of those. and that trend will continue. we will continue to have that because, unfortunately, with a good chunk of our community bankers, they had concentrations in the very

asset classes that have suffered during the crisis, particularly residential real estate, and in places like georgia, florida, california, nevada, they have just -- it has been very difficult to weather that without having a significance number of banks fail. so that will continue. one aside i would like to mention about the stress test which i think has not gotten much attention is that i think if you look back on what the stress test did, it made certain assumptions that what -- in a stressful scenario, when you had very high assumed losses against different asset classes and lower than normally net revenues, would the banks have enough capital in reserves to absorb those loan losses? it was a two-year stress period for 2009 and 2010. if you think about it, we are

now three/eighths of the way through. we have gone through three quarters of that period. if you take the losses and amortize them, it is fair to say that the banks have raised the capital and reserves necessary to deal with those stressful losses in an adverse scenario. but what we have been actually seen are losses that have been considerably lower than what we would predict in the first three-eighths of the stress period. that is good. they have raised capital and loan loss reserves but haven't head had the kind kinds of losses that one would predict in a stressful environment. that doesn't mean it couldn't get worse and have worse losses in the second part of the period. but the good uses is we have front loaded through this system a bunch of capital and reserves which should stand this country in good stead as we go through the rest of the credit loss crisis. i would say the third phase is

what i will call the exit phase. there were a number of these massive, extraordinary government measures that i talked about earlier, from deposit insurance, capital investments and bank guarantees through the tlgp. the question is how do you get out of those without undoing the stability that you worked so hard and spent so much to achieve. that process has started. the fdic has announced its withdrawal of the temporary liquidity guarantee program of guaranteeing the only gations of banks. it is also phasing out the extraordinary guarantee on transaction accounts, which will phase out by unof -- june of next year. some but not all have paid back their tarp investments. the next phase is banks continuing down the path of trying to repay carp capital,

and i think the -- tarp capital. the really interesting question that i don't know the answer to is what happens to the g.s.e.'s and mortgage credit in the united states? so much of that is supported by the government, and how do we extract ourselves. i know the administration is coming out with proposals at the beginning of next year, but that is a hard problem, and i don't know how we are going to address that going forward. of course that leads me to the fourth phase of the crisis, which i will call the reform phase. we are obviously at the very beginning of that. these are all the measures that were taken by regulators, by legislation, by the accountants, to try to make changes so that we don't repeat the problems that caused the crisis that we are currently in. as i said, we are very much at the front end of that. on the regulatory side i would

say the real focus has been on capital. i talked about the need to raise capital, but there is very much an examination going about what we should do to change capital requirements. a real focus on the quality of capital, about having more of a fake us on common equities and some of the less pure forms of capital, hybrid instruments and the like, a tremendous focus on liquidity and adequate liquidity in the system. the thing that surprised regulators more than anything was the dependence on market funding for so many instruments. when that dried up, that created tremendous concern with how we fund that. i think internationally there is a tremendous amount of focus on capital requirements in the financial stability boards with

concerns about should there be a leverage ratio internationally? should we increase the amount of capital that is held in the ee enumerator of risk-based capital ratios? changes to the trading book, because the severe losses were in the trading books of the largest financial institutions and had very little capital assigned against it. i think one of the iron nissan about the debate about bosul 2 is focused on the credit risk side of the approaches, but where the loss was really on the trading book side. a person went to rule that had been in place a number of years. there is a real effort being made to change those rules to make them work better and work better with the credit rules. in terms of accounting changes, big concerns about all the risks that went off balance sheet with special investment

vehicles and other things. that is what led directly, i believe, to the accounting rules changing to bring so much back on the balance sheet. of course that has regulatory capital implications as well. we are in the process. we have a rule out for comment about how those capital rules will change and what the timing of it is. i am sure we will be making that rule final in the not too distant future. accountants are looking hard at the loan loss provision in question. one of the things i have spent a lot of time as a banking supervisor being concerned about is that we did not have adequate levels of loan loss reserves going into this crisis. as a result, we have had to insist that banks increase their loan loss reserves just as they have been having a lot of their very large problems. it has created a sort of pro-cyclical type of impact, which we don't like to do, but had to do. i think had we had a system

with higher reserves in the good times, we wouldn't have had to insist on putting so much additional amounts in, in the bad times. this is an ongoing debate between the accountants and the regulators. it has been going on for users and has involved many skirmishes. i think there is a growing consensus that the curent system that is based on a system to make loan loss reserves only when a loss is incurred is not good enough. and particularly for prolonged period of benign credit, it gets harder and harvarder to keep your reserve higher because it is looked back on the losses you have had in the recent past. so there are proposals coming out specially and in the united states to try to expand the authority of institutions to look forward and have a more forward-looking approach to loan loss reserves that we hope

will lead to more of an expected loss kind of model and higher loan loss reserves in good times. that would be a very good thing. there is the market to market fair value accounting technique. i worry that we took a bit of a step backward with the proposal to expand the fair value accounting notwithstanding all the liquidity problems we have had in the crisis. there has been a lot of discussion about it and controversy about it. we will see what finally comes out, but i hope we don't expand in that direction given our experiences. and then lastly of course there are the legislative reforms very much underway in the house and senate, a little further along in the house than the senate. i'm sure you have heard a great deal of all the key issues on systemic risk, and agency consultation, and over the counter derivatives, and of

course the cfpa, the consumer financial protection agency and preemption. we are concerned with each of those titles. there are too many to address in each one. but i will spend a little bit of time on preemmingts. it has been a fundamental characteristic of the national bank charter. there are things about the cfpa that i think are a good thing. one of the fundamental problems we had in the crisis was that we did not have a set of level playing rules for banks and non-banks that delivered consumer products. and the uses of having a single agency establish rules across the board that applied to banks and non-banks and have a mechanism to enforce those rules or make them be complied

with, with the non-banks to bring them up to the level of banks is a good thought. you could make that thought, by the way, not just with consumer protection rules, but basic underwriting rules as well. the notion of having a uniform set of rules so that one group is not penalized for doing the right thing because they have to compete with others who are doing the wrong thing. a very powerful, good idea. what i don't understand is having created that and embrace thad very powerful idea of having a uniform set of rules, that they go on to repeal preemption as it applies to the national banks and therefore invite the 50 states to adopt different rules to apply on top of this uniform standards, and then it isn't a single uniform standard any more. i think it will fundamentally cause problems in an

electronic, tell phonic, internet age to result in the kinds of products and services that don't know the meaning of state boundaries. i think it will cause cob are strains there, increase costs for banks and consumers, definitely increase the potential for litigation costs. and i don't think you need it, in light of the fact that what you are trying to address here is a strong set of rules. i just think that is the wrong approach. i do think there was some recognition of this in the health financial services committee in their mark up where they recognized there is a place for reemmings and uniform standards to remain with the national bank charter. we have significant concerns about the lapping as drafted and think -- language as drafted and think it needs to be fixed. and of course a similar debate is unfolding on the senate side, and we will be very much

involved as well. with that, i will stop. thank you for listening to me, and i would be happy to take questions. yes? >> i wanted to ask you about the preemption issue, and i think i am in your corner. >> what state bank are you with? [laughter] >> i used to work for your boss. but it seems to me that if you have -- by the way, you have sort of taken a split the baby position on the fta. you are for it, but you want the enforcement? >> i didn't get into it, but we are absolutely of the view of a rule-writer -- >> the notice is they are going to be there, and setting the

bar high. >> and not just the rule writer, but also would focus on the non-regular layed nonbanks. >> right, across the bank. >> but would have enforcement capabilities there to goat that compliance up to the other level, a very important point. >> my question is this. to what extent are states going to feel the need to go above that high bar if you have a strong fed -- federal regulator setting those standards? some will say you know what? we don't think it is going to be a big issue. there may be four states historically like california and -- >> just california? [laughter] >> so national banks are going to be like the car

manufacturers. california has higher auto emission standards. and what did the auto manufacturers do? they don't make different cars for california. they just all went up to the california level. you're not going to have this patchwork of state laws. >> john, what i would say to that -- think about it for a second though. that proves my point. number one, to those who say states won't really act, my answer is why do you need it? why not keep the federal standard? if there is no worry about people adding those things, why not prohibit? the second point i would make is one state, one significant state, and this is a real world kind of thing, if they go higher, it may well set the new floor that comes nationally. i thought the whole purpose of the cfpa was to have this robust federal debate in a mark

for national services based on the expertise of the new federal agency drawing on the latest kinds of things and economic analysis and the like. they would do that and said a standard, but that wouldn't be the standard that would apply. the new national standard would be whatever other standard a state set in a significance market and people would build to that place. that undercuts the notion of a row butt national standard. again, i would say if you are going to have robust national standards, let's keep them national. we love in a national market. i meet internationally with banks and security advisors, particularly ones from you europe. they are incredulous that we would give up the notion of having uniform standards, something they have worked very hard to try to get -- to address the concerns with in the urine world.

i nofede you are -- ernie -- european. thank you.

orleans with a panel of republican and democratic strategist. it is about one hour. -- coming to new orleans. we appreciate that very much. we need to have the spotlight on the ongoing recovery efforts. so, thank you. from all of us, thank you to all of our friends that not only came but came to play, suited up, great job all around. [inaudible] as joe trippy did it,

understanding not just these issues but that coastal restoration and the sooner refocus on that -- it is a bipartisan issue that we discussed at lunch. i hope we can make this an annual event. if there is one thing, we are happy partisans. we have been warned for a long time with some stability in our private sessions. one thing partisans can agree upon is that really the bad guy in all of this is the media. @ @ @ rn rr@ @ tb@ @ tt@ @ tt@

we care about your relationship with the "the washington post" a postnnreporter. there has always been that tension, this love-paid, because we need the media to do what we need to do -- there has been this love-hate relationship. most recently, the cheney fight with "the new york times" was i wanted to put somebody on the plane in air force two, and i said if we don't, we will get a bad start. he said, we will get a war story if i throw them out at 35,000 feet. -- will get a worse story.

[inaudible] within three questions, and hilary rosen pointed this out. i am sorry. it is the media. how soon we got to issues dealing with the media and the present to which we receive our political information -./ were steady not just how we deal with them but how they are regurgitating the information that we need to get out. everybody here has dealt with them. it is what they do in addition to what they are supposed to be doing, organizing a turnout. everybody has to be engaged in getting the message out and campaign, for a candidate or four issues. it is critical we understand if it is bifurcated or in different

levels, how do we deal with it? when our founders were putting this country together, they were concerned about two things -- [inaudible] that would be necessary for a free democracy. the first was virtuous leaders. the second was a free press. to have a free press -- for a democracy, you need informed citizens who could only be informed to a free press. the notion of a bipartisan press is a new phenomenon. where we get confused it is where we don't know. there are lots of issues relative to the media and politics -- i will turn it over to jeff who does work for the premiere leader, or has been the leader -- there has been competition with "the new york times", but it has been a leader in driving

where the nets go, where everybody follows. i do not share of my conservative friends say. you can compete with them but you cannot make them go away. it is not a good or bad thing. he is working for the best. he is the best. we keep saying what a great panel this is, but they absolutely are and they have done it on the front lines for lots of years and lots of issues in front of us relative to how we go forward, keeping our citizenry as informed as they need to be to fulfill our founder's mission of the free state. jeff, it is yours. >> mary, thank you very much. given the financial pressures of the news business, we hope we will not go away. some days we wonder.

most of you have seen our panelists at a different time. beginning on our left, pat devine. she now has eight new website -- it is called zowatics. also, one of the leading democratic strategists of our time. she worked on the clinton credit -- presidential campaign in 2008. he has worked on both sides of the media, on the broadcast cited abc and cnn as well as standing behind the podium at the white house. he just got back from a chart with president clinton to europe. mark mckenna, and he has worked for george w. bush, john mccain and in richards. he is the -- the only person who has done that -- and work for anne richards. steve schmidt has worked from

coast to coast and for john mccain. and david winston, a longtime republican consultant who has worked in house and senate races and advised the house and senate leadership. he has been involved in a rare fact -- he worked with house republicans in 2002 to get their approval ratings over 50%, which almost never happens in congress. they could use you now, both sides could use you now. i think it is the perfect time to be holding this discussion because we still have last year's presidential campaign fresh in our minds and we can see the next one right around the corner. let's talk about those. what is the most significant change that you have seen it in the last three presidential campaigns, beginning with 2000 through 20008 in terms of media? how you deal with the media, how

the media has changed, and what lessons can be drawn from the most recent campaign for the next one? >> i think it is technology. in 2004, there was no youtube. this time, youtube was a tremendous for to get information out. -- forum to get information out. things are moving so fast. i remember in my first presidential campaign, we had a facts machine. and you could send the documents -- a fax machine. now we are in an instantaneous age, where everybody with a cell phone can walk into a fund raiser and san francisco and take a presidential candidate. suddenly, two weeks of the campaign is whether or not people are better or not. that is why they turned to god and guns.

technology is making things happen so fast and you have to try to keep up with it. >> how do you deal with that type of technology? >> a lot of the time is fine. the media, up from the advertising. point of view, you're able to share video images without paying for. -- paying for it. from the other point of view, you have this power for asias pn in new sources so that it is completely different getting information out that it was 10 years ago. the other problem is the diversity of all these different websites, news organizations. it is harder to get critical mass to tell any one story. i am talking about in a presidential campaign, because those of us who work in

congressional races, it is the opposite problem. instead of too much information and trying to amass a critical amount of information for one story line, often in a senate race or governor's race, especially with the death of so many newspapers, we are fighting to get stories covered, even with websites out there. >> how have things changed since when you were in the white house press room, for good or bad? >> i think even as recently as 10 years ago that communication experts were people who were trying to manipulate and work the filter. there was a filter between the public and the president or an aspiring politician. and that was things like "the new york times", the television networks and radio. the filter has become so diffuse that it is almost gone. i remember feeling this as i was leaving the white house. communications people are now

what network television programmers used to be. you look at the 24 hour day and your program for the morning, afternoon, evening, each with slightly different messages. use every channel available. you are no longer trying to convince 15 people of your case so that they will tell everyone. you are telling everyone directly. it is more interesting. but it is very different from even eight years ago how communications people handle the politics.

somewhere so it was legitimate. by the end, spots were not going on here but we were driving the coverage. this is a question for you guys. as we are doing is, where do you draw the line and what is legitimate to cover? >> i think the first question that those new but -- news organizations ask is is there any money behind this advertisement? there is a 24-hour cycle, so it will pop up there. is that a waste of time? at the other side, at the same time, the other side is doing

it. your communication shop has to respond. who wins in that? it -- or is it neutral? >> i think it is a fight to control the dialogue on cable television. in a country of 300 million people, when you combine all of the audiences on these cable channels, it is maybe 7 million people. so there is a fight that takes place and the campaigns tactically are putting advertisements out there that are going to get attention of the media, that they are going to get the attention of the other campaign. the campaign response. campaigns have to fill that cable news vacuum. i think it is very -- i agree with what joe said. you are a television programmer. you need to put on a show on a daily basis.

you need to communicate through all of the social media today and all of those other aspects of how to communicate outside of the filter which is gone. it does not exist anymore. the cell phone camera and a blog has the ability to impacted presidential race. -- in exactly the same way that the front page "the new york times" story would impact arise. >> how did you deal with that in the mccain campaign? did you have people that were assigned it to doing these fake advertisements or monitoring the social networking site and other people dealing with the mainstream media or is it all one now and without a sense of what is more important? >> i think you have to view it holistic lee. -- wholistically.

it is embedded in the @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discord surrounding it. it is really this national

exchange. even though you may be looking at somebody from california or florida. they are hearing the same thing. going back to the 2004 race, bush was out in utah and did some statements. yes, but it was on cable. you do not do something just in utah and assume it will stay there. it goes everywhere. the second thing that has been a surprise to a lot of folks has been met and main idea of when the story hits, it really permeates. when you take a look at supreme court nominees, all week into their nomination process, their name recognition is in the mid- 80's. and the third thing is that paid me get used to be your delivery system and used to be where you emphasize the message. i think you have now seen at moved to earn media.

you're director of communications is a critical personal. >> how has the process of placing a story or shaping a story changed in all this? where does the story began it, if you have it -- the beginning on a blog now? do you begin it in print? does it matter? how does that change the front end of this? >> i think it used to be a direct process. you pick up a phone and you call somebody. exchange information and decide where you wanted to go. -- wanted to go. there are a lot of different places to go now. there are these blogs -- the druge redge report.

the big difference is that if you get a story you want to deliver, you have to have the goods and deliver the goods as well. the goods would mean the film of someone saying or doing something, the tape recording or some other technological advantage that you have. if you get that, it adds credibility and makes it something more interesting, not just for the tv but for the print press as well. >> if you don't have the goods, is it easier now to get the idea of a story out there than it used to be? >> let somebody else put that together you mentioned -- you mentioned drudge. that is the biggest platform. it was a fascinating development when i began to see "the new york times" leaking their stories on drudge. everybody gets the >> live, local, and late-breaking,. -- everybody gets the drill now. how deep --

>> how do you leak a story to drudge? >> i don't know. >> i would walk out of meetings and see it 30 seconds later. was there someone in your shop who handled that kind of thing? >> absolutely. >> how do you do it? >> i am not allowed to tell. absolutely. i think today, whether it is drudge, another critically important part of this is the segregators. in the 2004 campaign, the most important agar gaidar was mark halpern -- aggragator was mark halpern.

now it is a political.com. and it begins to shape today's story. it has an impact on cable producers, and impact on what people are going to talk about that day. you are in the business of placing information out there and places that people are going to see it, where it will get the most amount of attention, where you will get your opponent's attention. and shape the field you are playing on. >> drudge is the most mysterious, weird guy ever. >> he wears a hat. >> that is why i wear a hat. i think obama or somebody on, maybe the greatest premium is -- on any campaign is someone who has a line into drudge. >> it is not just one or two

people. there is a point in time where matt drudge because he was new held a premium position. he told an important position, but now you have to have the story and multiple ways to tell the story. there was a time in which i think our republican colleagues had cornered the market on talk with you. that was very influential and as a way of bypassing the washington establishment and bringing the story from the ground up. now there are many, multiple ways birkhe. by the time a group like us figures it out, we are on to something else. social media has the potential to dwarf the kinds of things we know how to do, if it is that 30-second spot. the main thing now is you have to feed your narrative in so many different ways, and there

is no one stop. getting something placed prominently on drudge does not get to all the way there. it is just one piece. >> it also depends upon what you are placing. we are assuming that what we are talking about placing is nasty stuff and opposition stuff. and some of the sites we have talked about are a perfect place to do such things. but there are other -- it may be "the new york times" occasionally. it is a positive story you want to place. mary and i go back to the 1992 campaign, when we put president clinton, then governor clinton on all kinds of tv shows like "larry king." people thought it was crazy. now choosing to announce something on "jay leno," amay

be another platform. the whole point is there is not just one place you do anything. we have many platforms to deal with. some minutes is a blog, the next it is "the new york times", and you have to have a good idea of which one. you need to do a lot to get maximum impact. i do not think it is a coincidence that when the president wanted to get control of the health care issue, he flooded as much media as possible, because it is hard to change a narrative because of all of the different sources of information people have. if you want to change in narrative, you cannot just go to one place. >> and that is an important development. the narrative's they got established in 1980's and 1990's, you were hoping someone would catch it on an

advertisement. then there is, once they emerge and are -- are clear and sustainable. i will go back to the 2006 election -- i will go to one that is going on right now. one of the difficult concepts is [unintelligible] it is being driven through the media. once you have a narrative established, you are fighting over something and engage in something that i think is a lot easier to engage in then in the 1980's when you needed significant sums of money to go in one direction or the other. >> back to "the view." how did you make your decisions in the democratic presidential primary campaign with senator clinton who had an array of shows to go on. he would show up on "island to geellen degeners."

how do the gender roles played in to what shows to place them on? were you ever hesitant to put senator clinton on a softer show? if you were advising a male candidate, would you be concerned about putting him on a hard or soft show? what is your advice? >> it depends at that moment what kind of platform you are looking for. when we did all of this stuff with bill clinton it is because people knew nothing of his biography and we could not afford advertising and if he went on a meet the press, they would not ask you about your childhood in arkansas. we were looking for softer forms. for secretary clinton, almost every show was a good format for her. we were not scared of the softer ones. the only thing i was worried about where things where i thought good humor -- the tumor

might be a little edgy. -- the humor would be edgy. >> what is an example? >> she want she -- she wound up doing the daily show. "colbert" was the one that i was most worried about. but it wound up working really well. she is pretty straight ahead, and her sense of humor -- he had an edgy sense of humor. >> how you talk about candidate into appearing on "snl" and other things? >> the first thing you don't do is do it by satellite. doing anything by satellite is difficult. doing humor is impossible. it is difficult, because it is dangerous territory. there are not clear rules and elected officials like clear rules. it takes a particular kind of -- mccain was pretty good that

because it was spontaneous. but for george bush, that was not a natural environment. >> the feedback you get when you do those shows, you realize instantly you are tapping into a different audience. for hillary clinton, partially through her daughter and france, when she would do "saturday night live," she had fun. she knew she was reaching new people. >> that shows that are not "meet the press," and sunday shows have a much greater chance of changing the narrative then the establishment shows. one of the times that that narrative changed in the primaries was off of 8"saturday night live," skit about how the press was fawning over president obama.

that change the dialogue or the narrative for weeks. most people who have been doing this for awhile are trained a certain way, which is "the new york times" and "meet the press." if you do find their, you will win. they are important, but so is "the daily show." >> speaking more tha -- speaking of "snl". when did you first realize that this tina fey thing was as big as it was? >> sarah palin wanted to do it, so she did it. >> she went rogue. >> did you want her to do it? >> i think a tina fey thing-- most people i have worked with

in politics and people i have met in both parties have a pretty good sense of humor. i enjoy watching "the daily show and "colbert" and i think this stuff is hilarious. when you seek tina fey. i was "30 rock." and then you see that for the first time and you say, oh, god. you know it is going to impact. in the same way, i saw "saturday night live," impacted the 2004 election with senator john kerry. it impacts in a profound way that makes a narrative. i think a lot of people who do what we do, we rank the shows in importance. "meet the press" is more important than a late-night

comedy show. that is not how people in their living rooms process the shows. @@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ b n r@ @n of going on? >> huh? >> i think that is a yes, for the record.

>> that is a classic example of reinforcing the point that i was going to make which is that more than any other format, the late- night comedy format really drives to the simplest narrative. you talk to the riders on the show's -- the writers -- that was why obama was kind of confounding. they can never get that simple, what is the most fundamental common denominator that what people will get? and they can set it. once it is said, it is hard to undo it. >> when i hear about -- think about all hold tina fey thing. sarah palin did an interview with katie couric. a lot of people saw. 15 million people saw tina fey.

-- being sarah palin. i think that is where it is going right now. we have to understand there's so much opportunity to communicate now than the way we use to, which was through traditional media. if we find ways to get people interested, we can have profound consequences. >> we use to make decisions about some of the shows are based on the size of the audience. you would say it only has 2 million people. i don't know if we should take a candidate's time. but with youtube and at thousand -- and cable shows repeating the clips from it, something that was originally viewed by two or 3 million people gets viewed by 15 million people and it is a different calculation when you are making the decision of do i take three or 10 hours of the canada's time and bought them on that show -- of the can of its's time and book them on that show. -- of the candidate's time.

>> you are trying to drive as much raw content to them as possible. it is a scary world out there. you are throwing all lot of stuff out. you do not know what will stick. when you are doing to a 30- second advertisement, you know precisely what you are doing. you know how they will react. >> it is challenging to the kids. we are asking so much more of them now. they have to beat circus performers now -- the candidates. >> we know what shows are hot right now. one of them is glenn beck. how should republicans deal with these kinds of shows? we have seen several examples where they have apologized for being on the other side. is it absolutely deadly for a republican to be on the other side of glenn beck? >> you are getting to econoa

dynamic, in terms of both sides, it is driving an unfortunate discourse. it is forcing people to have the discourse of contradiction. we get invited onto a show and then you ask, what is your position? if it is not contradictory, then you get a callback. we found someone else. in terms of this, what you are seeing is a push toward contradiction as opposed to political argument. political argument is we argue a position and get a chance to establish a different set up a points to set a different proposition. contradiction, given this new technology, is where we are headed. that is your responsibility and how to you stop campaigns from simply contradicting each other and get them into a political discourse that matters to the

electorate? >> joe and i had "hot soup," which was this exercise in the political landscape, a bipartisan dialogue. it is all about conflict. the press is interested in driving conflict. i did a show as a representative of this gang, an unnamed cable show, and we were getting along with whatever the county park was, amby-- counterpart was, mae it was joe, and then we went to the break-in and the host said, can you cut the bipartisan crap? >> that is steve. >> that is to another interesting dynamic.

the pressure is on political campaigns and political candidates. their content has to get better. you cannot contradict. to establish a narrative, it has to be done to some sort of content. that puts more pressure on the campaigns to come up with something, an idea that will stick. as opposed to, that is a nice response but it does not have credibility with the audience. >> when you saw that the west wing of the white house decided to enact their fox strategy, what did you think about that in a moment? smart decision? what are they doing? and how has it worked out? >> i don't necessarily understand the thinking behind it, except for sometimes you get mad. when you get mad, you strike out. one of the things you learn early on and the white house is when you say something from inside the grounds of 1600 pennsylvania avenue, it carries a lot of weight.

you are speaking for the president. i personally -- personally believe it is the last thing you want to do. you are just legitimizing the upon it. the white house does not mean fox -- not need fox. they need to work harder on the reporters who are following fox. you do not ignore them in the sense that what they do does not matter, because it does contribute. but taking them on frontally is like going into battle ill- equiped. it is going into a battlefield where all the -- the other side has all the advantages. it has only helped fox legitimize what they are doing. it is not done severe damage, but it was a fight not worth having in that way. in a public way. >> de you agree with -- ? >> you need to deal with almost

all media outlets. i think they will get back to the business of dealing with fox. that does not mean putting the president on the glenn beck show. they are a partisan news organization but they are still a news organization. >> i would agree with that. you have to pick your vendors. it is illustrative of what is happening with the media. when i first started doing this, it was more of our reporting media. events what happened, it would get reported. it is out there. then it became more of interpreting media. i think what we are having now, and maybe fox is an example, a rush limbaugh and others, the media is becoming an impact of media. -- impactful media. whether it is to raise money for a conservative candidate in new york and have him user to

republican as a result. i think the impact media is becoming a big force. i suppose the white house is seen at and is trying to fight the impact media by basically shutting them down. >> one of the hardest things to deal with in campaigns is the opposite of partisan media which is of falsely equal media. were you have a story you want written about your opponent and the reporter as saying, but there must be some story on the other side. you are looking at me like i have done that to you. sometimes there is a reason to write about both candidates financial disclosures or both candidates education policy. sometimes there is just a story to write about the opponent. the faults equivalency comes from the belief that the media is completely impartial. it is easier to deal with a fox. we know what they are. they know who they are.

use them or you don't. >> on the republican side, is there too much whining from this white house or sanctimony? there are not the -- it is not as if there are not any other channels on the other side of the spectrum. >> i think people find a speech this argument that there is only one network out there. everybody recognizes that. -- it is sort of a specious argumen.t t./ the obama administration has very able communicators. it is surprising that your axelrod on fox. if they are not on their, you get caricatured. [unintelligible] that is why i love seeingkarl on television because se it --eing kar seeing karl on television.

you can disarm your critics by getting out there. >> i think part of the problem that the administration has is that perception of most people is that he has received the most fun the media coverage in the history of western civilization -- the most fawning media. when they go out and complain about an outlet, it is very diminishing. i think it is a big mistake. i think they will get off that sooner rather than later prec. the tv networks are in the business of making money. the way they make money is by selling advertisements. and the way those rates are determines are by audience share. we lived in a world with 350 channels. the audience for politics -- that four, five, 6 million people -- if what they want to

see is conflict, that is what they are going to get veryso th/ they are in business to make money. the way you make money with that audience share is to have conflict. >> news use to be a money- loser, a public service. it evolves into conflict sold. now we have gone past that. we have specialized stations. there is not a lot of conflict on fox. just like there is not a lot of conflict on msnbc. they have made up their mind. the people who tune in our people who already believe that into an inn in to have their reinforced. -- and two-minute to have their reinforced. -- ammdnd tune int to have that reinforced. the problem is how do the other

news organizations respond? take fox. fox starts pushing t. parties and all the other media covers it is that there was not another media organization behind it. they have reached 3 million or 4 million people a day. it is not hard to start a movement with that platform. then you have others -- this is now happening -- you have to make a decision. is this news? inevitably, people cover what people are talking about as opposed to really pulling back and reporting on how did this get started? >> speaking about what people are talking about, we should open it up to questions from the audience. let's call this the lightning round. >> i just want to connect to the conversation with the previous panel. we have been talking about the tremendous amount of information

available to people now. the first panel, the feeling was that the most volatile components of the electric tend to be down-scale, men in particular who are alienated from both parties and are pretty hard to reach with information. i remember one of your colleagues saying to me that the great frustration of being a consultant is the people with the most influence are those with the least access or desire for information. is there a disparity between trying to reach those voters as being the most volatile right now and in general? >> who wants to take it? >> i will take it. first of all, for somebody who has made it television advertisements for a living, that is why we love those people. we have to saturate the airwaves in order to get through to them.

second, we have to make sure we achieve message discipline so those people heroes. those people heroes. @@@@@@@@# @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

information. most of those people are not undecided. you still have what you are talking about -- the pass of undecided or independent voter. not all undecideds are independent voters. that is the difficulty of trying to reach those voters. in the middle of all this active information gathering, television is one way. you go to them. you don't ask them to come to you. >> the candidate or the president's schedule -- during a clinton ministration, we call them swing two voters. the number one publication that they read is "people magazine." it was in the white house once a week. the president was in it six or seven times a year. it was not a policy. you look at this presidency, if you go back and count, he has set down as many times with an

espn anger as he has with a network anchor. reaching people that they cannot get through the more traditional political tomes. >> the elites have information they can get to, but we have more refined ways of getting to those voters. we know where they live and what they read and what they drive. we are targeting marker data now. we can isolate those people and talk to them -- target microdata. >> when you overlay the voter file against consumer information, you begin it down to a level that the most democratic vehicle on the road is a subaru and the most republican is safegmc yukon. . -- a gmc yukon. with technology, there were

almost be an individual profile of voters that allow for customized information to them from their neighbors and friends in the media, on the internet advertisements. we are migrating in that direction. the other thing i will tell you -- for people who worked for president clinton. president clinton announced for president in october of 1991. so these campaigns to date never stop. outside of the audience is watching the political shows, most normal people in this country are taking their kids to the ball game or to ice-cream or they're working or they are doing whatever. they are not tuned into partisan fighting 3.5 years before the next presidential election. how do you communicate to people? it is a function of timing.

a lot of people in this country do not pay attention to this stuff until it becomes time to make a decision. and that is traditionally what used to be that election space. for all of us, it never stops. the next presidential campaign begins the day after the last one. >> final word? >> i think they are consuming a huge amount of information that is going under the radar and a lot of political people don't see that. when unemployment is at 10%, trust me, there is a lot of interest. i am concerned about it. i may lose my job. i am having difficulty with health care. the reason belittled -- political people are not seeing that is because the message does not have to do it -- there is a disconnect. my issue does not register a very high. what that means is that the quality of the content being driven by the political operation has nothing to do

with individual lives. independent consumers consume a huge amount of information. this is an example of political thought that wants to categorize independents. i see them consuming a huge amount of information per >> i do not think it is a monolithic thing. >> i am a student here. my question comes from opening statements. the statement was to the effect of an educated public is important for our democracy. a lot of this discussion at what i have noticed as it has centered around creating a narrative and talking about who you are talking to and how you say it. maybe this -- maybe this is my

utopian view of how the vote -- i wish the future would be, i would like to see the media that educates the public and talks about the issues and focuses on the content, not necessarily the people involved, but what is affecting our country on a greater level. what is the media's role in that? how can it serve to educate the public as opposed to presenting an argument they want to reinforce what they already believe or create an unnecessary contradiction it? what is the media's role in that? >> that is a great topic pre. one from each side. >> that is a great question. journalism and a free enterprise system response to the market and the more demand there is for your kind of thinking, the more the market will respond. i think it is starting to respond. journalism is going to a

revolution and they are trying to figure out where they will land. this last week, something started in "the texas to be an," which is a non-profit, online politco-like site that is very substantive. we will increasingly see the media responding to your desires. if there is demand, the market will respond. >> if you are depending on the media to solve this for you, you will be disappointed. we have evolved to a place where people need to have the ability to educate themselves. the media will do -- even saying the word does not mean anything anymore. what does that mean? you cannot compare what jeff as to what a eighthblogger does -- - a blogger does. they both produce content.

what has happened through this evolution is the responsibility has moved to the voter, and i think the good news is that the tools are now available to the voter to go and be an educated consumer. that was not true 20 years ago. he did not have the ability to do that. i look at my daughter doing research for school. i think what it had not been easier if i had goal in high- school or college -- if i had google? if you are depending on nbc, "the new york times", or "time magazine," to solve this, you will be disappointed. >> there is information on all of those websites and the campaign websites. >> how about a question from that side? >> thank you. as you said, campaigns last

basically forever. i am an iowan. i think i am involved in the campaign just as much as most of you are. why do campaigns last so long now? the clinton campaign is over a year, but this last clinton campaign was multiple years. >> it is because of a iowa, which we love. is there ever a point where this reaches its shipping point -- a tipping point? >> it is money. if you look at the obama campaign, it raised seven under $50 million. -- $750 million. these are substantial companies. one of the problems we had in the main king campaign is because he came back from being -- in the mccain campaign, because he came back from being

in last place, the day he became the nominee, the were 38 people and the headquarters. it was an infrastructure that was something that we wrestled with for the rest of the campaign. you do not have time to scale it up. if you have to put together a campaign, and this next campaign will be the -- the first billion dollar presidential campaign, on both sides, if you are going to put together a billion dollar campaign, you cannot do it starting in october of 1991, like president clinton. no one will ever take public money again in a campaign. it takes years to put that structure together and to execute the business plan. that is the reason for it. >> the democratic response? >> i agree with that.

i think it is the demand for money. i work a lot of the country. in our land we have a parliamentary system. we call an election. -- in ireland. >> we will take one final question. monica, we will bring you a microphone. >> you say you get your information out more and more by blogs. journalists are bound by the ethics of their five resources. i would like to talk about that. -- verifiable resources. blogs are not verifiable. >> i think we are in the middle of the revolution, and there's no real governance at this

point. it got to the point where there were stories that had datelines that were traveling around the web that were wholly fabricated about somebody being investigated. and then the mainstream media go chasing their tail. then we realized it was fabricated. over time, there will be an out that information that people will start to migrate towards either conventional or sources of media that they know have governance, editors, fact checkers. i think over time, and it may be mainstream media orblogger blogs who killed the credibility -- i think there will be a migration towards quality. >> it is a real problem.

there were ridiculous stories about president of a lobama thak hold on the internet and forever were. we dealt with that in hillary's campaign. you have to have a cold team spending time at swatting these towns, -- a whole team spending time swatting knees down. -- swatting these down. we talked about al franken's campaign. we had a situation where there was a story written about blog from "harper's." . .

>> the next time you have some newspaper editors here, it is a very relevant question for them. the hard part is not when something gets put out, but when you decide what to do with the of permission. i may know it is true but not the right way, the way that we gather news. and for a long way -- time, there's been a standard of coming from blog but people are talking about two members of congress jump up and down on the house floor, and that is normally work. -- and that does not normally work. you can get anything into the dialogue.

it is a good question for editors. jeff, maybe you have some sense of that. it seems to me that as the code comes from the established media deals with the new media. >> one real-life example of how this works. in 2004, one of the debates, a story circulating in the blogs that president boris had a transmitter under his coat -- that president bush at present -- transmitter under his coat. the campaign was secretly transmitting responses. >> you mean that was not true? >> if it was, we really screwed up. [laughter] >> it was one of those debates. [unintelligible]

dollars and by 2008, technology had tromped those concerns. it was not an issue. >> it was absurd on its face. but i had a response, so i said no. that was not sufficient and the story went on for days and days, until i got a call from my good friend, one of your colleagues at the "new york times." he calls so embarrassed that he had to call. mark, i hate to ask you this. my editors are telling me i have to ask. note. -- no. i don't know how else to say appeared >> -- i don't know how it's to say it. >> i don't think there was anything active from the kerrey campaign but it had its own power.

it is not even the dirty tricks of one side or the strategy. it gets to the point where if you are an editor, is a difficult decision. everyone is talking about this. in the radio station or any starbucks, people are talking about it. >> once it is out there, i believe there was a story written and the attempt was to put an end to it. you cannot ignore what is out there, but you can do a fact check on it. that is the end of our time. thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

and others are among the witnesses. this runs under two hours. >> welcome to our second panel, and i am delighted, dr. perfetto, for you to begin our discussion. >> thank you for inviting me to speak today. my name is dr. allan r. perfetto, and i'm up armistice -- and i am a pharmacist with a ph.d. degree in public health concentrating in health policy and epidemiology. i wear two hats today. predominantly as a black and caregiver, but also one of the health researcher. the topic of this hearing is very important to me and has been for almost 15 years.

i wanted to you about my personal experience and provide suggestion about urgent actions that need to be taken by the nfl to help disabled this -- disabled and retired players and children involved in sports today. over 20 years after retiring from the nfl, my husband began having symptoms -- depression, anxiety, losing things. today we recognize the symptoms as resulting from cte. in the years following, route suburb of obvious memory loss and conclusion -- route suffered obvious memory loss and included it -- ralph suffered obvious memory loss and and was diagnosed. he has lost the ability to work, drive, play golf, reid, cook, and enjoy a glass of wine.

he can no longer dress, bathe, or feed themselves. he lost his senses humor. he lost his personality. he lost his dignity. he lost it all. almost three years ago, i had to place him in an assisted living facility for dementia patients and he presides there today. frankly, my has been no longer has a wife wrote -- like -- my husband no longer has a life. we have been through many of its and downs. you have a spouse becomes aloof and may be hostile and you do not know why it. the diagnosis is frightening but it is also a relief. you finally understand why these things are happening. it is not you, it is not him, is an illness. i cared for route at home for over seven years and i learned, living wills, guardianships, home care, psychiatric

admissions, long-term care, etc., etc. -- similar to anyone caring for someone with dementia. but there are nuances when caring for an nfl player. i also learned that our current infrastructure is based on providing services for your grandmother, not for a very large man. the staff at these facilities are afraid and intimidated. i had to buy a full-sized bed because the facilities provided a twin bed much too small for him. my husband was lucky in one way. he has a wife who is educated, who works in health care, the one who fell out the forms and has a good job with the company that offers excellent health care benefits and also happens to be one very pushy broad. he appeared well because he has a strong advocate. but there are many in the same situation and they need help. i speak with family members readily -- regularly and help

them find doctors and other services. i simply sometimes just talk to distraught women and help them get through it. they turned to me because they have no place to go and they are finding they will -- finding their way. what do i want to see come out of this? i have four things. the first is that the nfl must opt its denial of the relationship between brain trauma and brain disease and become a proactive organization. the evidence is there. the denial is disrespectful of the players and the family suffering, and it endangers current players and children. the nfl must do more to protect current players and children said they are not faced with this travesty later in life. the nfl as an upright position to advocate for prevention and it is a moral imperative. my third ask is that the nfl go beyond the 88 plan, which is for players diagnosed. players and families suffer from many years before the diagnosis

come. the nfl must find players with early signs of symptoms to provide support for the families and better manage the ordeal before then. this is not an academic exercise. this is something that the nfl should be doing for all of the players, not a handful or a group that participated in steady. former players like mike webster, the diagnosis came too late. lastly i mentioned earlier that i will wear a second half as a researcher for it might force ask is that you examine carefully the studies but before you. some will say that it should be disregarded or misreported or they have been exaggerated. i encourage you to talk with third-party experts about the quality of the studies. there are different kinds of bias. there is an appliance of opinion. i have to buy as with my husband being where he is today. -- i have a bias, but there are other methodological by a cs. i encourage you to listen to

other experts about these kinds of things and the issues of statistical power. i provided more details and examples in my written testimony. i know that you are not doctors or scientists. but i know and i have the confidence that you are able to understand clear information provided to you in the status, especially with the excesses of third-party methodologies to to make this very clear. and i thank you for letting me be here today. >> we are grateful to you for your presentation and some relation of your experience. your very personal experience. we're going to take a careful could as a raiders -- into careful consideration. alex use you now because you know of your previous commitment. -- i will excuse you now because i know of your previous commitment. but thank you very much.

we now turn to the former running back for the new york jets. tiki barber, who sat virtually every career offensive record for the giants, being voted three times nfl, pro bowl, all- time records with the giants for a number of things. we're lucky to get this perspective, because here is a person that retired at relatively young age, and he is now a correspondent for the today show. welcome, mr. barbour. >> thank you and i appreciate you being here -- i appreciate being here. mr. goode led, is good to see. it is a privilege and honor and a source of entertainment to

hear some of the tangible conservation discussing the and brain injury. one asked of this committee. i will get to it shortly. i had exactly two concussions, both of which i came from in the same game. i was not affected. i retired for quality of life decision, so that i did not lose my knees or my cognitive abilities, and i lead a productive life. my other hat is with the today show. nbc news, and a story i have been working on recently involves new helmet technology and the troubles that high school kids have with concussion. in the course of our research and our studies, we met with one person who is here, the creation -- the creator of a new element -- helmet.

what he told me that troubled me most about high school athletics is that less of half -- less than half of high school teams have access to an athletic trainer. you can all understand why that can be dangerous. in the national football league, as much as you hear the anecdotal evidence and the bile that comes from people who think that the nfl is not addressing the issue, at the end of the day it is the players' choice. when we get concussions or injuries, ultimately that doctors give its advice but it is our choice to go back into the football game. at a high school level, it is not so much so. they do not have the advice. mike asked -- my ask is that you legislate that every high school program has access to a doctor they can diagnose and

treat concussion so that children trying to be like me or players like the nfl know the danger of playing the sport that we all love. i think you for your time. >> of very/)@ @ @ h d)@ @ @ ns)d injured, some killed because of their lack of information about concussions. welcome, mr. bentsen, to our

hearings and you may proceed. dollars thank you, mr. chairman and members of the committee, for the honor to testify in front of you. i have a short story to tell about the untimely death of my 17-year-old son. excuse me. he died of a hemorrhage he received in a football game. this football team had trainers and doctors and is an elite high school that had the access to the best of everything that was not effectively employed. we had a team doctor, for example, but as is common in texas and maybe the rest of the country, the team doctor was an orthopedic surgeon. for all i know, he may have been the best orthopedic surgeon in austin. but he admitted later under oath

that he did not know how to diagnose a concussion, and yet he was the team doctor of our team. these kids die of head, neck, hard, he, an asthma-related injuries. that is what kills them. they do not die of orthopedic injuries. now with orthopedic doctors want to be team doctors, if it is a franchise that is commercially or morally valuable to them, i think that is great. i simply ask that they get the training in emergency sports medicine that will enable them to be qualified handle these kinds of injuries. additionally the law named after my son requires that the trainers, the coaches, the sponsors of any competitive activity in public schools in texas get that training.

that includes a ban directors. -- band directors. we have hundred degree temperatures in august when the band is working out. we have had heat-related injuries on the part of band directors. they need to have the same kind of training. what we have asked for and frankly i am sorry to say the most uncertain i am about the legal compliance is the training for the kids. we have a concept in our society called informed consent. i did not think anybody can make the argument that a 16-year-old or 17-year-old kid, no matter how intelligent or emotionally mature, can give informed consent unless he has gotten the information --

unless he has gotten the affirmation. we require that in the law, and i'm not completely sure if it has been delivered. the gentleman on my left, mr. nowinski, has written an outstanding book on the injury. i refer to all of you and i challenge you to read it and not come back with the moral sense of necessity for action. there has been some earlier objection that maybe the congress should not be making these roles, maybe the nfl and the players' union should be making those roles. this speaks for the 2 million young people -- who speak for the two men -- who speaks for the 2 million young people have been at that? nobody. you should make some rules

because you can, and if you do not want to, i would like to see your list of who you think is going to step then. getting will's bill passed -- it was very difficult. it took two professional lobbyist. it took four years. it took a lot of money and phone calls. received virtually no public opposition and massive private opposition from that huge slice of texas culture that is concerned with the ball. i do not know if you know or not, but in small-town texas -- and i would include some affluent suburbs in big towns in this particular definition -- the most important man is the football coach. if you are running for public

office on a statewide basis, you make your business to try to get every football coach you can to be an enforcer of your campaign, because they have so much to say about the future of the children. so football is part of texas culture, and based on my observation beyond that, it is a cult as well. and like most americans, we all love not to be told what to do. simultaneously we like to tell other people what to do. i am sure that describes me as well as it does the fault of culture. -- the football culture. but we made progress because we made a breakthrough with a male coach who was at the head of the girls' coaches association in texas. he came in and persuaded the boy's football coaches and they persuaded our public entity responsible for all of this.

and we finally achieved and we have broad bipartisan support and it was signed by the republican governor of texas, gov. rick perry, in 2007. so my one request is -- don't let it happen again, please. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. benson. chris nowinski is a professional

wrestler who turned his background as a harvard football star into one of the most entertaining and probably hated characters on television. he debuted on the world wrestling entertainment flagship program in 2002 when he was named newcomer of the year, and was the youngest male hardcourt champion in history before his career was ended by 2003 concussion. he began the quest to better understand his condition, and his relentless effort has

resulted in a lot of educational work. he specializes in commercial strategy licensing, and that i am not mistaken, he has also published a book on the subject. we're very pleased to have you here, mr. nowinski. >> mr. chairman and members of the committee, i thank you for the invitation to testify today on an issue that has become my life's work. i am a co-director of the center for the study of traumatic encephalopathy at the boston university school of medicine and co-founder and ceo of the nonce a profit institute dedicated to solving this crisis. when it comes to my personal identity, i'll always see myself as a former harvard football player. i hope to provide a unique perspective as a survivor.

i realize that you do not need to hear my personal story. i also lost my career as a professional wrestler and then lost the next five years of my life to post-concussion syndrome, all because i ignorantly tried to push through it concussions. after the damage was done, i was lucky enough to find dr. robert cantu. he taught me for the first time that it could lead to a cumulative damage. he told me that had i rested after concussions, i would have limited the damage. but it seems strange to me as a 24-year-old and a harvard degree and 11 years of brain trauma, i had no idea of the risk was taking or how to protect myself. as i asked around, i learned that no one had told them either. six years ago, i decided to dedicate my life to this issue.

i am certain that radical measures are needed for football to continue safely. cte is an ugly disease that slowly kills brain cells in connection. i do not know what i have cte right now because we cannot diagnose it while someone is alive. but it does not matter if i know because we cannot treat it and we cannot cure it. today we can only prevent it. but we have to dig deep and find the well because this friday night in towns across america you can be sure that we are creating it. this friday night, over 1 million kids will take to the football field. one in eight boys in america plays football. thousands will suffer concussions. concussions. one fictional boy will take a hit to the head no. 1003 this will make and bill stunned and confused and he will see double

and forget where he is. he will begin walking toward the wrong side line, a clear indication of concussive. we will think that he got a little thing. the referee will notice that he will know if it is his place to say something. sometimes an athletic trainer might notice, but mike's high school is one of the 50 percent without one. -- 58% without one. all of the other guys in the hall will see that he is concussed but that happens all the time. ted of calling time out, they keep telling him to play over and over. the teammates do not know that by playing, mike is exposing him to further brain damage. after two more plays, he appears better. he has a raging headache it does not tell anyone about three the concussion is never diagnosed.

what happens to mike? i do not know. he might be fined or he might be laying on the ground with cte. our next week he might get another concussion. if that does not kill him, the post-concussion syndrome might be so great that he becomes unmotivated. his promising light becomes permanently derailed. all the discussion of concussion crisis has primarily been focused on professional game, the focus needs to be elsewhere. we know how to solve this crisis. remember that 95% of players are under the age of 18 and under the age of consent. the idea that we know we're getting down to is erroneous. we're not eating giving the kids a chance to protect themselves. the all source of information for most kids is coming out of the of a " new york times." there is no formal education for kids. when i think of the immense scope of the problem, i am reminded that football is not

always played as it is today. the roosevelt summoned the people to washington to figure out how to play the game better. it is important to realize that football has evolved into something that was never intended to be. i read believe that the cte research shows is that it is time for new change and may be a new committee like roosevelt potts, except one to save football. because it cannot in good conscience allow this scenario to continue. if we agreed that the game is broken, and needs to be fixed. we can develop a solution. it may be easier than we think. today the members of my institute along with other doctors posted a 10-point plan at our web site which i would like to enter into the record. >> without objection, it will be. >> it highlights 10 different @@h)')r@

the plan could easily eliminate 75% of brain trauma without fundamentally changing football. this is a question of leadership. so much of this crisis is connected to tobacco and its connection to lung cancer. if you could create all the awareness that we have today in the 1950's, when the first conclusive pathological research was done, would you save those millions of people who were smoking without understanding the risks. if you hear him talking about these battered brains of the former football players, think of this as if you are hearing about the first case of lung cancer from smoking. pathological lung cancer from smoking. but the choice that these men made to play football was when

they were children. and then think of what you were willing to do to in sure the safety of future generations. maybe it's time for another committee, a committee to save football. let's not let this opportunity pass by. >> i thank you, mr. nowinski. >> i have a paper written by the man who wrote the -- who invented his senate -- zenith football helmet. with your permission, i would like to introduce it into evidence. dollars we would be happy to except that paper. thank you. dr. ann mckee has a lot of medical experience. she is the assistant professor of neuropathology at harvard medical school, and then became

the associate professor of neurology and -- at boston university school of medicine. she served as the director of of the neuropathology corp. of boston university she has conducted groundbreaking research on cte. she is the chief neuropathologist, and is also has the same title for the boston-based veterans administration medical centers, and for the sports legacy institute. we're so pleased that you could join us this afternoon. >> thank you mr. chairman. it is a pleasure to be here and i am glad to speak on an issue that i think is extremely important.

my name is dr. ann mckee, and i'm associate professor of neurology of pathology at boston university medical school. i received my medical degree in 1979, and i am board certified in both urology and neuropathology. i come at this issue with a slightly different perspective. i examined the brains of individuals after death. for the past 23 years, i have examined the brains of thousands of people from all walks of life and from individuals who live to be well over the age of 100. for chris nowinski's efforts in early 2008, at the first opportunity to examine the brain of a retired professional football player. it was a former linebacker for the houston oilers who had died of an accidental gunshot wound while cleaning his gun at the age of 45. according to his wife, he was concussed 3 times during his college career in 8 times during

his nfl career. he began showing changes in his behavior and cognitive decline at the age of 40. he developed difficulties in short-term memory, organization, planning, problem-solving, and the ability to juggle more than one task at a time. he was asked their roots -- he would ask to rent a movie that he had already seen. he had trouble understanding television. he developed a shorter and shorter fuse and a become angry and verbally aggressive over seemingly trivial issues. when i looked at his brain on post-mortem examination, i found a massive buildup of tau protein, distributed in a unique pattern not found in any other near it genitive -- any other near regenerative syndrome except cte.

it prevents them from making other connections with normal nerve cells. in this man's brain, there were massive numbers of these, you could see the abnormalities on the glass slides without the use of a microscope. as you can see in the middle panel of the ticket that is being presented. there is tremendous accumulation of tau protein which appears as a brown pigment. all the brown pigment that you see is abnormal. compare what you see in the middle panel the nfl players brain, to the brain of a normal man where you see absolutely no brown pigment. all of these slides were prepared in the same way. this 45-year-old husband and father, at the prime of his life, showed profound changes from cte. in john's brain, there were striking changes in the region that controls personality and

behavior. extreme changes in areas controlling wage behavior. there were severe changes in areas that are also responsible for memory, such as the hippocampus. in a normal 45-year-old, absolutely none of these changes would be found for you would not find these changes in a normal 65-year-old, 85 year -- 85-year- old, or 110-year-old. the next examined brain also the same distinctive changes of chronic traumatic a encephalopathy, including the brain of thomas mchale, all former tampa bay buccaneer. the seventh brain of former nfl player i analyzed was that of a former offensive lineman for the detroit lions and an eight time--- eight-time pro bowler. he was famous for suffering at

least 13 broken noses. beginning at the age of 58, he showed it increasing cognitive and behavioral did not tell -- difficulties. it included an outburst of anger and aggression. he was a member of the nfl plan 88. he died from complications of dementia at the age of 82. the brands showed extensive damage occurred there were widespread nft's in the unique pattern found in cte. there was no evidence of alzheimer's disease or any other near a degenerative disorder. the findings indicated that if he had not sustained repetitive head trauma during the play of football, he would be alive and well today, enjoying his family and grandchildren. i also have examined the brain of a high school player who suffered several concussions and died at the age of 18. the brain from an 18-year-old

man should be perfect. there should be no abnormalities anywhere. but in the brain of this young man, at the age of 18, there are already spots of extreme damage. and you can see the areas of damage looking at the slide, it just with your naked eye in the red boxes. those are areas of extreme damage found in an 18-year-old football player. these are changes -- the earliest changes of cte. had he lived longer, he certainly would have developed the same full blown cte that we have found in college and professional football players. i've now examined the brains of 7 former nfl players and four college players. i found the profound changes of cte and all of them. and the earliest changes were in a high school football player. i realize that this is only a handful of cases. so what can you say about that?

what about only 11 cases? what i can say is that for the past 23 years, i have looked at literally thousands of brains. from individuals of all walks of life, of all ages, and i have only seen this unique pattern of change with this severity in individuals with a history of repetitive head trauma, and that is included football as well as boxing. none of my colleagues has never seen a case of cte without history of head trauma. and no documented case of cte in the medical literature that did not occur without head trauma. the changes that we have seen today are dramatically not normal. there is no way that these padlock -- this pathological changes could be seen as normal under a bell shaped curve. we have seen these changes that have come into the cte -- cte

laboratory. i've never seen this elsewhere in 20 years. i've shown this to other doctors, independently examine these brains, and they've come up with the same diagnosis -- cte. i know the argument is often made that there are a hundreds of thousands of former football players, including professional players, with no signs of cognitive deadline or memory loss or personality change. what i do not understand is why we're expecting that exposure to repetitive head trauma will cause disease in 100% of the individuals who suffer the trauma. do we expect 100% of cigarette smokers to develop lung cancer? 100% of children who play with matches or even with chain saws to get hurt? no, even if the percentage of affected individuals is 20%, or 10%, or high%, there are still

thousands of kids and adults out there right now played football at all levels who will eventually come down with this devastating and debilitating disorder. and as a doctor and as a mother, i think this calls for immediate action. we need to take radical steps to change the way football is played, and changes today. -- and change it today. >> that is so much for your testimony. dollars i want to introduce a paper that we've written for your consideration. >> we will accept it into the record. dr. joseph marrooon, clinical professor of neurological surgery at the university of pennsylvania -- university of pittsburgh medical center, vice- chairman of the department and the high hills dollar in

neuroscience -- and a scholar and neuroscience. he has worked with your psychologists -- and neuropsychologitssts, developing the first computerized system for severity and the timing for return to contact sports. it is now the standard of care for concussion management in the football league, the hockey league, major league baseball, nascar, and is used in over 2.5000 colleges and high schools in in as a spirit he has

been team doctor for the pittsburgh steelers for over 20 years, and honored by surgical societies around the world. he has been honored and more than one holophane, in addition. we are delighted and honored you would be with us today, dr. maroon. you are invited to proceed. [inaudible] >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm here first as a neurosurgeon from the university of pittsburgh medical center with a career-long interest in preventing head and neck injuries in sports, and in particular football. i am also here as a former collegiate football player myself. i went to indiana university on a football scholarship.

it was good and bad. i went there and had a concussion like mr. nowinski, a very significant concussion, that erased about three weeks from my mind. it also forced me to quit football and apply to medical school. i probably would not be here if it were not for the concussion. thirdly, i'm here as the team doctor for the pittsburgh steelers. i have been very honored and pleased to work with three super bowl coaches, charles and old, bill howard, and might tomlin. at no time in my 25 years of professional career with that sports organization have i ever felt any pressure, any coercion, felt any pressure, any coercion, i must challenge the doctor, in that regard, in suggesting that most college or most professional team doctors are in

the pocket of the owner of the team, or compromise their own scientific and medical integrity for the team. in the days gone by, there may have been some of that. i would dispute this. i was challenged once, in 1990, when i turn up -- i told the coach that the quarterback could not go back to play against the cowboys because the vatican -- concussion. he said, why can't he do this? i said, because they say such and such in the guidelines. he said, if you want me to keep them out of football, i want the objective data to show that there is something wrong with his conative ability. it was at that time i called a psychologist and we went into the medical literature, designing a test that was called

impact. and we went to the medical literature and i'd designed to test called impact, which measures concentration, the ability to focus, and memory, and also reaction time to 1/1 hundredth of a second. they then allow us to do the whole pittsburgh team. subsequently there have been over 75 papers validating the test in confirming that it is a narrow cognitive tests that is baseline. if there is a concussion, we testing to assess cognitive function, an extremely important aspect that all the panelists have spoken to at this point. and i'm also here as part of the mtbi committee of the nfl. one thing, concussions are serious problems. i know personally.

they have the potential for long-term neurological damage. at the university of pittsburgh, pa receive 150 athletes of week. i will say that again, 150 athletes a week. post concussion syndrome. this is a very upset -- this is a very serious entity, one that we need to work to prevent. i'm here to tell yet prevention is essential. the first responsibility of a position is to prevent illness. it that is impossible, cure it. unfortunately we do not have any chores, as mr. nowinski said, for this entity of post-dramatic problem. third, i am here to tell you that from my experience, the nfl is a model and concussion management. the things that they are doing, and i go into that in just a second, are exactly what should be passed on to a youth

football. merril hodge this morning, which i will say after evaluating him, i advised him to quit football based on his narrow cognitive test and examination. i suggested that this is not good for his brain proportionately he listened. -- for his brain. fortunately he listened. there are 50,000 college athletes, and all of these need to have the same protective, preventive measures in place that are used for our professional athletes. i'll go farther and say that what congressman the task will set back our troops in afghanistan iraq, they should have the same benefits as our nfl quarterbacks in terms of when they should return to combat. finally, what is the nfl doing? you've heard of the nfl committee that was formed 15

years ago, so they have not had their head in the sand. there's not been denial about the effects of concussion. they have published many papers and done research. they also educated the players, the coaches, and the trainers on the significance of concussion, long-term effects, and the dangers. that is not an idle. the institute mandatory -- they had instituted mandatory testing, strict return to play guidelines, fines for hits to the head, and there is a whistleblower program predict any player feeling that he had been coerced to go back prematurely following a concussion, he can call a hotline and immediately have assistance in this. fourth, there is continued research going on. also please today when the commissioner stated that the nfl is going to make a joint effort to participate in the cte

programs looking at this in terms of the research going on. i'd continue mr. chairman in your committee for bringing everything together and putting the national spotlight on this problem. it can have a positive effect on the millions of kids who are not playing professional football. thank you. >> we are indebted to you and look for to our discussion as soon as we finish up with dr. julian bailes, chairman of the university of west virginia medical school of medicine department of neurosurgery. during his career, he was a finalist in the national association of emergency medical physicians resuscitation program competition. he has been given the excellence

award for his work there. he has received research grants for nearly reached $27 million and amount, and has investigated had injuries -- head injuries in numerous football players, has publications -- several that are mentioned here that will be put in the record. thank you, dr. bailes, for joining us here. >> good afternoon, mr. chairman. and ranking members met, and members of the committee. i appreciate being able to meet with you. my background is as a former player for 10 years, a sideline doctor at the nfl or ncaa division i level for the last 20 years, someone who runs the

neurological center of the busiest hospital, and a laboratory researcher. i am also the father of five children. wholesale front that i think football is the greatest sport in america, the one that i love the most. i've worked extensively at the brain injury research institute following the first pathologists who discovered cte and the former hall of famer, mike webster, in 2002. by car profession is professor and chairman ed west virginia university. in 2000, the executive director of the nflpa has been set up a center to test -- to study the health of retired players. we put it at the university of north carolina-chapel hill. i remained the medical director.

with all sorts of health issues of retired players. we found expected occurrence of heart problems and spine problems and arthritis. but what surprised us way back then was out of this big funnel data in the issue that these guys work cognitively impaired, the mental problems that they were having. that was a way more than we expected or that you expect for the population matched controls. the only risk factor we found for them having cte is analyzing all of their past medical history, three or more concussions. if they had had three or more concussions during their career, they had up five times increased chance of being diagnosed with that. cognitive impairment is not good, because when a decade, the

vast majority of those people go on to be diagnosed as having alzheimer's. we publish that four years ago. two years ago, we published a second study that said once again if you have three or more concussions, you had a triple incidents of having depression diagnosed when you're tired. both of these are not good. -- when you retire. both of these are not good. if the study of current retired players with great detailed mri scans and psychological testing. we expect a steady to be completed next spring. we were in 2000 and remain today the only center that was ever in addition to study the health of players once they retire.

with special staining methods for detecting alzheimer's, we have gone to examine the brains of 17 modern contact sport athletes. as you can see from the slide, and normal plan on the left, and on the right, a slide of the first case of cte of mike webster, who played 17 years. you can see the brown spots, similar to what was shown before representing that neurons -- the dead neurons, and tau proteins, which act as a sludge and the brain cannot cleric. -- clear it. in every case of similar psychological problems, such as personality change, business -- memory loss, business failure, depression, and suicide, found

-- we've found an abnormal collection of this tau protein. many continue to say that we will continue studying this. it is my scientific and medical opinion that we now have enough indisputable research from examination of the brains of did players -- dad players to the lives of retired players -- dead players to the lives of reality -- of retired players to confirm the reality of cte. this goes all the way down go all levels of play. we heard about all changes in what that have been made and are going to be made and i think that that is great. i believe that the velocity of head and packs today are one of the biggest differences. the velocity of hits and the

hits to the head are a big part of the problem. i also think that there is an emerging concept of subconcussive injuries. all our energy and work has been toward the diagnosis of the player who had concussion. what about the players -- and we have autopsied several linemen, none of them had a history of concussion, who had extensive tau protein accumulation, all dine with cte-related problems. -- all diene with cte-related problems. -- all dying with cte-related problems. it is a complex issue. and response to dr. culverhouse's comments, i will tell you that 20 years at the nfl level with the rooney family and the steelers and the

coaches, and 10 years at the ncaa division i know, i have -- i never had one occasion of a coach trying to influence my medical decision. i respectfully disagree. i do not think the problem lies there. i think it lies in improving roles, all is improving helmets, and realizing about velocity. . >> i appreciate your analysis and your experience. dr. joel morganlander, the professor of neurology, you have run the clinical, neurological,

neurology service and you are the medical director of the clinical service unit, at duke hospital. and he is also connected with the committee that works with the national football league on the same subject. we welcome you and we appreciate your patience with us. this has been a long day, but i think that this has been more than worthwhile. i can say this on behalf of the members of the committee, for all of us to give you this very valuable time. >> thank you, members of the committee. i was contacted a few years ago by the medical director of the nfl players association.

the doctor was the chair of the committee, and it was clear -- it was clear that i was wanting to help with the work of the committee, if i was convinced they would take my ideas and my concerns seriously. in my way of thinking, concussions should be avoided because i am a neurologist. the committee is comprised of trainers and engineers, statisticians and radiologists, neurologists, and nfl representatives. it is important for the members of the judiciary committee to hear that in my three years i have been working here, i feel that my ideas have been discussed fairly. we will pass this to the commissioner's office. i have not seen a hidden agenda during my time with the committee. those i have been working with

are focused on player safety. we are hoping the lessons that we learn well help beyond the level of professional football. the issues include injury prevention, player and medical personnel education, return to play decisions, and the late, affective concussions. ions and evaluations of late effects of concussion. during the years i have been on the committee, we have communicated directly with players and families about the symptoms of concussion. we have held several conferences in the field of head injury and sports concussion. with the commissioner's support, we instituted a rule to not return any player with loss of consciousness to the same game. each team is now required to having your psychology consulted and baseline and cognitive testing for each player. we work with manufacturers of

comets and other equipment on improvements targeted towards -- manufacturers of hollis and other equipment and improvements targeted towards players dictate -- manufacturers of helmets. in my opinion, the area of sports concussion is behind many areas in urology in the amount of prospective data on injury and recovery -- many areas in neurology and the amount of perspective data on injury and recovery. at this time, it is not possible to specifically determine the long-term risk of a single repeated concussions. for the return of play decision, it is recommended the player ba- symptomatic both at rest and with exercise. the medical evaluation it rests partly on the player's report. over the past several years, more players with a concussion are now returning to play on the same day. our committees has worked with team physicians and trainers to update our report forms for the

purposes of improving data collection and looking for clinical keys to player outcomes. members of the committee are concerned about reports of pepco logic brain findings in retired nfl players and other athletes -- reports of traumatic brain findings and retired nfl players and other athletes. it is significantly different than other near a degenerative diseases. -- neuro degenerative diseases. if the majority of players sustain concussions during their career, then why are only certain players affected with cte? the majority of players sleep cognitively normal lives after football. what is different about these subjects that expose them to this? we know that from alzheimer's literature, environmental factors advance of cognitive

decline in some patients. we do not know the effects of other medical factors including illness and exposures that might have an impact. we now reports of high school and college athletes with that logic changes of the brain consisted with cte. might there be a particular ticket -- age of injury? all of these questions are very important and need to be sorted out in order to determine the actual risk of brain injury from context boards. in one attempt to get more information, the committee sponsored the retired players study we have been talking about. this study is an attempt to get more information about middle- aged retired players, comparing players with different nfl career duration. we use player examinations with state of the art mri studies, genetic screening and their psychological tests.

neuro radiology and consultants independent of the committee had been involved in this study, and will be involved in the publication. we held data from this study will add further information concerning the risk of players and improve future player evaluation and testing. i feel that this work you have been hearing about is important and know that those involved plan to continue. players with no history of cognitive complaints are currently being recruited as controls. the future prospective studies following a cohort of young players may be particularly helpful. these studies should include medical -- medical histories and your imaging studies. many researchers are interested in these areas. more information should be forthcoming. i hope my testimony has been helpful to the committee, and i would be willing to answer any

questions you may have. >> it has been very helpful. all of your testimonies have left us with a cold new and important prospective -- a whole new and important perspective. mr. bentsen, i would like to to think with me about two considerations that lead me to discuss with everybody here -- the first is what dr. maroon described so eloquently is very important. except for the fact that many of, if not most of the high

school, middle school kids that are in football don't have that kind of people around with the talent and medical expertise to accomplish the excellent kind of results that he has reported. professional football -- i am assuming pro football does, but i don't even do that with any sincere degree of certainty, but i know when you go down, when you get out into the little leaguers, they don't have an orthopedic surgeon who doesn't know concussion if it hit him in the face. they don't have anybody. they don't have -- they don't

even have a doctor of any kind. they train parents at the school. they give them a few things about health. there is one problem, isn't it? but i want to get the other one out, so we can all talk about this together. the other question is that, i find, i have had a little experience listening -- i am disturbed that dr. culverhouse seems to be the only one that sees something

that many people have commented critically on. now, is it that she doesn't have any experience about football, or she is not -- to put it in a more colloquial way, what is your problem? -- what is her problem? how does she get so distraught about something that nobody else can put a finger on? what does that tell the chairman of this august minute -- committee. ? one thing it could tell me is that she may be on to something that nobody else wants to break

the news to all of us federal legislators. i will now yield to mr. bentsen to help me feel better as this things comes to an end. maybe we can rationalize this a bit better. >> mr. chairman, it is obviously true that the younger players in the younger league's don't have adequate medical care, and i would argue that is mostly true through high school. in texas, until the passage of the recent bill, there was no requirement of team doctors, whether they are an orthopedist, a psychiatrist, a dentist or would ever willing volunteer to learn the technology of the injuries that are potentially catastrophic.

that is what we are looking at. the purpose of will's bill was to treat catastrophic injuries, those that cause daeth, permanent or long-term disability. i personally -- i am not enthusiastic about their young football leagues. i think maybe it is fun for the kids, when you turn a blind eye to the potential cost. you turn a blind eye to the fact they are more susceptible to a concussion and less likely to report it. and they experience the conditions longer. i don't like that. i would not let my children engage in that league. >> thank you for the question, mr. chairman. i will answer the second one first. i do believe the stories of dr. maroon. i am guessing the steelers have

been fined for a while, but i will tell you that i know of plenty of stories of guys have been mistreated. a lot of those guys coming board in telling stories has created the awareness we have. one example is ted johnson, a linebacker for the patriots for 10 years. he got a concussion in a game, two days later showed up to practice, had not seen a doctor. should not have been able to practice. in the middle of practice, and assisting came up and said, but this full-contact jersey on. no medical person intervene. he was allowed to go back in, he took another concussion and that derailed his life and his career. that was a very obvious example of mismanaged medicine. kyle turlehey was telling

stories left and right. had it bad concussion and was locked in a room, left their unchecked for hours. my best friend tells me, a team to team is very different. he was with the seahawks and they did it well. she went to another team, he was on the sideline -- they have a neurological expert in the skybox. he could not smell the smelling salts, and she could not see st. traight, and it wanted to put him back in. there are holes in the system. in terms of the huge issue, i think you are absolutely right. there -- in terms of the youth issue. there is something strange about that telling the coaches or the kids about one of the most serious injuries they can get.

the idea that we cannot we did we do not tell them about concussions or tell them how to take care of it, and not providing medical staff seems to be a mistake. >> before i turn to bob goodlick, could any of your way weigh in on my final two questions? anybody else have they thought about this? please, help me feel better as we bring this to an end. >> in the past, i thiknk one of the speakers this morning said that his management of concussions and injuries and the last 5 to 10 years is different from the way we manage to injuries before. i think in terms of the comments

of dr. culberhouse, in@@@@@@@@@) we see this for the players and the facilitators with the injuries. there have been problems in the past with judgment, but i think that has chris has said, there are problems in the system and this is our responsibility to deal with this as soon as possible. this is to the benefit of the athlete. >> thank you. i want to thank you for holding the hearing. this is not an ordinary topic for the judiciary committee to cover, but this has certainly been very enlightening for all of us who have participated.

it is my hope that those people who are able to view this on streaming, on the internet or perhaps this will be broadcast on c-span. if there are some parents who see this and they hear this, they will be better-informed to be better-informed about the decisions made about their children, and more importantly, many of them will decide to play football and they will be able to advocate for better conditions under which they will play. i have the greatest concern for those young people. i am concerned about anybody who has sustained the kind of concussions that we have heard about today, and the injuries that they may sustain. injuries they could sustain. mr. benson, i think you have done at the right way in getting that passed through the texas legislature.

i have to say, given that considerations of the commerce clause of the u.s. constitution, it would be difficult for the congress to extend the long arm of the federal government down to a high school football games and be able to enact the kind of regulations that you and mr. hodge and mr. barber and others have referred to. the awareness that you brought, that we have been able to facilitate, is a good thing. i would like -- i would like to ask mr. barbour. he has excited a lot of fans and my home town of roanoke, virginia. and then playing for the new york giants. i would like to ask dr. maroon, as a team physician and maybe doctors bailes as well. this problem at the nfl level, that you have a multi-billion dollar industry.

players with multi-million dollar contracts. fans that pay hundreds of dollars for a ticket to see the game. the hundreds of millions that watch it on tv. we all know what an advertisement goes for 30 seconds on the super bowl. there are lots of resources available to address this. is the risk reduced by that, or is it just as great because, while you have more equipment and better positions on the ground, -- physicians on the ground, you have stronger, faster, more aggressive -- you are playing at the top of this game. is that more likely to result in those kinds of concussions? or is the risk of greater for high-school and college teams that don't have those same resources, especially at the high school level? they are faced with making a

different set of decisions. is the problem the same or is it different at the high school level? >> i appreciate the question. i think on the high-school level the danger is because of ill- fitting helmets. they are not specifically structured for a young athlete's head. in the nfl, things get better because they are custom made. we have to remember that helmet's were originally made to prevent skull fractures. we used to play with leather helmets. when people started hitting each other very hard, skulls were cracking. the original designs were not to protect us from concussions. they were to prevent our brains from cracking open. it is about the individuals to play the game. what i mean by that is, from the very young age, if you are an athlete, you were ushered along.

you were fed meals. you are taking care of medically. so that when you get to that point in college and high school, you do not know how to think for yourself the empowerment of individuals to build their own bodies, to make their own decisions is the most paramount thing we need to focus on. when you get a concussion, as i did in 1997, or when you break your arm, and iowa decided to play in both cases, it was my aunt -- and i decided to play in both cases, it was an informed decision with the input from my coaches. a lot of athletes are not informed because they listen to what is told to them. if there is one thing that i could change and in power and inform fellow athletes is to learn yourself. don't trust what everybody else

tells you. learned yourself. >> thank you. >> that was an excellent question, sir. you started with the financial aspect of it, relative to high- school sources the professional teams. tikki had an excellent point that the testing requirements up until recently have been to prevent fatal head injuries and the penetrating experiences through the skull and the head, to protect the outer shell. recently, the nfl, and ongoing is evaluating five different helmet manufacturers and their helmets. in the past, if you go to the equipment manager of the pittsburgh steelers, the various companies would come in and make assertions that my helmet is better than this helmet and can

reduce concussions by a percentage with no good data to substantiate that. what the nfl has done is they invited all the manufacturers to submit models of their helmets for 23 separate individual tests that have evolved from the video analysis -- that has been ongoing with the nfl. they are being tested now for their ability to prevent a sub- concuss a blow and the concussions. what are we doing to prevent sub-concussive blows? we are making progress. dr. bailes mentioned the formula of force is equal to mass times

a acceleration. in the nfl, we have a big masses -- 350-pound individuals going at a high velocity. mass times velocity equals force. if you ask what is acceleration? it is the delta, the change in velocity overtime. if you are driving home on the washington parkway in to come to a bifurcation in the road, instead of hitting a quarter with eight -- the corner with a concrete embankment, the highway department now has a telescopic, water-filled cushions that absorb the velocity. it takes longer. the time is increased, thus, reducing the velocity and the force. this new helmet technology that is evolving is actually here.

the problem of cost is definitely a significant one. these helmets are in the range of $300 a peace. the older helmets, which 40% to 50% of nfl players use are in the $180 range. how to bring that to the high school level, i don't know. >> dr. bailes? >> the high schools and the lower levels of play have less of everything -- less education, less medical advice, less medical trainers, less a good head gear. they just have a lot less. they also have a brain that is probably more vulnerable at a younger age. the nfl, you ask about that, the issue is that they have a much bigger and faster player, and

they also have a much higher velocity impact. they have also accrued more years of exposure. i think it both the highest levels and the lower levels, i think you have different factors of play. >> the chairman has indicated that we will not to another round of questions. he has given me leave to ask one more question. i would like to direct it to dr. mickey. -- dr. mckee. a lot of discussion analogizing head injuries in football to cigarette smoking and cancer. one big difference is that if you ask anybody on this panel, we would tell somebody who was considering smokying, don't do it. and the discussion. on the other hand, if you ask

most members of this panel whether or not we should tell everybody not to play football, there would be may be much stronger on the other side saying, no, we will not tell people not to play football. given your concerns, are you advocating that people not play football? where do see a need down in addressing this problem? -- where do you come down in addressing this problem? the resources are not there to make this board as safe as you or i would like to be for high- school students. yet, it is something very popular, not only with players but with a large population and almost community -- almost every community in america. >> in terms of the difference between high school and pro sports, there was a study that came out this summer that showed that the average force in the

head of a high-school player was actually higher per collision then a college player. with the theory being that high school players and weaker next and they use their helmets more because they need to. the problem is that the lower level. the question being, should people be playing? the problem i had when i got in this situation i was in as a pro wrestler was that i didn't know -- i never had a choice in my outcome. the fact that i had to deal with five years of headaches and depression in short-term memory problems and could not go back to work, i was very frustrated that i did not know any better. rule number one is to make sure that every parent who signs up their kid to play football understands the risks. will number two is to make sure that everybody who plays understands the risks and understands how to minimize it. i do not want to see football go

away. i don't want to see it go away. what i do want to see is this whole idea of the 10-point plan. ains we have looked at, these are the canaries in the coal mine. the game was involved in something we did not understand. it is nobody's fault. but it is something that week -- that should not be. let's change it. if the commitment doesn't show, then parents have to make up their own minds. i want to see a change. >> i would completely agree with everything that he has said. i do believe the game can be changed. i, too, am a huge football fan. i think it can be changed. i don't play football so i will not be able to elucidate all the

ways we can minimize injury during the play of the game, but chris has come up with his 10th point plan, reducing contact during practice, reducing scrimmage. i think we need to do these things immediately. football is an american sport. everyone loves it. i certainly would never want a bad foot -- to ban football. i think we can play it smarter. there are a lot of risks that may be very great for the young player. player. we shoul we have to consider the support that will allow to save football. to certain things have to be in place to have football happened at a high school level. there have to be resources to support this adequately. in the case of the professional players, i think that football can continue, but if you adequately inform the players of