welcome to "amanpour on pbs." we're looking back at some of our favorite interviews this year. tonight, american football season starts up again next month and we want to highlight the serious warnings about the concussion crisis with nfl hall of famer brett favre and the doctor who first discovered cte, the brain disease caused by blows to the head. ♪ ♪ ♪ welcome to the program, everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in london. america's favorite sport, a multi-billion dollar industry is under mounting scrutiny for the head injuries it causes,

concussions and cte which is chronic traumatic encephalopathy. it's a degenerative brain disease which has ended careers and even some players' lives. rugby, boxing and even soccer also make this a worldwide phenomenon that all parents can easily identify with. the 2015 film "concussion" starring will smith brought this crisis to light. he played the doctor who discovered cte and told of his uphill struggle to get the nfl to recognize it. >> if you continue to deny my work the world will deny my work, but men, your men continue to die. their families left in ruins. tell the truth. tell the truth. >> it is powerful stuff, and

just ahead of this year's super bowl, i spoke to dr. bennett o maland you to brett favre, one of america's most prominent players and a hall of fame quarterback. he suffered bad concussion in his very last game. their stories and their warnings are relevant and vital as the next american football season is about to get under way in just two weeks' time. >> brett favre and dr. bennett omalu, welcome to the program. >> thank you so much. >> yep. thank you for having us. >> it's great to see you both, and you, brett, are a hall of famer and legendary in your sport, and i just wanted to ask you first, what thoughts are going through your mind right now given that in a couple of days we'll be watching the super bowl? >> oh, there's a game? this is the time of year when i do miss the game, and often i get asked do i miss it. this is the time where i think

all players who spend any time in the nfl would say they missed the game. it should be an interesting matchup, and new england's been there before and before and before and this will be a test for philadelphia, but i'm excited about it. >> so just quickly, before i dig deeper into the concussion, what's your prediction, brett? who's going to win? >> well, my good friend, longtime friend, dear friend of mine is the head coach for philadelphia and that's doug pederson, great guy. he's done a wonderful job there and i'm pulling for him, and i would say i'm not a betting man, but if i were it would be hard to bet against bill belichick and the new england fapatriots. they continue to prevail year in and year out and i don't have an answer for it. i see your heart is split and your head is split, but you say

you miss it. in a way, i kind of understand, but i'm surprised, as well because of the injury that you suffered and the incredible, you know, crisis around nfl and head injuries. are you scared that somebody out there on the field on sunday might suffer a terrible injury to the head? >> yes and when i say i miss it, what i don't -- what i miss is the fellowship with the guys. i don't miss the physical part of it. i don't miss the mental stress that is required day in and day out, year in and year out, and now with all of the concussion hysteria, if you will, over the last five to eight years, my last play as an nfl football player was a major concussion and before then, concussions were not as serious an issue or thought to be as serious as they are now, and of course, dr.

omalu is responsible for that greatly, and it is very frightening because here's one of the things that that were made more aware of today and when i say major concussion, if you would have asked me eight years ago how many concussions i had during my playing career i would have probably said two, maybe three, and i'm talking about where i lost consciousness for five seconds, ten second, a minute, but what we were finding out dr. omalu can touch on this in much more detail is that the old saying in football was i got my bell rung. having your bell rung, seeing stars, seeing fireworks, ringing in the ears and things of that nature, hundreds, maybe thousands of times i can say that that happened to me and that's what we're starting to discover is a concussion and so

that's very frightening and it's not -- it's not a good thing. so i'm very fearful of what the future will bring. >> let me turn to you now, dr. omalu, the same question that i asked brett to start with. are you worried as you prepare maybe to sit down in front of the tv on super bowl sunday and maybe you won't watch it. are you concerned about it? well, yes. thank you, christiane. i stopped watching football five years ago because i just couldn't get myself to watch it. as a physician, and a brain expert, in every play of football there is a blow to the head. in fact, a paper recently came out from stanford university that showed that in just one game of football a player is exposed to 50 to 60 violent blows to the head and some of those blows are like a car

traveling at 30 miles an hour slamming into a brick wall. so we need to realize that it's not about the concussions. you could play just one game after super bowl sunday, after just one game, many of those players have suffered irreparable brain damage and all you need to damage your brain is one violent blow. watching the super bowl on sunday, what goes through my mind is where will these players be in 20 years? >> well you know -- >> we are pretty much, knowing what we know today, we are intentionally causing harm to the lives of others, and there is a big problem with that. of course, in the name of a great american sport, and i see brett nodding while you were discussing the nature of these head injuries. brett, i would like to play just

this short clip from the documentary "shocked" that you executive produced and that you are in and has just been released. >> a guy just kind of bumped into me, harmlessly, no big deal, and as i'm falling to the turf the side of my head hits the turf and lights were out and my next memory is my trainer was shaking me and i just remember snoring, and i kind of came to and i said hey, was i snoring? we had a concussion and it started like, kind of, like, what just happened here and said you were out about ten, 20 seconds. >> brett, it's really dramatic and that was the last play of your career and that was when you knew that you had suffered a concussion. take us back to that day. it was a cold, very cold day,

and we played at the university of minnesota because the metrodome had collapsed and so it was extremely cold, the field was icy. it was very hard, and i was closing in on 41 years old as i was standing on the sidelines, i thought, you know, if there was ever writing on the wall, this is it. again, concussions are never -- there's never a good time to have them, but at 40 years old, if i question whether or not i should come back and play, at that point right then and there i knew it was time to leave the game because concussions just started, and they had just implemented a new protocol or the only protocol for a concussion in the nfl and so the

talk just kind of started heating up and so i knew that this was not a good thing. >> can you describe for me your symptoms? have they got worse since then over the last eight years and does it make you afraid? >> i am afraid of not only my future, but of other players like dr. omalu said, intentionally playing the game, knowing that the repercussions could be life-threatening. so i have -- and in that documentary, i spoke about my three grandsons. i have one who is eight, three and a newborn, and they have not decided yet, at least the 8-year-old has not decided to play football. i'm not going to encourage him to play football. i'm not saying i would discourage him, but i would be cringing every time i saw my

grandson get tackled because i know physically what's at stake. i'm able to function the way i so choose at least up to this point. i stay active, but you know, again, i refer to dr. omalu and what he has talked about in depth. tomorrow may be totally different and tomorrow i may not remember who i am. i may not know where i live, and that's a frightening thing for us football players. >> right. >> dr. omalu, i see you reacting to that. you discovered cte. you discovered this chronic, traumatic injury to the brain in 2002 when a hall of famer essentially arrived on your autopsy table. take us back to that moment. >> yes, please, christiane. thank you so much. i'm becoming emotional because

this was similar to mike webster. mike webster after retirement office this downward spiral, but nobody understood him. in fact, he was sort of victimized and ridiculed. so my autopsy table i'm a physician and i practice my faith and my science and my science and my faith, and i saw mike webster as i would see my brother, my father, just like brett is talking now i'm becoming emotional. this guy is a human being, and nobody had answers for mike webster and his family, and i said to mike, mike, guide me to the truth. i will do everything within my means to rehabilitate you, to vindicate you. when i opened up his skull his brain looked normal. going by my science i would have stopped there, but it was my

faith that pushed me through, kept on prodding me, bennett, keep going. you need to identify the truth to vindicate us all. this is not about concussions, this is about each and every intentional blow you receive to your head with or without a helmet. if you play these games even just for one season you have a higher risk of dying young, before the age of 42, to a violent means. you have over a 46 times increased risk of committing suicide, of suffering from psychiatric illnesses including depression, of suffering from this inhibition and becoming a drug addict, abusing alcohol, losing your intelligence, losing your memory, losing your ability to engage in complex thinking.

you are more likely to drop out of high school and not to attend college. you are less likely to keep a job as an adult, and that is why it's always been my position, knowing what we know today, there is no justifiable reason whatsoever that any child under the age of 18 should continue to play these games. >> well, obviously, it is a very controversial choice, and i want to play a little bit of the film concussion that was about you, starring will smith and is about the mike webster incident. >> the man in the middle is quite deceptively the most violent position on the field. the slaps, the punches and the forearm, it is an unremitting sub con cussive blows and the head as a weapon on every single play and every single game and every single practice from the time he was a little boy from the college man culminating in

an 18-year professional career. by my calculations, mike webster sustained more than 70,000 blows to his head. >> ask so just to point out, the graphics, cte has found in 99% of deceased nfl players' brains donated to scientific research and this is according to the journal of the american medical association. it was identified in 110 out of 111 nfl players and now the question to both of you, and let me ask you, brett, how does one make the game safer and are the ways that the nfl has responded sufficient? >> well, i think first of all, how do you make the game safer? you don't play, you know, i mean, is that going to happen? no, i think the nfl is here to stay, obviously, and that being

said, i think we have started the ball rolling, if you will, in the right direction by instituting a concussion protocol. there's, i think there's a neurologist who is at every game and if he even thinks that you have a concussion you're supposed to be removed from the game. that's better than it was years ago. i think we need to look at treatment rather than prevention because we're not going to prevent them. if you have two 300-pound guys running at full speed and they collide and the whiplash effect, one in five concussions are when your head hits the turf, there's only so much that helmets can do. so look at it from a treatment standpoint and the only other option is not to play.

>> you speak even now about helmets as sort of being a helpful device, a protective measure, but a lot of people talk about helmets being kind of a weapon, people charging each other with those helmets in the head and the other thing you talked about which not very many do talk about is that so many people are saying it's the astroturf. it's the surface that's almost as dangerous, if not more than the helmets. >> you're right. the helmet is used as a weapon and they've tried to the deter that by fines on how to properly make a tackle, but ultimately it's going to happen. the violent nature in which the game is played is want going to be right. the turf is a major issue and

it's gotten better from my first few years of play, but i think they need to look at providing a softer, underlying surface that will reduce the violence in which you impact that surface. >> dr. omalu, do you take any satisfaction, or do you see it as a learning curve when you see young boys between the ages of 6 and 12 have dropped by 20%, those people, you know, playing football. no child deserves to have his life robbed from him intentionally by just the excitement of a touchdown. we can do better. this is the 21st century. children should play in non-contact sports. the potentially dated factor,

like cigarette, alcohol, deep s sea diving. knowing what we know today, let me give you an instance, do you realize in 1957, eight years, not even eight years, 11 years before i was born, the american academy of pediatrics published a paper in the pennsylvania medical journal stating that no child under the age of 12 in america should play football, wrestling and boxing. >> so, brett, you know, the nfl obviously wants to avoid what happened with tom savage. in december the quarterback from houston returned to the field just a few minutes after convulsing from a brutal hit and then he left the game for good. so, you know, even though the nfl has instituted new protocols

do you think you're doing enough and why can't the game be chaernged to make it safer and move from football to tackle football. >> i think we all know that will never happen because the nfl is too big. there's way too much money, excitement, you name it, involved with nfl football and dr. omalu touched on it. adults can make their own choice, but we need to protect our own. i do believe there is a movement. it may take some time to eliminate tackle football, at least up to the age of 14, maybe 15. that's butty do believe that our children protect them by playing football. if everyone does it the playing

field is equal. there are holes and flaws in the protocol, obviously, and you just mentioned one where a player was thought to have had a concussion, but was allowed to go back into the game, and you know, i think there were numerous times in my career where i would have been diagnosed with a concussion in today's format, but went back into the game and never even left the game, quite frankly, and maybe was a little woozy. i had some headaches for a couple of plays and i was able to call a play and i was able to go back in and function. so no harm, no foul. there is a harm, there is a foul. >> you're backing a medical procedure as sort of a medicine that you can help mitigate the

cop stock market, it's a nasal spray that is about to get started as far as the clinical trial studies and the human trial studies and if this product works like we hope it does, this could be, i hate to say a game changer, but it would be on the side lines in playgrounds, homes anywhere where concussions could be an issue and again, if it works immediately after what you think is a concussion, you spray this nasal spray within a matter of minutes would reduce the swelling and basically control, at least the effects of a concussion and i'm not saying get you back on the field right

away, although that could be possible, but we have to go through the human trial studies first and foremost, but we hope we have something that can work as far as the treatment because to my knowledge there's nothing in treatment except for time. >> dr. omalu would you back such a mitigating subject if it worked? >> it could be inconvenient and we don't want to miss appropriate science and it is not about concussion. it is not. it's more about the seemingly awkward blows that you've received without any symptoms. by the time you suffered a concussion, the damage is done and concussion damage, nothing mild about it and you have microscopic level a concussion is a severe type of injury and

once a concussion has occurred and there is no protocol the nfl would put in place that will reverse your injury. that is a fact. so when i hear about protocols and it doesn't make any difference. the brain is 60% to 80% water and it is an organ, meaning it can't regenerate itself to create more brain cell it is. parents should know by the time your children have suffered a con cushion there, is no protocol that would kill that concussion and it is a permanent injury. people need to know that. >> i'm just going to ask you one last question, though. if you were to look into the lens and address the nfl, what would you say to them today on the eve of this super bowl and in light of the discussion we've been having? >> i think the nfl is working in

the right direction. i think there's still a long ways to go, but i think we need to focus also not as much as prevention as we do some type of treatment because we know football is here to stay and concussions are here to stay. they're not going to get any better. so i totally agree with dr. omalu and what they're saying and it's a very serious issue and once the concussion has happened, and we need to spend more money and not so much in the helmets and the prevention, but more into the treatment side of it. >> brett favre, dr. bennett omalu, thank you so much for this really, really incredible and important discussion. >> thank you so much. >> thanks for having us. >> this is how the nfl commissioner himself roger goodell responded when he was told about our interview at a pregame press conference

yesterday. >> recently brett favre was interviewed about the safety of the game and his response was you just don't play. what are the plans for the nfl to make the game safer from the youth level all of the way up to the nfl level when the hall of famers are saying don't play. >> i don't think that's exactly the interview went as i heard it, but i will tell you this, this has been a major focus for us, in trying to make our game safer at our level and all of the way through every level of football. the game of football is much safer than when i played it, but that's part of our responsibility and we take that seriously, and it's something that we'll continue to focus on. >> that is it for our program tonight. thanks for watching and good-bye from london.

katty: you're watching "beyond 100 days" on pbs. british businesses should plan for customs checks and drug makers should stock up. christian: in the event the u.k. pulls out of the european union without a deal. katty: this still isn't likely but businesses and individuals should make preparations just in case. as his legal problems multiply, donald trump has an unusual reason why he can't be impreached. president trump: i don't know how you can impeach somebody who has done a great job. i tell you what, if i ever got impeached, i think the market would crash. katty: attorney generalef