Eric Cecco
1
Eric Cecco
THE SEAHAWKS SCANDAL
Eric Cecco ()
1
Eric Cecco
I am an employee of X2 Biosystems. I am on the team of developers of the X2 Virtual Projected Sensors (VPS) that we produce for numerous teams in the National Football League (NFL). Our product is used alongside a technology engineered by another department of X2 Biosystems called the “xPatch.” These two systems work in conjunction to provide accurate real time data of any contact that the wearer experiences to any point on his or her head. We are able to detect the force of any impacts occurring on multiple areas of the head through the measurement of three axes of angular velocity as well as three axes of linear acceleration [1]. Our products have been very helpful to the safety of professional athletes. The VPS system has prevented serious head trauma over the past few seasons of football.
THE DILEMMA
I have recently been faced with a major situation that will test my ethics. This all began when I was spending a Sunday relaxing and watching football with my leukemia–stricken daughter at the hospital. The Seattle Seahawks were playing the St. Louis Rams when, in the beginning of the second quarter, James Laurinaitis, linebacker for St. Louis, hit Marshawn Lynch, running back for Seattle, with what appeared to be deliberate head to head contact. Laurinaitis struggled to get back up after the play ended and Lynch had needed assistance getting up. After being involved in a collision as intense as that appeared to be, both players were taken to the sidelines and examined for a concussion. Since each team implements the VPS system, the trainers would have examined the data collected from the xPatches that each player was wearing. The announcer reported that Laurinaitis had a concussion and would be out for at least the next three games. The announcer said that Lynch was expected back during the next week.
Sure enough, Lynch was lined up behind the quarterback on the opening drive of the game the week after. However, he was not playing as dynamically as he had been during the previous games. He seemed almost sloppy. Marshawn caused numerous false start penalties during the game and he fumbled the ball. This struck me as very odd, Marshawn almost never makes those type of mistakes. He appeared to be expressing the symptoms of a concussion. I could not believe that the trainer would play him again if the VPS system showed that the impact with Laurinaitus was high enough to warrant a concussion. I assumed that there must have been something faulty with the sensor or system.
When returning to work on Monday, I pulled up the data from Lynch’s VPS and xPatches and referenced them against the Laurinaitis’s to cross reference the data collected from each VPS. What I discovered was very surprising. The force recorded by Laurinaitis’s system was significantly higher than the force recorded by Lynch’s system. My first thought was that X2 Biosystems had simply produced a faulty VPS or xPatch. Since we are based out of Seattle, we collect each system from the Seahawks after each game, so I was able to seek out the exact system that Marshawn had used during that game. I tested the system and I found that it did register lower values than it should have. To test if it was the entire system or one of the two elements I tested each piece with a brand new counterpart. Lynch’s VPS was fine, but the xPatch was faulty. I checked the hardware on the xPatches and discovered that it had been tampered with to report a smaller force.
I took my findings to the department responsible for engineering and manufacturing the xPatches and explained what I had discovered. They claimed to have no knowledge of any sort of tampering with the devices. Just as I was exiting the department, I was approached by the Senior Director of Quality Control, Dan John. He told me that the Seahawks were paying him to tamper with the xPatches in order to keep players from being “injured” for extensive periods of time.
He explained that the Seahawks were concerned with their players’ health and safety, but that the NFL’s policies for concussions are very strict and rigorous. If a player’s VPS experiences a concussion level impact, then the player is assumed to have a concussion. The practices in place can keep a player off of the field for over two weeks and the Seahawks cannot lose a star player for that long. Before the start of the season, every player must take baseline tests to reference how their brain performs under normal circumstances. Stan Herring, a member of the NFL’s Head, Neck and Spine Committee commented, “‘The most important thing is knowing what [the player] was like before a concussion.’” Having all players complete this baseline test allows experts to test a player’s cognitive state during the recovery process. “…‘you don’t manage concussions by a calendar,’ Dr. Herring said. ‘Some guys may come back in a week. Some guys may come back in six weeks.’” After a team doctor signs off on the player’s eligibility, the player must be evaluated by, “an unaffiliated concussion expert physician approved by both the NFL and the NFL Players Association.” This is the step that the Seahawks have trouble with. If a player is diagnosed with a concussion, the expert physician tends to be very strict in his decision, as well as very slow in reaching a conclusion [3]. In the past, the Seahawks have had an athlete benched for two weeks when the team doctors had cleared him before the next game.
The Seahawks have reduced the number of concussions that are measured by these systems and thus, reduced the amount of time that any player is out with a head injury. The athletes are not played until they are showing some improvement, but the Seahawks have much more relaxed eligibility requirements. As long as a player is showing signs of improvement, the Seahawks will clear him for the coming week. The only way that they could manage their players in this manner is to keep the concussions of players a secret.
In order to keep me from reporting Dan and the Seahawks, he offered to give me half of the two-million dollars that the owner of the Seahawks was paying him to produce faulty xPatches.
CODES OF ETHICS
The first thing that came into my mind when Dan John offered me one million dollars for my silence was my ill daughter. That money would allow me to provide my daughter with the absolute best treatment available in order to try to save her life. On the other hand, that would mean that I am knowingly putting people in danger. Any action that an engineer takes, or fails to take, that will endanger anyone is a direct breach of the National Society of Professional Engineers’ (NSPE) Code of Ethics. Section II.1 reads “Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public,” [2]. I would be breaking the first and most important ordinance that all engineers are held responsible to. The members of the Seahawks football team are not notified of this deal that the owner has with Dan John, so when they return to the games, they believe that they are indeed healthy enough to play. This is not the case with Lynch. His concussion was surely more serious than reported by the Seahawks. And his early return could cause a much more serious medical emergency if he were to be reinjured.
Joining John in this venture would also violate section II.1.e which states, “Engineers shall not aid or abet the unlawful practice of engineering by a person or firm.” Dan John is illegally tampering with the property of X2 Biosystems out of greed. The NSPE code of ethics also states in section III.1, “a. Engineers shall acknowledge their errors and shall not distort or alter the facts… e. Engineers shall not promote their own interest at the expense of the dignity and integrity of the profession,” [2]. Knowingly allowing the xPatches to be tampered with for a selfish reason is another direct violation of the NSPE code of ethics. I would be putting lives in danger in order to try to help my daughter.
As a Bioengineer, I also need to comply with the Biomedical Engineering Society’s (BMES) code of ethics. A section of this code titled “Biomedical Engineering Professional Obligations” reads, “1. Use their knowledge, skills, and abilities to enhance the safety, health, and welfare of the public. 2. Strive by action, example, and influence to increase the competence, prestige, and honor of the biomedical engineering profession,” [4]. These are the codes of ethics that I have tried to always uphold, but in this current situation, I am not sure if I will be able to carry them out.
This would also be a major violation of the new NFL personal conduct policy. In 2010, the NFL revamped the personal conduct policy and set stricter ethical guidelines that the players, coaches, staff, owners, and all others involved with the league. One of the main points of this code of conduct is that anyone affiliated with the NFL must, “refrain from conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in the NFL… Conduct by anyone in the league that is illegal, violent, dangerous, or irresponsible puts innocent victims at risk, damages the reputation of others in the game…” A team that is knowingly allowing players that may not be fully recovered to play in a contact sport definitely breaches this code of conduct [9].
Within the world of sports medicine, there is an ethical conflict of interest between the team’s own physicians. Players hire personal physicians that monitor and advise players on their own personal health, as opposed to team physicians that, “take care of the ‘team’s health’ and ensure that the athletes are fit to compete.” This is interesting because it shows that members of the team staff are more interested in keeping the team running well, than individuals running to their full potential. This in itself causes an ethical argument within the International Federation of Sports Medicine (FIMS) Code of Ethics, which states that the sports medicine physician has the responsibility to determine if and when an injured athlete is healed and may return to play. If a team physician waits only until a player is recovered enough to be healthy enough to play at an average level, this seems like an ethical violation. The correct course of action would be to wait until the player is fully recuperated [8]. If the Seahawks are already violating this basic code of ethics, why should I strive to uphold my own?
CASE STUDIES
This is not the first time that there has been an ethical dilemma involving concussions in sports. In order to assist me with my current situation, I am reviewing other cases of similar situations.
One case that I studied was on the topic of what or who diagnosed a concussion during a game. In this case a woman named Rosemary was watching her son, Jack, start in his first professional football game when Jack “appears to receive an accidental elbow to the side of the head. He immediately falls face-first onto the ground and lies still in a prone position for several seconds.” Rosemary watches as a “sports medicine professional” (SMP) runs over to Jack as he beginning to sit up. The SMP is attempting to assess Jack’s condition, but is met with resistance. Jack has no interest in someone telling him that he will have to sit out of almost the entirety of his first professional football game. Rosemary also makes the point that, “[Jack] probably didn’t even give the SMP a chance to see if he was concussed.” She knows that it has been her son’s lifelong dream to play professional football and he will do anything to keep it from being taken away from him. This study is focused on how professional football players react to being injured [5]. As shown through Jack, these elite athletes do not take kindly to injuries. This makes me think that siding with Dan John and continuing to produce these faulty xPatches may be a decision that players would agree with. They would benefit from being able to shorten injuries and get back to playing the sport that they love dearly. But on the other hand, these players do not know that this is happening which is a serious violation of trust.
A team of researchers at Drexel University College of Medicine set out to test the hypothesis that, “On-field performance is different in players who return within 7 days after concussion compared with players who miss at least 1 game.” They tested this by studying a number of 124 of the 131 concussions of athletes in the NFL from 2008 to 2012. Upon the completion of their study, they found that 55% of players studied missed no games. The study also showed that the players who were younger and less experienced were typically the players to miss one or more games. The study also concluded that, “No difference in player performance after concussion was found whether the player did or did not miss games before return. Return without missing games may be associated with experience and timing of injury within a season and less likely after [2009] guidelines,” [6]. This study tells me that is not uncommon for players to miss only a single game with a concussion. And since Marshawn Lynch is indeed an experienced player, he would seem to be a candidate for return without missing a game. His seemingly sluggish performance in the week after the game where he collided with Laurinaitis may have occurred to some unknown factor. Before 2009, he undoubtedly would have been able to play the next game with no problem or suspicion.
Grant Iverson performed a study comparing the difference between Simple versus Complex Concussions and the early diagnosis (under three days) of each. He defines a simple concussion as a concussion that can be recovered from in under ten days, and a complex concussion as one that will take ten or more days to recover from. Iverson administered an online ImPACT test, a “brief computer-admiinistered neuropsychological test battery that consists of 6 individual test modules that measure multiple aspects of cognitive function, including attention, memory, working memory, visual scanning, reaction time, and processing speed,” to 114 concussed athletes. Out of the 114 athletes studied, 55 were found to have simple concussions and 59 had complex concussions. However the difference was not discovered within the first 72 hours. There was little to no difference noticeable until days into the recovery process [7]. This makes me wonder if the Seahawks are concerned with their player’s wellbeing, do to seemingly conflicting evidence. The Seahawks claim to ensure that their players are healthy before they allow them to play again, the reason they need the dumbed down xPatches is simply to avoid being held up with rules and regulations of the NFL. But after reading what Iverson wrote, the Seahawks could simply test all players within three days of the concussion and diagnose them with a Simple Concussion, rather than a Complex Concussion. Testing for this difference within the first three days serves no purpose. Each type of concussion will yield similar test results early in the recovery process.
MAKING A DECISION
After reviewing all of these materials and assessing the various codes of ethics that, as an engineer, I am mandated to uphold, I still was unsure of what I was going to do. I contacted my mother, Rita, and talked to her about my situation. My mother has always been a truthful woman, and I have always respected her for that. She advised me that lying and cheating are morally and ethically wrong in all situations, and it is always better to be honest and not overlook wrongdoings. I brought up my daughter and she began to see how this is a very tricky problem. I tried to explain to her that taking the money from Dan John would be a decision made not of greed, but of necessity. The money could save my daughter’s life. She still urged me to expose the Seahawks for their misconduct, and that my daughter’s situation would find a way to work itself out.
Speaking with her did not completely make my decision for me, but talking with my former Pastor, Fr. Rich, did. We spoke for a long time, and I reached the conclusion that I had to turn the Seahawks into the NFL. He urged me to think about the possible injuries that could ensue in many players in the future if I chose to accept the money. I could be the cause of the permanent brain damage or even death of professional athletes. He also urged me to think about why I became a Bioengineer in the first place. This point made me realize that I entered this field to help better the lives of people, not to accept a bribe that could result in the death of professional athletes.
REFERENCES
[1] T. Soper. (06-05-2014). “X2 Biosystems Raising $9.5M, Partners With Major League Soccer for Concussion Software.” GeekWire. (Online Article).