New details have emerged about Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre’s Parkinson’s diagnosis.
Favre revealed he had the condition during a congressional hearing on Tuesday. He spoke about the diagnosis with TMZ Sports in August, but asked the outlet not to publish it at the time. Favre gave TMZ permission to publish the story on Wednesday, once the diagnosis was public.
The 54-year-old said that he had consulted with five doctors before being given the diagnosis in January after noticing symptoms.
“[The doctors] all said the same thing, if it’s not in your family, and there’s none on either side of my family, then the first thing we looked at is head trauma,” Favre told TMZ. “Well, hell, I wrote the book on head trauma.”
He said he had first become concerned when he struggled to get his throwing arm through the sleeve of a jacket. “I felt my arm, the strength was there, but I could not guide it,” he said. “And it was the most frustrating thing so those two really kind of, eventually, I was like, you know I’m just gonna get it checked.”
New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who was Favre’s backup at the Green Bay Packers before succeeding him as starter, said he was saddened by news of the diagnosis.
“I feel bad for him and [his wife] Deanna, but it’s unfortunately part of our game. That’s part of the risk of playing, and we all in the back of our mind know that that could be a reality at some point,” Rodgers said on Wednesday. “We just kind of hope medicine at some point can catch up and either make the symptoms easier or eradicate some of these issues that we have.”
Favre said he may have had more than 1,000 concussions during his football career, which included 20 seasons in the NFL.
“When you have ringing of the ears, seeing stars, that’s a concussion,” Favre told the Today show in 2018. “And if that is a concussion, I’ve had hundreds, maybe thousands, throughout my career, which is frightening.”
Favre was known for his fearless play during a career in which he threw 508 touchdown passes and won the Super Bowl with the Packers in 1997.
Parkinson’s, a degenerative neurological disease that affects movement and can cause tremors, speech problems and poor balance, is linked with concussions. According to a study published in Family Medicine and Community Health Journal in 2020, a single concussion can increase the chances of Parkinson’s by 57%. Concussions are also linked to other conditions such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE, which can only be definitively diagnosed at autopsy, is a neurodegenerative condition linked to repeated head traumas. Symptoms experienced during life include cognitive impairment, impulsive behaviour, depression, suicidal thoughts, short-term memory loss and emotional instability.
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Favre is one of several defendants named in a civil suit by Mississippi’s Department of Human Services in 2022, alleging the misuse of welfare funds earmarked for the state’s neediest families in the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF). He has never been accused of crimes related to the funds.
“The challenges my family and I have faced over the last three years – because certain government officials in Mississippi failed to protect federal TANF funds from fraud and abuse, and are unjustifiably trying to blame me, those challenges have hurt my good name and are worse than anything I faced in football,” Favre said at Tuesday’s hearing, where Republicans advocated reform of the federal welfare system to better prevent fraud.
Favre has said he didn’t know the payments he received came from welfare funds and has noted his charity had provided millions of dollars to children from poor families in his home state of Mississippi and in Wisconsin, where he played with the Packers.
He also said he had lost an investment in a company he believed was making a drug that could help with the treatment of concussions.
“While it’s too late for me – because I’ve recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s – this is also a cause dear to my heart,” he said.
