Nevada should put safety first in boxing

Sunday, April 2, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

Editor's note: The writer, a board-certified neurosurgeon, is a former lieutenant governor of Nevada.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission is expected to receive a report soon, possibly as early as this week, on a six-month study it commissioned to get recommendations on ways to increase safety for boxers. The death of two boxers in 2005 in Nevada led to this study. Even in boxers who have not died from injuries, blood clots in the head - called subdurals - and bruising in the brain have been seen on diagnostic imaging.

Although I have not been a ringside physician who attends fights and examines the boxers before and after fights, I have been in practice in Las Vegas for more than 34 years on trauma call and have seen dozens of boxers with acute blood clots or chronic brain injuries. I have operated on five boxers for blood clots in the head sustained during boxing, and 20 years ago, Howard Cosell, the American Medical Association and I testified before the U.S. Congress to establish federal safety standards. No federal policies were adopted then, however, and as recently as 2005 Congress decided not to pass Sen. John McCain's bill for federal laws controlling boxing.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission, I believe, sincerely wishes to improve boxing safety. Last year the commission created the Advisory Committee on Boxer Health and Safety, which is scheduled to issue a report this month. The commission has acted responsibly in permanently suspending state boxing licenses of Leopoldo Gonzales, William Abelyan and Joe Mesi when tests showed bleeding in the brain. All the tests, training regulations and physicians' exams, however, do not decrease the head traumas in the ring.

Boxers typically wear headgear while sparring. But as a story in the Oct. 23 Sun noted, Assemblyman Harvey Munford, a member of the commission's Advisory Committee on Boxer Health and Safety, said that "few favor requiring pros to wear headgear as amateurs must do." He also stated: "Some boxers told me headgear would take away from boxing because what attracts the fans is the blows upside the head." The boxing community may not be ready to accept headgear.

I strongly believe that using heavier gloves, such as those used to prevent injuries during sparring, will decrease both acute head injury and the long-term disability from repeated blows to the head obvious in the punch-drunk fighter syndrome called Dementia Pugilistica. This change would cost nothing, can be instantly implemented, decreases the chance of death and reduces the expense of long-term brain injury.

I challenge the members of the Nevada State Athletic Commission to implement a rule change now so that boxers use sparring-size gloves for all boxing matches. This solution, a common-sense approach backed by trainers and referee Joe Cortez, would decrease the direct trauma to the brain.

I feel our gladiators take enough risks for our entertainment. Nevada should lead the nation in prevention of boxing injuries.