To Crunch the Punch

It's hard to imagine a pediatrician advocating child abuse or a cardiologistrecommending an all-bacon diet. So it's no surprise that many neurologists favor banning the one sport—boxing—where the object is essentially to pummel your opponent's skull.

"Blows to the head damage the brain," says George D. Lundberg, M.D. "That'a al, predictable, and unarguable." And it's why the American Medical Association—and its counterparts in 36 other countries--have called for the sport to be banned.

Since there's little hope that professional boxing will voluntarily close shop or that the government will outlaw the sport, Lundberg is pursuing another strategy. He hopes to knock out the supply of amateur fighters that keeps the sport thriving. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, which he edits, Lundberg called on the U.S. Olympic Committee not to send American boxers to the 1996 games. He also asked the armed forces to stop sponsoring fights between military personnel.

Boxing, says Lundberg, poses a two-pronged threat to a fighter's brain. The immediate danger is that a cranial vein will tear. With no means of escaping the skull, blood from a severed vessel presses fragile neurons against solid bone, causing severe injury or death.

More insidious, though, is the damage that mounts, blow by blow, over a boxer's career. By his 25th fight, irreversible neurological damage may show up on psychological tests and brain scans. Eventually, atrophy occurs and the fighter's brain may lose several ounces of tissue.

Boxing, of course, is by no means the only sport that imperils the brain. Concussions are common in football, and soccer players who repeatedly head fast-moving balls risk brain injury as well. And freak accidents can occur even in an innocuous sport like billiards: One player's brain was pierced by a pool cue that entered his skull through his eye.

But these sports, argues Lundberg, are philosophically different from boxing, where giving your opponent a "concussion is desirable. It's how you win." And that, he says, is "not only medically wrong, but morally abhorrent."

Because amateur boxing has instituted several safeguards, including shorter rounds and better medical supervision, some experts feel that amateurs fighters face lit-fie serious risk. But their skulls still absorb thousands of jolting blows, says Lundberg, and "a brain doesn't know whether the fighter whose fist hits it was paid."