Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre said during a congressional hearing on Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
Favre said at the hearing on welfare accountability that he lost his investment in a company he believed was developing a breakthrough concussion drug.
“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.
Favre played 20 seasons in the NFL, with most of his career spent with the Green Bay Packers, with whom he won the Super Bowl in 1997. The 54-year-old, who retired from football after the 2010 season, has said he may have suffered more than 1,000 concussions during his playing career.
“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.”
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 CTE. 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.
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.
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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.