Former NFL all-star quarterback Brett Favre has Parkinson’s : NPR

Brett Favre, the Corridor of Fame quarterback who led the Inexperienced Bay Packers to a Tremendous Bowl victory in 1997, revealed throughout Congressional testimony Tuesday that he has Parkinson’s illness.

Favre, who’s 54, shared his prognosis in an look earlier than the U.S. Home Methods and Means Committee on Tuesday in a listening to about welfare accountability and reform.

Since 2020, Favre has been embroiled in controversy over the misuse of public welfare funds in Mississippi, his house state, the place audits revealed that public cash meant for needy households was used to pay Favre and to fund initiatives he favored, together with the development of a volleyball facility on the College of Southern Mississippi, the place his daughter was a participant.

One other of these initiatives was funding in a pharmaceutical firm referred to as Prevacus that had claimed to be growing a concussion therapy drug.

I assumed it might assist others,” he stated Tuesday through the listening to. “It was too late for me as a result of I’ve just lately been identified with Parkinson’s.”

Favre has stated that he was not conscious the funds had been meant for welfare. He has by no means been criminally charged in reference to the controversy, and he has filed a defamation lawsuit towards Mississippi state officers over the case.

Parkinson’s illness is a nervous system dysfunction that may trigger tremors, motion and steadiness points and issues with speech. There is no such thing as a remedy, and signs sometimes worsen over time.

Parkinson’s and different mind issues, like dementia, are related to a historical past of concussions. So too is the degenerative mind illness CTE — persistent traumatic encephalopathy — which has been posthumously identified in a whole lot of NFL gamers whose brains had been donated to researchers for examination.

In a 2018 interview on the In the present day present, Favre stated he had been identified with “three or 4” concussions in his NFL profession, which lasted from 1991 to 2010.

However he added that, as concussion analysis had superior within the years since his retirement, he had come to know he had probably sustained many greater than that.

When you’ve ringing of the ears, seeing stars — that is a concussion. And if that could be a concussion, I’ve had a whole lot, in all probability 1000’s, all through my profession, which is scary,” he stated then.