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HEALTH & SCIENCEAMA pulls no punches, reiterates boxing banRingside physicians were denied endorsement for their efforts to make the sport safer.By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. July 8/15, 2002. Is boxing just another hazardous sport like football or hang gliding that needs to be made safer? Or, is it a form of violent entertainment with no redeeming qualities? For physicians, the debate becomes whether caring for a boxer during and after a bout is akin to standing by as a death sentence is administered to a convicted criminal or whether, instead, it is the same as caring for any patient with an injury that results from an unhealthy lifestyle choice. These are some of the issues the American Medical Association wrestled with at its Annual Meeting in Chicago last month. The organization considered a policy that would endorse the American Assn. of Professional Ringside Physicians, an organization of doctors working in the sport of boxing. The proposal ultimately failed, primarily because the AMA has a long-standing position calling for the sport to be banned. "There is absolutely no way you can make boxing safe," said Nelson Richards, MD, a delegate from the American Academy of Neurology who proposed the original resolution to ban the sport in 1983. The AMA has no formal ties with the Ringside Physicians Assn., and there were many questions about how effective the organization really could be in making the sport safer. "I don't know if we can support an organization over which we have no control," said Stephen L. Hansen, MD, an internist and California delegate from San Luis Obispo. "Also, the doctor doesn't have the control to stop the fight, and the referees may not realize when someone is in trouble." [...] Full text of AMNews content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2002 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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