Brett Favre Reveals Parkinson's Diagnosis At House Hearing
by Mary Whitfill Roeloffs · ForbesTopline
Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre on Tuesday revealed he's been diagnosed with the degenerative nervous system disease Parkinson's, making the announcement while testifying before the House of Representatives.
Key Facts
Favre, who played in the NFL for 20 seasons, told the House Ways and Means Committee he recently received the diagnosis for the disease, which causes nerve cells in the brain to slowly die and ultimately results in mental and physical decline.
The former Green Bay Packers player made the announcement while discussing a company he’d invested in—Prevacus—that was working to develop a drug to treat concussions he said he’d hope would help others because it was “too late for me,” implying the concussions he obtained during his sports career could be linked to the diagnosis.
Favre, 57, previously said he'd been formally diagnosed with three or four concussions in his career, but he believed it possible he'd had hundreds or thousands go unnoticed.
A study published in the “Family Medicine and Community Health” journal in 2020 found that suffering even a single concussion upped a person's likelihood of later being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease by 57%, though it is unclear exactly what led to the development of Favre’s disease.
Parkinson's is the second most common age-related degenerative brain disease, according to the Cleveland Clinic, impacting between 1% and 2% of all people over the age of 60.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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Key Background
Favre was testifying Tuesday over his link to a Mississippi welfare scandal involving roughly $77 million in state funds being misappropriated between 2017 and 2020. A lawsuit filed by the state of Mississippi in May of 2022 accuses more than three dozen people and organizations, including Favre, of benefiting from the misspending of millions of dollars from the federal welfare program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, that was meant to help the poor and needy. Favre specifically is accused of being paid $1.1 million for appearances and speeches he did not make; of lobbying for $5 million in welfare funds to be spent building a new volleyball facility at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter played the sport; and of orchestrating more than $2 million in government funds being given to Prevacus, the biotechnology startup in which he had invested. Attorneys for Favre have said he didn't know the money he was lobbying for would come from welfare funds. Favre has not been charged criminally and has repaid the state $1.1 million, though the state auditor claims he still owes $228,000 in interest.
Contra
At the hearing Tuesday, Favre reportedly said he was being scapegoated by state officials who "failed to protect federal TANF funds from fraud and abuse." He said he didn't know what TANF was before the scandal broke open and that his inclusion in the state's lawsuit was an attempt by the state's auditor, Shad White, "to varnish my reputation to try to advance his own political career."
Crucial Quote
"I wanted to help my alma mater and benefit the community," Favre testified, according to ABC News. "I had no way of knowing that there was anything wrong with how the state funded the project, especially since it was publicly approved by many state agencies and multiple attorneys, including the attorney general."