Most readers probably don’t know who Armond Armstead is, and that’s part of what makes his story so interesting. Armstead was a highly-touted defensive lineman at USC, beginning in 2008. During the 2010 season, Armstead injured his shoulder. In the subsequent treatment of this shoulder injury, USC team doctor James Tibone administered Toradol, a powerful pain killer. Armstead continued to play during the 2010 season, but his shoulder still hurt, which of course resulted in more Toradol injections. In March of 2011, Armstead had a heart attack, which pretty much ended his football career. He couldn’t gain medical clearance to play at USC in 2011, and then went undrafted in the NFL due to medical concerns. He spent one season playing in the Canadian Football League in order to prove he was healthy enough to return, but it appears that he is still suffering lingering affects from that 2011 heart attack. He has now officially retired. Like I said, you probably didn’t know the name.
So here’s the interesting part. He sued USC over this. Turns out Toradol can cause heart attacks. The FDA warning says so right on the box. Of course, just because it can cause heart attacks doesn’t tell us if it did cause one in this particular case, which is what a lot of Armstead’s lawsuit hinges upon. In USC’s defense, the school believes that Armstead’s heart problems were caused by an underlying congenital heart condition, which was undiagnosed at the time. Armstead claims that he was not warned of the dangers of Toradol, and that he was also given too many doses at too short of intervals. I’m not here to take a side. But I do want to point out some crazy testimony that came up during this lawsuit.
According to documents obtained by Vice Sports (read the entire piece by Aaron Gordon here), USC team doctor James Tibone had this to say:
In his deposition, Tibone said he didn’t “agree with” FDA warnings about Toradol’s cardiovascular risks. He did not provide supporting evidence for his position, admitting that before and during the period he gave the drug to Armstead and other USC players he: (a) conducted no research or surveys on Toradol’s adverse effects; (b) read no peer-reviewed journal articles on the matter prior to Armstead’s heart attack; (c) did not investigate the drug beyond talking to NFL trainers he knew and having a brief, informal conversation with a friend who is a cardiovascular surgeon.
That stinks, right? There’s no way that a team doctor (or any doctor) should have the latitude to pick and choose which FDA warnings to follow and which to ignore. I should note that I wasn’t in that courtroom, so I’m just going off of widely-reported excerpts here.
I bring this all up because Amstead’s case against USC reached an undisclosed settlement on April 1. We’ll never know the details on how much Armstead received. According to this piece by the Washington Post’s Matt Bonesteel…. Okay wait a sec. Awesome name. So many career paths he could have taken with that name, and I’m not sure reporter was really the best option. Anyway, according to Bonesteel, former general manager of the St. Louis Rams, Charles Armey testified that Armstead could’ve been the next J.J. Watt. Big words, and no way to prove them, of course. But it’s conceivable that Amrstead might have received a settlement comparable to the rookie contract of other defensive linemen taken in the early rounds of the 2012 NFL draft.
What I loved here though was USC’s statement. After reaching a settlement, the school said the following:
While the university will not comment on the case, USC has always placed the health and safety of its student-athletes as its top priority.
It’s not just me, right? That statement directly contradicts the previous quote that I gave from the USC team doctor! If the health and safety of USC’s student-athletes were indeed its top priority, then shouldn’t they be more concerned with their own doctor’s admission that he chooses not to follow FDA guidelines when he doesn’t agree with them? As of now, Dr. James Tibone is still the USC football team doctor. Curious to see if that changes soon.
