World Medical Association: Boxing is a 'very bad idea'

Boxing is a "very bad idea" from a medical standpoint, the World Medical Association has said.

Following the death of 25-year-old boxer Mike Towell, Dr Otmar Kloiber, the WMA's secretary general, said medical studies show boxing is producing or can produce "serious harm".

"It is very clear that the ongoing concussions you get from that damage to the brain all the time alters brain function and can also lead to immediately serious conditions," Dr Kloiber said.

"These can lead to a rupture in the brain or a haematoma in the brain, which then can endanger the life of the sportsperson directly."

Dr Kloiber said there are two main types of injuries with trauma to the head - the first being a knock or hit which results in small bleedings around or in the brain that develop over time.

"That may take hours [to develop]," he said. "What then happens is that the pressure within the skull is building up and compresses the brain down to the brain stem, which finally kills you."

Dr Kloiber said the other problem is the "chronic impact".

"If there is no immediate damage the next day or immediately, by hitting your head time after time after time, it has been shown there are alterations in the brain," he said.

"We are more and more aware that this is silently going on and producing damage to the brain."

The WMA, along with the British Medical Association, has for several years called for boxing to be banned on the grounds that it is a "dangerous sport".

Veteran Labour MP Paul Flynn, who joined the shadow cabinet this year, called for blows to the head to be banned through a private member's bill in 1998 and again in 2005 - both of which failed.

The shadow House of Commons leader said although there are many dangers in sports, the "worst example is boxing".

"The whole purpose of the sport is to render the opponent unconscious," he said.