Head of the International Red Cross Federation's Influenza team, Robert Kaufman, says the impact of a novel virus on a community without immunity is not just about the number of illnesses and deaths.
VOA: standard.2009.09.04
In many instances the headimpact doses and head injury risks while wearing vintage leatherheads were comparable to or better than those while wearing several widely used 21st century varsity helmets.
Reebok and mc10 have collaborated to create CheckLight, a headimpact indicator meant to make it easy to see when an athlete has taken a dangerous blow to the head.
Ridell started experimenting with them back in 2006 or so (See this article from MIT Technology Review) and a New Hampshire company called Simbex sells something called the HeadImpact Telemetry system (HIT system get it, get it?) which would allow the NFL to start in right away.