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The GIST
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During public testimony before the Senate, RFK Jr. committed to prioritizing long-term COVID research, not just any long-term COVID research. When Senator Young noted that so much RECOVER funding was going to “observational research” and asked Kennedy if he would prioritize funding for treatment trials and research that would produce biomarkers, Kennedy said, “Absolutely, Senator, with enthusiasm.”
Years of work would have been wasted.
“Burning Dollars”
Two days ago, #MEAction reported that the DHHS stopped all funding for the $45 million for long-COVID RECOVER grants devoted to finding biomarkers, producing biological diagnostic criteria, and uncovering insights that could lead to treatments. All that RECOVER had left were the observational studies and some treatment trials.
The studies were on their last legs with only data analysis to do, and the papers left to write. Unless something really strange happens, such as fraud or misuse of funds—neither of which the Trump administration alleges—researchers are typically guaranteed funding throughout the life of the grant. Research grants are not contracts, though, and while grantees can appeal, the wording of the notice made it clear that any appeals will not be successful.
With the studies almost complete, the Trump administration gained little by cutting off its funding. It did, though, leave tens of millions of dollars on the table for studies that would have helped understand long COVID—and possibly, ME/CFS and other post-infectious diseases as well.
Meghan Fitzgerald, a researcher and person with long COVID, told C&EN, “It’s crazy to cut off a study at this point. I know there’s pushback, saying we need to have more fiscal responsibility. But this is the opposite of fiscal responsibility. You’re just burning dollars here.”
THE GIST
- During his Senate hearing, RFK Jr. promised he would “enthusiastically” support more efforts to understand the physiology undergirding long-term COVID-19.
- A couple of days ago, the Department of Health and Human Services that Kennedy leads sent notices to almost four dozen RECOVER-funded researchers informing them their grants—the only ones specifically designed to understand long-term COVID-19 pathophysiology – had been canceled because they did not fit the priorities of the Trump administration.
- Because this came as the researchers were in the last stages of completing their grants, the cancellations nullified years of work and tens of millions of dollars spent. Then, yesterday, the C&EN website stated that the grant cancellations had suddenly been canceled – and the grants were back on! The Long COVID Advocacy Group reported that the efforts of several senators paid off.
- Last week, the Trump administration closed the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice (OLC), which had effectively coordinated long-COVID efforts across the government. The Long COVID Advocacy Group stated, “The team was deeply empathetic, mission-driven, and understood the urgency of the crisis we are living through. It was the first and only government entity with the ability to … finally treat Long COVID like the systemic, multisector challenge it is…We had many efforts underway and ready to launch…That’s all gone now.”
- A DHHS spokesperson’s response suggests the Trump administration does not believe long COVID is a chronic disease or, indeed, is real. She stated, “HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again. The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”
- Three weeks ago, Ian Lipkin’s NIH-funded Center for Solutions for ME/CFS got caught in the crossfire when the Trump administration, accusing Columbia University of anti-Semitic actions, abruptly yanked $400 million in mostly medical funding from the University.
- Columbia agreed to overhaul its policies, but the Trump administration has yet to restore full funding. Yesterday, Fierce Biotech reported that Ian Lipkin’s ME/CFS Center was laying off staff at a time when Lipkin asserted that “we’ve begun to see light at the end of the tunnel” and was even in talks “with several biotechs, as well as the broader NIH-supported ME/CFS research network, to discuss working together on potential clinical trials”.
- Neither the two National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) grants for post-infectious diseases, including long COVID and ME/CFS, nor a separate grant package for ME/CFS that was scheduled to be announced in December, have shown up.
- On March 25th, the Trump administration has stopped funding $577 million of studies by the Antiviral Drug Discovery Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern (AViDD) that produce vaccines and antivirals for the coronavirus and a host of other viruses (paramyxoviruses, bunyaviruses, togaviruses, filoviruses, picornaviruses, and flaviviruses) and prepare for the next pandemic.
- At least two of the eight federally funded Serological Sciences Centers of Excellence that tracked immune responses to the virus in COVID-19 and long-term COVID patients were also terminated.
- With one hand of the Trump administration not aware of what the other hand is doing – and battles taking place within the administration about which course to take – only time will tell what ultimately happens to long COVID, ME/CFS, and post-infectious diseases at the NIH.
- There was hope that an NIH reorganization would help diseases like ME/CFS and long COVID-19, but that now looks dim with political views now guiding research funding. All NIH funding initiatives will now have to pass muster with one DOGE and one DHHS employee. The Trump administration’s actions suggest that many topics (long COVID, antivirals, pathogen research, vaccines) will not be rejected.
- A few months have brought remarkable change. Last year, Director Bertagnolli was excited about making a difference with long-COVID research, the RECOVER Initiative had received an infusion of $500 million, the federal long-COVID office was apparently clicking on all cylinders, efforts to create a billion-dollar-a-year post-infectious disease moonshot and a new Center for post-infectious diseases were underway, and post-infectious disease and ME/CFS grant packages were on the docket.
- All that seems like it’s at risk now. The NIH workforce is being cut, its funding is under attack, long COVID is fighting for its life, pathogen, antiviral and vaccine research is being nixed, billions of dollars of NIH grants are still being held up, and somehow, one DOGE and one DHHS employee are going to determine the fate of all NIH initiatives.
- If you feel these actions will not support ME/CFS, long-COVID, and post-infectious disease research, you can take action by calling your congressional officials to tell them to keep long-COVID and ME/CFS research funding, and push back against DOGE employees deciding the fate of NIH funding initiatives, etc. Medical research has traditionally been a bipartisan issue, and contacting our representatives, particularly those in the House, where the margins are razor thin, can help. Check out #MEAction’s Long COVID Campaign’s toolkit here.
Grants Restored? (or, Is This Any Way to Run the NIH?)
Yesterday, C&EN reported that the RECOVER grants appear to have been restored. They’re the only news outlet to do so. Still, let’s breathe a big sigh of relief and then wonder a bit at what the heck is going on in the Trump administration. In truth, it hasn’t been uncommon to find different parts of the Trump administration at odds with each other, but this swing of events – from outright cancellation to reinstatement within a few days – was remarkable, even for it. Not surprisingly, neither the NIH nor the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) felt compelled to explain how the sausage got made in this case.
The Long COVID Campaign told C&EN yesterday that several senators, particularly those on the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) (Senators Young and Kaine), HELP Chair Cassidy, and Ranking Member Sanders worked to preserve the grants. Furthermore, they stated that “HHS Secretary Kennedy and NIH Director Bhattacharya’s action today on RECOVER research funding will make a powerful difference for the over 17 million Americans with Long COVID, especially pediatric patients.”
All we know is that some faction that was out to get long COVID got squashed in the process, and that’s good news for long COVID moving forward. Not that everything is hunky dory, though.
Trump Administration Closes Office of Long COVID Research
The Trump administration whacked another long-COVID effort.
On March 25th, the Scientific American reported that “on orders of the Trump administration, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is shutting down The Office of Long COVID Research and Practice (OLC).” The Office coordinated long-COVID activities across the DHHS and was apparently quite effective.
The Long COVID Advocacy Project wrote:
“The Office was our strongest ally. The team was deeply empathetic, mission-driven, and understood the urgency of the crisis we are living through. It was the first and only government entity with the ability to unify all HHS agencies—to ensure efforts weren’t duplicated or contradictory, to establish true coordination, and to finally treat Long COVID like the systemic, multisector challenge it is. For the first time, we had many efforts underway and ready to launch, and the infrastructure to act as one country. That’s all gone now.”
Prominent long COVID researcher, Ziyad Al-Aly, stated:
“The intent of the office was to really catalyze progress and realize efficiencies. Undoing it risks undoing a lot of the work, delaying a lot of progress, and [it] really is a disservice today to the more than 20 million Americans who are suffering from long COVID.”
Other Long-COVID Cuts
As Health Rising reported earlier, the Trump administration also terminated the (unpaid) Advisory Committee on Long COVID-19, removed long-COVID information from federal disability websites, and removed data related to long COVID-19 from the CDC’s website.
Animus, Not Efficiency, Appears to be Driving Long-COVID Cuts
It was hard to find anything efficient about axing a study as it’s entering its last legs. Nor does it seem to be efficient to close an Office whose sole purpose was to make long-COVID support at the federal level more effective. How ending an unpaid long-COVID advisory panel helps American taxpayers is a mystery. Lastly, removing information on long-COVID disability from a federal website or removing long-COVID information from a CDC database is hardly going to help the federal government save money.
The only thing that can explain all of this appears to be an animus that at least some people in the Trump administration feel towards long COVID. Take HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard’s heated statement regarding the long-COVID cuts…
“HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”
suggesting that the Trump administration does not think long COVID is a chronic disease. In fact, it appears to believe that long COVID is a mirage. Hilliard, who hopefully will not be in her job much longer, in a rather heated statement, wrote:
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”
The approximately 14-20 million Americans with long COVID would probably disagree that they’ve moved on. The fact that the long-COVID “cutters” lost this battle provides hope that they can be sidelined.
Long-COVID Research at the NIH is (Not) Dead (After All)…Or is it?
Like Lazarus rising from the dead – the RECOVER grants suddenly came back to life. (Image by Vincent Van Gogh from Wikimedia Commons CC 4.0).
Two days ago, one thing seemed utterly clear: long-COVID research at the world’s largest medical research funder was dead for the next four years.
No researcher would have taken a chance on a long-term COVID NIH grant, and maybe, with this swing of events, they still won’t. Who wants to take a chance on which side of the Trump administration will prevail?
While the NIH never sufficiently funded ME/CFS, the attack on long-COVID research—and it can only be described as an attack given its breadth and depth—is reminiscent of and goes beyond what ME/CFS was subjected to in the early 2000s when Anthony Fauci booted ME/CFS out of NIAID and abruptly closed the three NIAID-funded ME/CFS research centers.
ME/CFS was lost until the little Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) picked it up, but the effects on funding were nothing less than catastrophic for the next 15 years. Even so, the federal advisory panel for ME/CFS (CFSAC) and the Special Emphasis Panel (SEP) for ME/CFS grants remained in place. In other words, while ME/CFS got dropped by NIAID, no attempt was made to erase it as a disease.
With the Trump administration temporarily shuttering tens of millions of dollars of ongoing long-COVID studies, ending the Long COVID Office, removing long COVID as a disability from DHHS websites, and removing data on long COVID, this has felt very different.
Ian Lipkin’s NIH-funded ME/CFS Center Gets Caught in the Crossfire
Ian Lipkin’s ME/CFS research center is out of money.
The recent saga of Ian Lipkin’s NIH-funded Center for Solutions for ME/CFS illustrates how politics in the Trump era has become indelibly intertwined with medical research. Accusing Columbia University of not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism and of insufficiently punishing students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the Trump administration zapped it out of a cool $400 million in research funding three weeks ago. (Twenty-five years earlier, Columbia turned down a Trump offer to sell his land to it for $400 million.) Most of the cuts, which were called “unprecedented,” involved NIH funding, and they included Ian Lipkin’s ME/CFS center.
Two weeks ago, facing catastrophic losses, Columbia agreed to “overhaul its protest policies, security practices and Middle Eastern studies department”, hire 36 special officers, ban the use of face masks, etc. Although Education Secretary Linda McMahon stated that Columbia was “on a favorable path”, the Trump administration has yet to restore full funding.
Yesterday, Fierce Biotech reported that Ian Lipkin’s ME/CFS Center was laying off staff at a time when Lipkin asserted that “we’ve begun to see light at the end of the tunnel” and was even in talks “with several biotechs, as well as the broader NIH-supported ME/CFS research network, to discuss working together on potential clinical trials”. With his ME/CFS center’s grant still terminated, Lipkin said his ability to “participate in any sort of research right now … is just not there … we can’t pay (our) bills.”
Emily Taylor, the president of Solve M.E., compared the loss to “investing millions of dollars into building a car, only to then hit the car with a sledgehammer just as it’s ready to drive”. She said “it’s just ugly that this vulnerable population and this stepping stone of progress has become a political football.”
Promised Post-Infectious Disease and ME/CFS Grant Packages in Limbo
The two National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) grants for post-infectious diseases, including long COVID and ME/CFS, scheduled to be announced in December, never were. A grant package for ME/CFS, also scheduled to be announced in December, has never appeared.
It’s possible that the Trump administration’s decision to freeze all funding impacted these grants, and they will eventually show up. Time will tell.
Antiviral and Vaccine Research Axed
Hundreds of millions of dollars going to better antivirals and updated vaccines were also cut.
Asserting that the COVID pandemic has ended, on March 25th, the Trump administration has also stopped funding $577 million of studies by the Antiviral Drug Discovery Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern (AViDD) that produce vaccines and antivirals for the coronavirus and a host of other viruses (paramyxoviruses, bunyaviruses, togaviruses, filoviruses, picornaviruses, and flaviviruses) and prepare for the next pandemic.
Upgraded antivirals could play a key role in wiping out reservoirs of the coronavirus, and, of course, potentially could have been used in ME/CFS and other post-infectious diseases. The cuts were particularly bewildering given that the antiviral centers could have been retained using a “no-cost” extension that would have precluded using new monies.
At least two of the eight federally funded Serological Sciences Centers of Excellence that tracked immune responses to the virus in COVID-19 and long-term COVID patients were also terminated.
The cuts all seem to be tied to the wish of some individuals in the Trump administration to cut everything related to COVID-19. Given the horrific cost of the COVID-10 pandemic, how it makes sense to cut research that could help with future pandemics is beyond me.
One researcher said the Trump administration was “taking a hammer, not a scalpel, to our efforts to defend against many viral threats, not just COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2.” Charles Rice, a Nobel Prize–winning virologist at Rockefeller University, called it a “pointless, ill-advised move that will hurt U.S. science and pandemic readiness.”
Pain Policy Office Cut
Update – On April 1st I learned that the The Office of Pain Policy and Planning (OPPP) at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) which advances pain research on a national level; coordinates and supports trans-NIH pain research and activities through the NIH Pain Consortium and Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee and coordinates the trans-NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) initiative has been entirely cut.
Thus far, it appears that any coordinating group that was designed to increase efficiency, reduce duplication, and enhance collaboration across the NIH Institutes is being eliminated.
NIH Reorganization Bodes Poorly for ME/CFS and Long COVID
Is long COVID on the cutting block or not? Time will tell.
There was hope that an NIH reorganization would help diseases like ME/CFS and long COVID-19, but that now looks dim with political views now guide research funding.
While most diseases are “non-political” and should not be affected, long-term COVID’s association with COVID-19 clearly leaves it in danger of being cut off.
Instead of being reviewed by independent scientific advisory committees, the Trump administration announced that one Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and DHHS official will now review major NIH funding opportunities to ensure they align with the Trump administration’s priorities.
The NIH has already removed about 100 funding opportunities that dealt with health disparities, gender, minorities, and workforce diversity, but the Trump administration’s actions suggest that many other topics (long COVID, antivirals, pathogen research, vaccines) may be rejected as well.
It’s unclear how this affects diseases like ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, Lyme disease, and post-infectious diseases, but it’s not hard to imagine DOGE and DHHS personnel rejecting funding opportunities related to these complex and controversial diseases. That is, if they even get to DOGE given that the NIH staff may refuse to spend months preparing a funding opportunity that has a good chance of getting axed.
Having to pass a DOGE and DHHS filter will only cause the NIH to become even more conservative – not what NIH Director Bhattacharya said he wanted to have happen at all. The concentration of power in DOGE and the DHHS, and plans to reorganize to dramatically reduce the number of Institutes, also seem at odds with Bhattacharya’s plans to create “many more centers of power” that will engage in more “high-risk, high-reward” projects.
Remarkable Changes
With the Trump administration shifting back and forth on funding, much remains unclear. One faction, though, wants long-COVID research gone.
A few months have brought remarkable change. Last year, Director Bertagnolli was excited about making a difference with long-COVID research, helped make the RECOVER Initiative’s treatment trials nimbler and more forward-looking, and acknowledged the need for more ME/CFS research.
The RECOVER Initiative had received an infusion of $500 million, the federal long-COVID office was apparently clicking on all cylinders, efforts to create a billion-dollar-a-year post-infectious disease moonshot and a new Center for post-infectious diseases were underway, and post-infectious disease and ME/CFS grant packages were on the docket.
All that seems like it’s at risk now. The NIH workforce is being cut, its funding is under attack, long COVID is fighting for its life, pathogen, antiviral and vaccine research is being nixed, billions of dollars of NIH grants are still being held up, and somehow, one DOGE and one DHHS employee are going to determine the fate of all NIH initiatives.
With one hand of the Trump administration not aware of what the other hand is doing – and battles taking place within the administration about which course to take – only time will tell what ultimately happens to long COVID, ME/CFS, and post-infectious diseases at the NIH.
What a difference a few months make!
Taking Action
If you feel these actions will not support ME/CFS, long-COVID, and post-infectious disease research, you can take action by calling your congressional officials to tell them to keep long-COVID and ME/CFS research funding, and push back against DOGE employees deciding the fate of NIH funding initiatives, etc. Medical research has traditionally been a bipartisan issue, and contacting our representatives, particularly those in the House, where the margins are razor thin, can help.
Check out #MEAction’s Long COVID Campaign’s toolkit here.
I sort of get a déjà vu.
Diagnostic markers for long-Covid would allow qualifying for disability income so long there is no cure. That would be costly to social security, private or public. And it would open up the possibility for class actions from first line workers during the pandemic for job related life long disability compensation against the goverment(s).
In a later phase, there could be a genuine call for funding research for cures for long-Covid. That research would be expensive, and the drugs even more so to medical insurances both private and public and to governments if they were ordered by court to pay those medications to life long disabled first line workers of the pandemic. The worst case scenario for insurers is to have to pay both disability income and very expensive drugs that improve quality of life but don’t improve health enough to let patients return to work.
It sort of feels like PACE 2 all over it. Let us hope that is just a very poor and unjustified feeling. So far it is nothing more then a fear and I very much hope this fear does not materialize. Any mention of long-Covid information and disability dissapearing from government websites is a disturbing sign if that info is correct however.
I agree.
The field is dead.
People who were receiving or expecting to receive (further) funding for research will leave the field and will never get back to it. They will develop new expertise wherever their can find a job and stay there. In 4 years’ time the ME/CFS/long covid research will start again almost from scratch with new researchers who will need a couple of years to familiarise themselves with the status of the knowledge, with what to rely on and what not to rely on, where and how to find funding, with the practicalities on collecting patients’ data as existing databases will probably be forgotten on abandoned servers, etc.
The current ‘know-how’ and ‘know-who’ will soon be gone. Nothing useful in terms of diagnostic tools and treatments will come out in the next 10 years.
At least.
Let’s see what happens. The grants were apparently restored. That may not be enough to entice researchers back into the field though.
From what I can tell, pulling $45 million worth of long COVID grants that were in their last legs is unprecedented. That and the killing of the Long COVID office, the unpaid panel, the removal of long COVID disability information, etc. indicates some people in the Trump administration have it in for long COVID.
Likewise, the widespread elimination of grants for antiviral, vaccine, and immune research into COVID and long COVID indicates that major players in the Trump administration are going after anything COVID related.
On the bright side, the fact that the RECOVER grants appear to have been quickly restored indicates that not everyone in the Trump team is on board with whacking everything long COVID.
It is bizarre and scary that one DOGE and one DHHS employee—neither of whom has been named—will determine which of the very complex NIH funding opportunities are approved.
There is cutting edge research in the richest European countries, and in the Commonwealth countries as well, on ME/CFS. I hope that at least some of the laid off researchers will join existing teams abroad.
I am confident that within ten years researchers outside of the US will not only understand the pathomechanism of ME/CFS but also develop new treatments.
Yes agree. I think Australia is arguably making the best progress of any country in terms of ME/CFS research
This seems a possibility. I read that researchers are leaving the US for French and Canadian universities.
I feel sorry for sane and reasonable Americans. Your ‘president’ is the laughing stock of the world
We know. Many of us do not support this president and administration. Please don’t equate all Americans with some Americans and the current president. It would perhaps be funny if it weren’t so scary. Way too much is in jeopardy for all of us here.
Unfortunately, the majority of Americans voted for Trump, and a lot the swing voters were ill-informed voters; thinking he would cut prices and improve the economy. No and No. These voters willfully ignored Trump and his lackey’s not very hidden agenda to build a totalitarian Presidency. Now the USA and the world has to pay for their stupidity and ignorance — America’s educational system is near the bottom of the developed world.
Yes Brian, a ‘majority of the voters’ did vote for Trump–but it wasn’t a large majority. Anyway the Electoral College system was really how he gained his victory. It is an unfair and biased system.
Cutting medical funding is not the only thing we all have to worry about. That horrible man is beyond cray cray. I hope he fatally chokes on a chicken McNugget! And Elon? Citizens here are laying waste to Tesla dealerships–and more. Go to Mars, Elon, as that is where you belong!
Sorry for the vitriol, but I am incensed by what is happening here. There is a sane way to clean up our government–and this isn’t it!
Thanks for your sympathy. Many of us are terrified. It feels the end times here.
Thank you – so many of us DO NOT WANT THIS
I would have thought people would have had their eyes opened from trumps first go around.
I suspect everyone was tired of Biden resting on his laurels.
I’ve been around for a while and have come to the conclusion that govts. Keep caring less and less for their people no matter what country you inhabit
Anon, I agree with you totally. It is all about the “Benjamins”. 20,000,000 Americans with Long Covid would cost the government and companies a lot in disability payments, expensive medication and loss of productivity.
That said in the 40 years I have had ME/CFS, I am having trouble remembering any research that has been done that actually helped me with ME/CFS or, more recently, Long Covid. The best treatment options I have used came from Dr. Paul Cheney and research I did on my own.
Right now, I am having difficulty with balance and walking (called Covid gait). I am going to try reflexology which I had used before for ME/CFS.
This is why I wish Cort would do a blog where commenters share things that have helped them with various symptoms. We can’t sit around and hope research will solve this for us.
Same here. A chiropractor has helped me feel “straighter” and has recommended an exercise to help with balance. Some may call it Voodoo medicine but I’ve gotten better results for my money with energy medicine (quantum, rife, scalar, PEMF). I’ve been seeing a NES, Energy4Life practitioner for the past year and a half.
We do have a treatment review program coming up…It’s taking a while to get to it.
Batty I’m 100% agree with you . I’m residing in San Francisco. I have ME/CFS for more than 36 years . The government and medical community failed all of us and we have been treated inhumanly. I still do not have a doctor , who would be knowledgeable or want to know more about this horrible disease . To blame Trump administration for everything ? Trump is in an office less than three months. Where was NIH , or Colombia university before 2025 , they all were getting funding? They all got funding, the problem was in distribution and fraud . Covid was created in China and funded by America , and vaccines were ready before pandemic, now they still want to do research . Why Fauci was getting $500.000 annually plus more from Pfizer . When people with the disease like ME/CFS have been neglected for so many years, the blame should be placed where it’s belongs, previous administrations .
Good morning, Betty,
A while ago, you asked me to update you on my long-term results from taking Metformin. I haven’t visited the page in a while, and reading your message reminded me.
I have noticed improvements in my prediabetes condition, which has led to a slight overall improvement in my general well-being. However, I haven’t experienced a direct improvement in other symptoms related to chronic fatigue syndrome.
Toolkit link not working
I don’t know what happened. It was working yesterday and now is not but here it is – https://bsky.app/profile/lccampaign.bsky.social/post/3lleqcntffk24?mc_cid=fa18d0a29f&mc_eid=2db0572c47
Americans are more than naive to think that JFK jr. will improve research on Long-COVID. He is just another Trump lacky, who also lacks any basic knowledge of science. Hopefully, he does not destroy the basic research infrastructure in the USA in the 4 years he has do damage. Conspiracy theorists rejoice.
Blocking Covid
For years, people have taken antiviral medications to fend off the flu and HIV, and more recently, the antibiotic doxycycline has been shown to help prevent some sexually transmitted infections. Now, researchers say a daily pill could do the same for Covid — at least for people exposed to an infected household member.
Shionogi’s ensitrelvir cut the risk of catching Covid by 67% over 10 days when taken within 72 hours of someone in the same household developing symptoms. The five-day treatment was tested in a late-stage trial, and the results were presented at a scientific meeting in San Francisco in March.
This is the first time an oral drug has been shown to work for post-exposure protection, according to Frederick Hayden, a professor emeritus of clinical virology and medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine who helped design the study.
The key? Taking it fast, said Hayden, who has led multiple trials of antiviral treatments for respiratory infections. The drug — sold as Xocova in Japan and Singapore, where it’s approved as a Covid treatment — works best when started soon after exposure (or after symptoms appear).
This year, the US Food and Drug Administration granted ensitrelvir “fast track” designation for post-exposure prophylaxis following contact with an infected individual, signaling its potential as a valuable preventive tool. It is yet to be approved as a drug to prevent Covid post-exposure.
Shionogi continues “to interact with regulatory authorities worldwide to determine the best path forward for ensitrelvir,” said Takeshi Tsuge, a spokesman for the Osaka, Japan-based drugmaker, who declined to elaborate.
This is likely to not work indefinitely just like previous prophylaxis antivirals, as COVID continues to mutate. Other efforts are underway that could circumvent the mutation issues but probably going to be hard to move those forward with funding situation. Already resistance mutations emerging: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354225000440
Hi Emily, You make a valid point about mutations, but I would really like to have had this available before I got Covid twice in the same year.
I am still dealing with serious post Covid symptoms. I believe there are some core similarities between all the Covid mutations…the spike protein?
Hey Cort. #MEAction is a great advocacy group trying to hold the line, but the link in your Gist to their toolkit is not working.
I don’t know what happened but here it is
https://bsky.app/profile/lccampaign.bsky.social/post/3lleqcntffk24?mc_cid=fa18d0a29f&mc_eid=2db0572c47
I agree there is waste in the Covid arena. The CICP had set up a special department for damage from the Covid vaccines. Had spent over 30 plus million dollars in Administration cost. Denied over 98% of the claims and settled approx. 6 claims spending $40 thousand dollars. There were 38 employees and a building that belonged to the government. This was published by HRSA.
Where was the rest of the money spent?
Thanks for summary of the political recklessness regarding the attack on all scientific research !! I have been sounding off about this to everyone in my state of Alabama. No one is informed and or cares here. I get a lot of yeah buts etc. It is a sad time for those of us with ME/CFS, Long Covid, Fibromyalgia and all of the complex post Infectious illnesses. Science has been tossed into the trash just as we were making progress. Wake up RFK.
Infections cause Chronic Illness. Don’t put Infections/Vaccines etc. on the back burner for the next 4-8 yrs.
I never had any hope that any change from Trump and his admin would be positive. He and his admin DO NOT CARE at all about anyone’s health or wellbeing. They have an axe to grind thinking COVID made them “look bad” which explains the massive cuts and undermining of its progress. But it isn’t just this, they are removing decades worth of scientific progress by not funding top institutions. Research programs have already had to freeze or reduce their PhD program entrants and Europe and other countries are happily taking our talented scientists instead. America is no longer going to be the best medical research country. Lots of private efforts will try to fill the gap but it won’t be enough to keep the lights on for lots of great research centers. What a tragedy. None of it has anything to do with government efficiency. Let’s see what happens when we inevitably have the next pandemic (bird flu? measles?)
Also noting it’s highly optimistic to think this will all resume in 4 years. Even if we can elect another president which is a big if considering Trump saying he will just ignore the constitution and have a third term, and even if we elect a Democrat, it will take years to rebuild the infrastructure and rehire the folks that have had to go elsewhere. So no, it won’t be 4 years til anything resumes…. try 5-10.
https://www.cdc.gov/covid/long-term-effects/index.html
False claims information still on cdc.gov for long covid
The first people the Nazis went after when they came to power were disabled people. We are seeing a similar trajectory now in the US. People with disabilities are being called “parasites,” just as the Nazis referred to people with disabilities as “useless eaters,” and the goal, presumably, is to get rid of us. Oh, and the core contingent supporting this regime consider themselves devout Christians and think this sort of attitude towards the sick and disabled is somehow in line with the teachings of Jesus.
On the plus side, I am thankful for the continuing ME/CFS research happening in other countries. I just participated in a study being lead by a bioinformatics professor in Lisbon who found me through a Reddit post. May decency, reason, democracy, and scientific progress prevail.
The author and Editors need to print a corrections of false claims made in this article.
The SSA has not removed any information.
The CDC has not removed any information.
Areas were ID’d by the DOGE team were made.
Those areas go to the Constitution attorneys for review.
A Board reviews information requested for what the billions of dollars used in each Department.
Yes, Recover funding was cut, but replaced. Recover has spent 1.7 billion and no answers on paper since 2021. Just talk of information gathering.
I have paid $10’s of thousands out of pocket for experimental and practical medicine. Still no answers.
If these research centers and groups funded by our tax dollars come up with the same thing of the reply’s “Covid-19” and Long-Post-Covid or what ever the research
People can’t decide what to call it. Mutated every 2.35 days and they couldn’t or can’t provide any conclusive information on the damage the virus caused. Then there will be answers needed. The Advocates for ME/CFS pulled Long Covid in under their umbrella of connects with government and research centers for I’m greatfull or it would have been a longer road to no full recovery.
As the the Nazi’s I’m conservative searcher of the truth, most of the nay sayers and deniers have been from the left of the left of center.
The CDC has removed a significant amount of information from its website since Trump’s inauguration in January of 2025:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/01/cdc-dei-scientific-data/681531/
https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/trump-woke-dei-culture-wars-20148647.php
https://apnews.com/article/trump-cdc-fda-doctors-for-america-5263fc6b6cbc723ca0c86c4460d02f33
Amy Gleason is the only member of the DOGE team that has any medical qualifications. Trump has claimed that Gleason is the acting director, but reports indicate that Steve Davis, a close associate of Musk, effectively manages the day-to-day operations of DOGE. This has led to questions about the extent of Gleason’s authority and the overall transparency of the department’s leadership. Musk and Trump seem to change their story about who is in charge based on what answer serves them at any given moment. It is unclear who is actually doing what, or on what basis they are making decisions about which medical research gets funded. Concern for people affected by health issues does not seem to be a significant factor for them.
The reason these funding cuts are going to the courts is because they are being challenged as unconstitutional. That is not something the Musk-Trump regime initiated, and they have been fighting against our country’s constitution at every turn.
Trump now wants to violate the constitution yet again by seeking a third term in office. What they are doing is neither conservative nor honest. Their actions suggest a desire to circumvent the rule of law whenever it benefits them to do so, to destroy rather than conserve our democracy.
The fact that research has not yet produced a conclusive diagnostic biomarker or cure does not mean that the research is “waste, fraud, and abuse,” the purported targets of the DOGE operation. When you are hungry and growing a garden, you don’t abandon it because it hasn’t yet borne fruit. Some things take time to accomplish. The logical next step when a new stage of research is in its final stages of approval is not to cut the project–unless you really don’t care about the people who are affected.
Any of us with any expendable income who have been living with ME/CFS have also invested a lot of our own money in looking for answers. To a rational person who would like to find a cure for this, that fact does not suggest that medical research should be abandoned. Quite the opposite–the fact that our individual efforts to find solutions on our own are not yielding answers suggests that research by qualified experts is all the more necessary.
Medical research about a new and/or poorly-understood condition is not like ordering fast food. The fact that they are still figuring it out is not a logical reason to “cancel your order.” They are probing the frontiers of microbiology, physiology, and pathology here, not making french fries.
If you genuinely value the truth, you need to take a long hard look at what this regime is doing. They lie as a default. They value cruelty, tyranny, and corruption. They aspire to inequity. They break the laws our founders crafted in the constitution with such care at the inception of our nation. They make a mockery of justice and the rule of law. The only things they conserve are skulduggery and lack of empathy. When it serves them, they will turn on you, too.
Regarding the de-funding of Ian Lipkin’s ME Centre, I am as angry as anyone else at Trump and DOGE, but I am equally angry at the moral cowardice of the Columbia administration (and many other university administrations) who indulged the excesses of overtly antisemitic, pro-hamas students. What did they think was going to happen?
The fact is that while it does not represent the wider tradition, there is a fascistic element that has been allowed to metastasize whole segments of the Left. And like it or not the election of Trump was largely an attempt to check its growth. Our unwillingness or inability to effectively police our own side has cost us dearly. Because now we have to deal with arguably worse fascistic elements on the right. But as people with complex chronic disabilities we were always sacrificial lambs at the bottom of the ‘progressive stack’ anyhow. When the pendulum finally swings back leftward we should guard against these hateful and dogmatic tendencies, the natural consequences of which seem now to have set so many vulnerable and marginalized people back so profoundly.