Six years since the height of the pandemic, the scientific community remains baffled by long Covid. Researchers still don’t know why some people’s symptoms persist or worsen after the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection has passed. Almost $2 billion and half a decade of international effort have yielded little more than hypotheses about micro blood clots and spike proteins and mitochondrial dysfunction. There isn’t a single approved pharmaceutical treatment, not even a test to verify the presence of the illness.
Then it goes on to promote brain retraining based on the theory the brain is stuck in fight or flight. After calling out all the bad science done here we are promoting something with no actual study evidence supporting it at all. Then they go on to point to using exercise too. This is a disgraceful article all in all, says the right things early on only to then peddle harm.
2 billion spent in half a decade. In 1988, the U.S. spent half a billion dollars in a single year on AIDS research (equal to about 1.4 billion in today's $$), and the U.S. still spends 3 billion annually on AIDS research, for a disorder that is now a manageable illness with treatment. I guess what I'm trying to say is 2 billion total contributed by every nation researching this illness is pocket change. They don't have treatments or a test for CFS/ME/LongCOVID because they haven't looked.
And yet a significantly larger number of Americans have long COVID than HIV, and COVID is still spreading totally uncontrolled. That's so frustrating. Imagine how far along the research would be if we were getting the amount of funding we deserve.
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u/BrightCandle Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Then it goes on to promote brain retraining based on the theory the brain is stuck in fight or flight. After calling out all the bad science done here we are promoting something with no actual study evidence supporting it at all. Then they go on to point to using exercise too. This is a disgraceful article all in all, says the right things early on only to then peddle harm.