The NIH has poured $1 billion into long Covid research — with little to show for it

[jmyrlefuller]

https://www.statnews.com/2023/04/20/long-covid-nih-billion/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

By Rachel Cohrs and Betsy Ladyzhets
April 20, 2023

The federal government has burned through more than $1 billion to study long Covid, an effort to help the millions of Americans who experience brain fog, fatigue, and other symptoms after recovering from a coronavirus infection.

There’s basically nothing to show for it.

The National Institutes of Health hasn’t signed up a single patient to test any potential treatments — despite a clear mandate from Congress to study them. And the few trials it is planning have already drawn a firestorm of criticism, especially one intervention that experts and advocates say may actually make some patients’ long Covid symptoms worse.

Instead, the NIH spent the majority of its money on broader, observational research that won’t directly bring relief to patients. But it still hasn’t published any findings from the patients who joined that study, almost two years after it started.

(excerpt)

[Smokin Joe]

Interesting that Long COVID sufferers are not being sorted into cohorts by vaccination status, and that neither the Ivermectin nor Hydroxychloroquine protocols are apparently even being considered for study, only Paxlovid. Metformin has shown promise, also (English study mentioned in the article), but like IVM and HCQ, has been in production for years, and there is no pile of money to be made.