Germany's "National Decade Against Post-Infectious Diseases"

[Yann04]

From the start the 10 bn

I think recover was 1.15 billion (+ a 500 million addition in 2024).

 

[PageofME]

I think recover was 1.15 billion (+ a 500 million addition in 2024).

‘They bungled it:’ NIH documents reveal how $1.6 billion Long Covid initiative has failed so far to meet its goals - The Sick Times

In February 2021, the National Institutes of Health launched a new $1 billion initiative to study Long Covid, a chronic disease that has changed the lives of millions of Americans. Three years later, the NIH initiative, called RECOVER, has not met these goals, according to a detailed review of...

thesicktimes.org

Yes, thank you, it was 1 bn with which the RECOVER NIH Long Covid initiative started in February 2021 according to the article in The Sick Times above. But that doesn't change anything about the fact that politically it was part of Biden's economical stimulus package and not a genuine research programme. And I think that that's the cause why it is failing and continues to do so.

Because of the exorbitant privilege the US government can spend money way beyond their real income and make the rest of the world pay their debts via dollar inflation. American politicians are therefore used to waste money and don't care whether their investments actually bring any benefits.

Edit: I deleted my sarcastic comment about politicians. It was not necessary.

 

[Yann04]

I’m not sure I understand why the context of a general spending increase by the US Government being that of the Funding of the Recover Intitiative means it wasn’t a genuine research program.

I agree the funds were poorly allocated within the program and the impact was heavily underwhelming but I see that more as insitutional mismanagement than the program being “built to fail” so to say. I believe the people who pushed and funded the program genuinely hoped it would find a solution.

 

[PageofME]

I’m not sure I understand why the context of a general spending increase by the US Government being that of the Funding of the Recover Intitiative means it wasn’t a genuine research program.

I agree the funds were poorly allocated within the program and the impact was heavily underwhelming but I see that more as insitutional mismanagement than the program being “built to fail” so to say. I believe the people who pushed and funded the program genuinely hoped it would find a solution.

I think that back in 2021 there weren't any genuine PAIS and ME/CFS researchers at the NIH altogether. Hence, that billion went to researchers who lacked the capacity to design studies of quality in these fields altogether. And that hasn't really changed ever since, I believe.

But who knows whether these researchers even ran studies in the field of Long Covid. I could imagine that they wrote proposals to RECOVER for new furniture, travel expenses, and expensive wines (I have worked at the biggest state run university in Switzerland, the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, myself. I have therefore gained some insights in how these things work).

The managers of the programme would have granted all of these requests because their task was not to guarantee research quality but to make sure that that billion was spent completely within one year just as Washington had adviced them.

 

[Utsikt]

But that doesn't change anything about the fact that politically it was part of Biden's economical stimulus package and not a genuine research programme. And I think that that's the cause why it is failing and continues to do so.

How exactly is spending a billion paying researchers going to stimulate the economy? Paying for research seems like the least efficient way to stimulate the economy.

You give money to e.g. build infrastructure if you think creating jobs for the average person is going to help, and you give it to businesses if you believe in trickle down economics.

It’s very normal to tack together all kinds of initiative in US politics. So even if RECOVER might have been passed together with stimuli initiatives, that doesn’t make it a stimuli initiative as well. It was just the cost of getting everyone to agree on the total package (if that’s even what happened, I have no idea about the details).

 

[PageofME]

You give money to e.g. build infrastructure if you think creating jobs for the average person is going to help

It's the same principle if you invest in research. The idea is to put more money into people's pockets to raise consumption.

 

[Utsikt]

It's the same principle if you invest in research. The idea is to put more money into people's pockets to raise consumption.

I’m well aware of the intentions, I’m an economist. Spending money on medical researchers, especially research by government employees, will provide abysmal bang for your buck if your aim is to get more money into the hands of people that will spend it.

 

[PageofME]

I’m well aware of the intentions, I’m an economist. Spending money on medical researchers, especially research by government employees, will provide abysmal bang for your buck if your aim is to get more money into the hands of people that will spend it.

I was explaining why in my view RECOVER doesn't work even when it is the best funded research programme there is. And I think I have a point.

 

[Utsikt]

I was explaining why in my view RECOVER doesn't work even when it is the best funded research programme there is. And I think I have a point.

I think we both agree that RECOVER was led by people that don’t know what they were doing. But I primarily see that as a failure by the institutions that were in charge, and of academia as a whole.

I fear the same will happen with this programme, and lots of money will no doubt be wasted on bio- and BPS-babble even if it produces some good research as well.

 

[bicentennial]

I read/skim each monthly RECOVER report and I'm still asking the very same question. I have no idea what this program is doing, if anything at all. They communicate a lot but it's promotional, not informational.

"promotional, not informational" - this systemic dissonance is sinking governments while soaking up government subsidy - not what it says on the tin

So buyer beware

The managers of the programme would have granted all of these requests because their task was not to guarantee research quality but to make sure that that billion was spent completely within one year just as Washington had adviced them.

So this German program would rely on effective management at the level of authorisation, with a rigorous criteria - for each project and every bit of spend - which criteria requires effective, experienced expertise IF the government does not want to be side-lined or embarrassed.

Maybe - if informed - that investigative journalist on Chemical Engineering News (CEN) will decide to stay on this matter in this case: Rowan Walrath who wrote about RECOVER as linked in passing by @DHagen here (on page 1):

My understanding is that most if not all of the initial fund is already gone and obviously did not deliver much.... ...

... ... In 2024, the NIH allocated an additional $662 million for Long Covid to be dispersed from 2025-9 (https://recovercovid.org/funding). I do not think anyone knows the current status of that money. Many of the projects already promised funding were cancelled, then some reinstated, though I am not sure if anyone has actually received anything.

From back in March:
https://cen.acs.org/policy/research-funding/NIH-cancels-RECOVER-grants-long/103/web/2025/03

Below is an example of her relevant reporting, as relevant in Germany too, since - according to some researchers - the funding needs to be properly allocated and spent, also secured in the long-term against clawback or regime change, and the patho-physiology understood:

NIH cancels RECOVER grants for long CIVID projects (March 2025)

Pathobiology studies like Warburton’s are the key to understanding how long COVID operates.

While other research has offered clues into the disease’s mechanisms, scientists have yet to uncover a concrete biomarker that could be the basis for a diagnostic test or for drug discovery and development.

Most pharmaceutical companies have shied away from attempting to develop treatments for long COVID because they don’t have a clear target yet.

If findings from the RECOVER-funded pathobiology studies go unpublished, Fitzgerald worries it could kneecap future efforts to treat the disease.

“These are the studies that were going to tell researchers, tell clinicians worldwide, this is what long COVID looks like in the human body,” Fitzgerald says.

“These are the areas we need to focus on in order to treat it. This work is incredibly important. It’s a predecessor to clinical trials. It’s a predecessor to drug development.”.... ....

... ... The AViDD Centers were designed as 5-year projects, meaning that the final 2 years of funding would come later, but when Congress took back unspent COVID-19 pandemic relief funds, that last round of funding never materialized. Instead, NIAID provided a 1-year, no-cost extension.
“Most AViDD Centers have unused funds that they had been told by NIH could be carried over for another year,” says Michael Z. Lin, a neurobiologist and bioengineer at Stanford University and a researcher at the AViDD Center housed there.

“It always takes several months to hire people and set up experimental systems, purchase all the equipment and reagents, so almost all grants are underspent in the first year.”

Articles by Rowan Walrath:

10 Start-Ups Pharmaceuticals

How PostEra designs drugs from code