Impacts of the 2024 change in US government on ME/CFS and Long Covid

STAT: 'Second top NIH official, who oversaw awarding of research grants, departs abruptly'

'Michael Lauer, deputy director of the National Institutes of Health’s extramural research, will leave the agency at the end of the week’

 

STAT: 'Growing number of federal health agencies are combing grants for taboo words, unnerving researchers'

'Trump administration flagging ‘trans’ and ‘diversity,’ but also ‘women’ and ‘Covid’

 

STAT: 'Trump administration to fire thousands at health agencies'

'Employees across agencies who were hired in the past one to two years are being targeted'

'Senior officials were informed in meetings Friday morning that roughly 5,200 people on probationary employment — recent hires — across agencies including the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be fired that afternoon, according to sources briefed on the meetings.'

 

Eric Topol "What's happening with the Covid nasal vaccine programs? And why are they in jeopardy?"

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/a-covid-nasal-vaccine-update

 

This commission statement refers to people with Autism, ADHD, asthma, auto-immune disease, and chronic illness as a “dire threat to the American people and our way of life”.

Establishing the President's Make America Healthy Again Commission
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presiden...idents-make-america-healthy-again-commission/

 

Yup. As I said, we're about to see the golden age of the biopsychosocial ideology. It will crash spectacularly, but until it does I expect things to get get very ugly. This is exactly the kind of delusional fantasy that thrives in chaotic times, and this time it will dominate all medical concerns, not just the discriminated fringes.

 

RE: Koroshetz, Marrazzo, Gibbons etc

2/17, Science: 'The Continuing Crisis, Part IV'

'As many will have heard, the last few days have seen even more turmoil in the NIH and other federally funded science agencies. No one should have any doubt by this point: this is an unprecedented situation.'

'I've been told by sources inside the NIH that many there are hearing that all the Institute heads there are being asked to submit letters of resignation. The expectation is that many (although perhaps not all?) of these will be accepted, and these people will be out the door as well.'

 

If some of his past comments are any indication, pretty much:

I don't have access to the article to quote the relevant paragraphs, so here's an image:



A smart observer would notice here that this is basically taking most of the lies said during the pandemic, attributing LC to anything and everything but COVID, as well as what most physicians prefer to blame for the rise of chronic illness they are responsible for ignoring and aggravating, and making them as a biopsychosocial product package. Other than being against SSRIs, for most of this stuff you will find the likes of Wessely, Fink and other charlatan minimizers arguing the same. The only difference is a few labels. Work camps instead of forced CBT, works out just the same.

The biopsychosocial golden age is coming. And it will be appropriately awful.

The medical profession has boosted the conspiracy crowds like nothing has ever done before. I don't think that even straight up giving $100B to the worst conspiracy theorists out there to market their message would be half as effective. A truly historical failure with no precedent in mediocrity and harm.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/...e_code=1.yE4.i6Gw.8-0sQ3ReWI0E&smid=url-share


Kennedy Says ‘Nothing’ Off Limits in Scrutinizing Chronic Disease

 

I’m sure many already saw or anticipated but sharing for sight from yesterday.

2/19 - Executive Order from White House: 'Commencing The Reduction Of The Federal Bureaucracy’

"(iv) the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall terminate the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Long COVID;”

 

No bueno

 

Also shoutout Biden administration for taking 2+ years to get this committee up after being signed off on in Jan. 2022. Given how long that took, I had my doubts about the value of this committee regardless of who was in the WH but we’ll never know now.

Onwards we go

 

Fierce Healthcare: 'Trump cuts long COVID, health equity committees in new EO'

'President Donald Trump has terminated two advisory committees within the Department of Health and Human Services, one on long COVID...'

 

Washington Post: 'Trump ends a federal committee focused on long covid'

“It’s a problem,” said Ezekiel J. Emanuel, an oncologist, medical ethicist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has advocated more research on long covid.

Emanuel cited survey findings on the prevalence of long covid and other data. “We need continued focus on a condition affecting 8 percent of U.S. adults, with tens of billions of financial impact. We need reform, not elimination,” he said.

“I am now concerned that our government is retreating from its commitment to addressing long covid and that patients will be negatively impacted by this decision,” the committee member said.

 

Federal Register hold makes ‘end run’ around court pause on NIH funding freeze
https://www.thetransmitter.org/fund...run-around-court-pause-on-nih-funding-freeze/

"A large portion of grants awarded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) cannot be funded for the foreseeable future because of a hold on submissions to the Federal Register, where such public notices about upcoming meetings are required by law to be posted, according to an email reviewed by The Transmitter."

"Study sections, which convene groups of reviewers to assess grant proposals, and advisory councils, which provide guidance on funding decisions, must post meeting plans in the Federal Register 15 days ahead of their scheduled date, according to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which was passed in 1972.

Without being able to hold those meetings, new grants cannot be awarded, says Carole LaBonne, professor of molecular biosciences at Northwestern University. That serves as an “end run” around the court ruling that hit pause on a funding freeze initiated by the Trump administration, she says. “By preventing publishing on the register, they were able to prevent any new funding.”"

 

https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/20/cdc-vaccine-promotions-rfk-jr-informed-consent/

HHS orders CDC to halt some vaccine ads, saying RFK Jr. wants message focused on ‘informed consent’

Experts fear effort to recalibrate tone could dampen vaccine uptake

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was ordered to shelve promotions it developed for a variety of vaccines, including a “Wild to Mild” advertising campaign urging people to get vaccinated against flu, two sources familiar with the decision told STAT.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ assistant secretary for public affairs informed the CDC that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wanted advertisements that promote the idea of “informed consent” in vaccine decision-making instead.


Informed consent is the principle that people should be notified of all the risks, as well as benefits, of any medical intervention they receive or any drug they are prescribed. It is a cornerstone of health care delivery.


Shifting the framing of advertising for vaccines that the CDC has long recommended — like flu shots — to put more focus on the possible risks of vaccines could undermine people’s willingness to get vaccinated, or to have their children immunized.

More at link: https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/20/cdc-vaccine-promotions-rfk-jr-informed-consent/

 

"PLOS has issued a statement on recent US Executive Orders and scientific integrity.

We are determined to stand firmly behind our mission, our values and our principles, and against any attempt at censorship or undermining of the core principles of scientific inquiry." (bsky)

PLOS statement on recent US Executive Orders and scientific integrity
plos.io/3D4O8cH

 

From The Sick Times: Trump commands HHS to terminate advisory committee on Long COVID

 

RFK Jr continuing to repost messages regarding vaccines causing LC.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1892943269891350696


A BOMBSHELL new study from Yale Medical School finds people suffering from “Long Covid” are actually suffering from mRNA vaccine injury. But it’s worse than that. These people are suffering from Vaccine-induced AIDS. Yes, AIDS. It’s called V-AIDS.

Not only were we forced to take an experimental vaccine, we were lied to about it, no it didn’t stop you from contracting or transmitting the virus, no it wasn’t safe, it caused heart issues and blood clots and autoimmune disorders, we were censored when we questioned the madness, and now we find out the mRNA jab causes V-AIDS in many people?

This is one of the most egregious scandals in American history. Kash Patel’s first order of business at the FBI should be hunting down & throwing in prison every person involved in this crime against humanity.