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

dave30th said:
I haven't heard yet about the other NIH-funded ME/CFS centers, but I assume they'll all be shut down. Of course, the president has particular animus for Columbia because they rejected his offer to sell them property for $400 million back when, according to the NYT. So maybe others are spared so far.
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Do you mean that the administration will prioritise Intramural research so they can have more control? Or just that they will shut everything down because they want to cut taxes for the rich or whatever?
 
Jaybee00 said:
https://wapo.st/4c2BMPr

Vaccine skeptic hired to head federal study of immunizations and autism
A long-discredited researcher and vaccine skeptic will conduct a government study on whether vaccines cause autism.

When does this end?
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Ha! Biopsychosocial standards for everyone! 'Research' conducted by raging ideologues with giant conflicts of interest who have already decided what the conclusion is and won't be swayed by actual results.

The thing about lowering standards is that eventually the sloppiness gets everywhere. That's the literal point of having actual standards, the idea that minimal competence should apply everywhere. Once you accept exemptions, they can become standards all by themselves. The means become the ends.

Jay Bhattacharya was also approved as NIH director. His ideas are as damaging to the whole of medicine as ideologues like Wessely have been to us. Medicine was always political, it was just that there was only one political ideology in power. Kind of how before Enlightenment, there were no political ideologies, only the one, which is what became conservatism.

Now there are multiple competing ideologies within medicine, because instead of recognizing that the profession is political, and thus work to mitigate it, it was ignored, and instead amplified. Once you accept one pseudoscience, you have invited all of them in, it's just a matter of time before they creep through. Here it's walking right through the front door, because the profession basically accepted this dude's ideology hook, sinker, line, fisher and boat.
 
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Yann04 said:
Do you mean that the administration will prioritise Intramural research so they can have more control? Or just that they will shut everything down because they want to cut taxes for the rich or whatever?
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They will shut down whatever they can, just because they can. I doubt they're making much distinction as to whether it's intramural or outside researchers. They seem intent on gutting the NIH.
 
My congressman reported that the University of California-Davis lost $9million NIH grant money. This stops ongoing medical research there. Just one university among many.

Reverse brain drain anticipated as scientist look to other countries to continue research projects.
 
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rvallee said:
The thing about lowering standards is that eventually the sloppiness gets everywhere. That's the literal point of having actual standards, the idea that minimal competence should apply everywhere. Once you accept exemptions, they can become standards all by themselves. The means become the ends.

Jay Bhattacharya was also approved as NIH director. His ideas are as damaging to the whole of medicine as ideologues like Wessely have been to us.
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This.
shak8 said:
Reverse brain drain anticipated as scientist look to other countries to continue research projects.
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The USA's loss will be the rest of the world's gain.
 
Sean said:
The USA's loss will be the rest of the world's gain.
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No one else puts out enough money for it, though. The NIH is/was by the far the largest funder of medical research in the world. The rest is basically peanuts. No one will take up the slack, it will all simply be wasted. Most researchers will simply take jobs elsewhere or drop out of research entirely.

For all that people love scientific breakthroughs in medicine, almost no one is interested in funding it. If we were a mature civilization, we'd fund medical research at least 10x as much, probably as much as 50x would still yield significant marginal benefits. But we're not, so we don't. Most people seem to content to imagine that research 'just happens', including governments, who seem mostly uninterested in building the necessary infrastructure. It would pay for itself many times over if they did, which makes it plain and clear that this is simply not a priority for most people.

I'd be curious to know what is the % dedicated to R&D in the health care industry. Because of how massively expensive it is, I wouldn't be surprised if it's one of the lowest. Which is absurd, most of those costs would be avoided by being smart about it, but everyone seems to choose hard instead.
 
rvallee said:
No one else puts out enough money for it, though. The NIH is/was by the far the largest funder of medical research in the world. The rest is basically peanuts. No one will take up the slack, it will all simply be wasted. Most researchers will simply take jobs elsewhere or drop out of research entirely.
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There simply isn't the capacity elsewhere, neither teaching posts nor labs to accomodate thousands of now unemployed/underemployed medical researchers. Some countries with unmet clinical demand may recruit US resident clinicians into non research posts and a few countries may be able to rapidly expand both clinical research and University level training capacity - Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States may be able to do this, and some US Green Card researchers and Phds, particularly those from SE Asia may be attracted to China which does have the capacity to rapidly re-direct science resources. Difficult to see many US citizens joining a China brain drain. India could match China but it has always been very slow to adapt at the public level.

Over time there will be a redirection of recruitment from the US to countries with an expanded capacity, most likely led by education where the International market is vast and is a huge earner for the US which has over 900k International students across all disciplines at any one time, it's also source of recruitment of higher skilled clinicians and researchers who stay on in the US afeter qualification. Reduction in the latter will hit US clinician numbers unless there's moves to expand Medical Ed accessibility in the US.

One unknown is the balance between science in general and health specifically as recipients of US philanthropy - total is estimated at $30bn, it is possible that shifts in this budget could be a rescue from some areas of US medical research: Article: https://theconversation.com/philant...earch-funding-that-tends-to-stay-local-246110 Research: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-58367-2
 
rvallee said:
It would pay for itself many times over if they did, which makes it plain and clear that this is simply not a priority for most people.
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I feel like they see it kind of like climate change. Where every country is like “Well it doesn’t matter what I do as much as it matters that everyone does it, so I won’t bother doing it”.
 
rvallee said:
For all that people love scientific breakthroughs in medicine, almost no one is interested in funding it. If we were a mature civilization, we'd fund medical research at least 10x as much, probably as much as 50x would still yield significant marginal benefits. But we're not, so we don't. Most people seem to content to imagine that research 'just happens', including governments
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I very much agree.
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8r87z8vl0o

Ana Faguy
BBC News, Washington DC


A top vaccine official at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was forced out of his job, US media reports.

Peter Marks offered his letter of resignation to Health and Human Services (HHS) officials on Friday, after being given a choice between resigning or being fired.

"It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies," Mr Marks wrote in a resignation letter, obtained by multiple US media outlets, referring to the agency's new leader Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Mr Marks was among the healthcare professionals who helped develop Covid-19 vaccines in the first Trump administration.

In a statement to the BBC, the HHS responded that if Mr Marks "does not want to get behind restoring science to its golden standard and promoting radical transparency, then he has no place at FDA under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy".

His resignation takes effect on 5 April.

In his letter, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Mr Marks said he was leaving with a "heavy heart" and noted he was concerned about the growing measles outbreak in Texas.

"[It] reminds us of what happens when confidence in well-established science underlying public health and well-being is undermined," Mr Marks wrote, according to the outlets that obtained the letter.

As of Friday, two people have died of measles and 523 cases have been reported in the US - 400 of which are in Texas.

Mr Marks has served as the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research within the FDA since 2016. He has been with the FDA since 2012.

Kennedy, who leads the HHS, which oversees the FDA, is a well-known vaccine sceptic who has a history of spreading health information that scientists say is false.

Earlier this week, Kennedy announced plans to restructure the HHS, in part by cutting 10,000 employees, including those working at the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
 
From The Sick Times:

UPDATE: RECOVER Long COVID pathobiology grants restored
The Sick Times said:
Long COVID research grants from the National Institutes of Health’s RECOVER program will be restored following news stories about their abrupt cancellations and advocacy to restore the funding, according to patient representatives in the initiative.

The Sick Times and Chemical & Engineering News reported on Thursday that up to 45 grants to study Long COVID’s underlying biology, awarded in 2022 and 2023, had been rescinded, along with upcoming grants focused on studying the disease in children. On Friday, the NIH went back on this order, restoring the funding.

“Good news! Today, the NYU business office received a notice from the NIH Office of Extramural Research stating that funding for Pathobiology awardees (first round) has been fully reinstated,” wrote RECOVER investigator and New York University pediatrician Rachel Gross in an email shared with The Sick Times.

This restoration will allow vital research into the causes for Long COVID symptoms and connections with other chronic diseases to continue. Some scientists had told The Sick Times that their studies were nearing completion and soon to share findings; see our full story from Thursday for more details.
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I keep scanning the news to see whether Columbia University funds have been restored after they tried appeasing the administration but I haven't seen any.

Here are two recent articles saying they are still in limbo:

1) 'It's just ugly': Federal funding cuts to Columbia University leave chronic fatigue research in limbo - dated March 28

Bad headline - the article itself uses the term ME/CFS.

2) Researchers in limbo as Columbia bows to Trump’s demands in bid to restore $400M federal funding - dated March 26
 
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