Joint patient and clinician priority setting to identify 10 key research questions regarding the long-term sequelae of COVID-19, 2022, Evans, Chalder

Abstract

Given the large numbers of people infected and high rates of ongoing morbidity, research is clearly required to address the needs of adult survivors of COVID-19 living with ongoing symptoms (long COVID). To help direct resource and research efforts, we completed a research prioritisation process incorporating views from adults with ongoing symptoms of COVID-19, carers, clinicians and clinical researchers. The final top 10 research questions were agreed at an independently mediated workshop and included: identifying underlying mechanisms of long COVID, establishing diagnostic tools, understanding trajectory of recovery and evaluating the role of interventions both during the acute and persistent phases of the illness.

Open access, https://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2022/03/29/thoraxjnl-2021-218582

 

From the paper,

Outcome of research prioritisation: final list of top 10 research questions (not ranked).

1. What are the underlying mechanisms of long COVID that drive symptoms and/or organ impairment?
   
   
2. What imaging techniques or scans may be able to detect and predict the development of organ problems or wider systemic issues?
   
   
3. What happens to the immune system throughout patients’ recovery from COVID-19?
   
   
4. What can data at 6 and 12 months tell us about the long-term trajectory of illness?
   
   
5. What blood or other laboratory tests may be able to detect and predict the development of organ problems or wider systemic issues?
   
   
6. What is the impact of treatment(s) during the acute (initial) stage of COVID-19 on recovery?
   
   
7. What are the problems within the muscles associated with symptoms limiting activity/function/exercise? If so, what can be done to help?
   
   
8. What medications, dietary changes, supplements, rehabilitation and therapies aid recovery?
   
   
9. What can be done to support mental well-being during recovery?
   
   
10. What is the risk of future adverse health events (eg, stroke, heart attack)?
    

 

What is a professor of CBT doing in this research?

I know why but that's still not a valid answer. She's there for questions 8 and 9, not to ask them but to promote the BPS school of thought and the answers she has been pushing her entire life, answers that literally stopped all progress leading to this.

Her work has lead to medicine failing everything Long Covid even before it happened. This is as absurd as including Andrew Wakefield in a study of Covid vaccines, it's more than insulting it reflects gross incompetence in evaluating the work she did.

Still, what is a professor of CBT doing on this research team? None of this relates to her work other than it being the opposite of everything she has done and stood for.

 

She’s like a pompous conquistador attempting to civilize a coterie of mindless brutes deluded into believing that debilitating post-viral illness is a legitimate clinical entity.

It’s beyond disheartening to see her name in conjunction with these efforts. Until medical professionals stand in unison and reject her work for the charlatanry it is, she will continue to influence the trajectory of research and treatment of these conditions. I don’t know if the legions of NHS physicians battling long Covid are fearful of being branded as militants or malingerers by colleagues, but their silence leaves a massive void. Predictably, that void is being filled by names that only serve to deflate spirits: Chalder, Wessely, Carson, Santhouse, David, Crawley, etc.

 

It's the NIHR giving her money that is a real problem.

They need to be helped to understand that what they are doing is not responsible.

And is it not also tax payers money they use?