Wired Magazine: The Painful Truth About Long Covid

[MrMagoo]

I don't know what the UK law is or what recent changes there've been. In the US, if I received messages saying someone wants to beat my face in to an unrecognizable pulp, I would report it immediately to my bosses and

I don't know what the UK law is or what recent changes there've been. In the US, if I received messages saying someone wants to beat my face in to an unrecognizable pulp, I would report it immediately to my bosses and the police, in case.

Exactly, and being an international forum it’s going to vary for each of us by region, there are legal and cultural differences.

 

[Chandelier]

Interesting find, thanks!

Glad to be of help!

What is the study linked to in the passage in which I'm quoted? I can't get to it from the archived version of the piece.

If the links don’t load in the archived version just right click on the link and copy and paste it starting from the second https, like this:

https://archive.is/o/oDIhy/https://virology.ws/2025/11/21/trial-by-error-another-exercise-trial-with-clinically-insignificant-findings/

—>

https://virology.ws/2025/11/21/trial-by-error-another-exercise-trial-with-clinically-insignificant-findings/

Here are the cleaned links:

Critics have tirelessly documented
how
every
single
positive study suffers, in their view, from serious methodological flaws. “It’s all a house of cards built on fraudulent claims of effectiveness,” said David Tuller,

But other experts have pushed back on this perspective. I brought some of the studies in question to Mark Ebell, a retired professor of epidemiology

 

[dave30th]

Glad to be of help!

I see it's the Nerli study, which I wrote about. what a piece of crap. Here's my post about it: https://virology.ws/2025/01/30/tria...inically-insignificant-findings-as-effective/

 

[rvallee]

That's a separate dispute for discussion. The iniital question was whether any of these threats had been verified. The answer was, yes, Valerie had verified that the video could legally be viewed as a death threat. The question of whether it matters is a separate one that came up later in the discussion. I really disagree with the dismissal of the Grin comment as mild, and it appeared on my blog. And that was not the only vile comment from that person. I'm not sure how telling someone you'll beat their face to a pulp could be considered mild. If it scared me, I don't consider it mild.

Growing up with the Internet gives a whole different perspective on things. This is just venting, and considering that the systemic violence from the medical profession, and how we are constantly put down with hostile comments, is all usually excused as venting, I have no problem with that. Angry people should have the right to vent, it's actually horrible that all of this rightful anger at being horribly neglected is used to justify the neglect. I've seen horrible things in my life, growing with the Internet will do that, and this whole tragedy is really high up on the "holy fuck this is pure awfulness" list.

If someone did to Grin what this horrible system has done to us, he'd understand. He just has no clue what he's talking about.

And as @Trish repeated, this literally has nothing to do with us. We are random people with nothing in common. Which is the exact opposite of medical professionals, who are guilty by association precisely because they actually are associated. This collective punishment approach is morally repugnant.

 

[ChronicallyOverIt]

Ahh he’s now defending using this terrible CPET study that didn’t understand PEM to begin with, basing this of n=9 for me/cfs cohort:

Thread 'Post-Exertional Malaise in Long COVID: Subjective Reporting Versus Objective Assessment, 2025, Stussman, Nath, Walitt et al'

Mar 22, 2025

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2025.1534352/abstract

Background:
Post-exertional malaise (PEM) is a central feature of Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and has emerged as a prominent feature of Long COVID. The optimal clinical approach to PEM is inconclusive and studies of the impact of exercise have yielded contradictory results.

Objective:
To examine PEM in Long COVID by assessing the prevalence of self-reported PEM across study cohorts and symptom responses of Long COVID patients to a standardized exercise...

• Hutan
• cpet nath pem walitt
• Replies: 13
• Forum: ME/CFS research

• 

 

[Sean]

Criticism of PACE was not primarily: "We refuse to consider psychology.

It was never that. To state is was is at best grotesque ignorance and incompetence, at worst straight propaganda and fraud.

I have little time for the argument that people somehow cannot talk about these modalities. There is oodles of material out there promoting them: advertisements, Facebook groups, sympathetic published articles, monetised YouTube channels & so forth. And, for that matter, lengthy articles in WIRED claiming that they can't talk about them.

It is just so transparently ridiculous, isn't it. The most cursory honest examination of the debate makes it crystal clear which side has dominated every aspect of it, until recent times, and that they still command almost automatic access to the mainstream media and scientific journals and highest levels of government when it suits them.

There is no hypocritical foot-stamping tantrum-throwing whining louder and more brazen than from the powerful and privileged when held to account for their misuse of that power and privilege.

Anybody notice any of the worst offenders paying any serious price for their sins, like being being removed from their lofty academic position, or from roles on various government advisory bodies and quangos, etc?

Me neither. They remain protected and rewarded to this day.

Res ipsa loquitar.

Why are they so scared of a group of people who are majority housebound?

Nobody is feared and hated and ostracised more than those who tell truths the powerful and privileged don't want to hear. And there is never any shortage of willing enablers and excusers who will defend them, however ludicrous that defence may be.

'Twas always thus.

 

[dave30th]

The internet is toxic. Every debate on the internet is toxic. It doesn't matter what the issue is. All discussion of health issues on the internet become toxic--just like, as Godwin's law holds, every debate eventually reaches Nazis and the Holocaust. The story seems to be suggesting that mind/body debates are uniquely toxic and lead to a unique "climate of fear" that impacts only mind/body practitioners and patients who report improvement with mind/body techniques. That seems like a big stretch grounded in a pretty narrow view of the online world.

 

[dave30th]

Here are the cleaned links:

wow, I didn't realize that three of these links criticizing "positive" studies are to posts of mine.

 

[Jaybee00]

Haven’t read (Todd Davenport)

Revisiting the Painful Truth of Long COVID

We Must Free Long COVID and the Patients Living with It from the Mind-Body Trap

open.substack.com

 

[Chandelier]

wow, I didn't realize that three of these links criticizing "positive" studies are to posts of mine.

Congrats, there are a total of 4 Virology Blog links.
Here’s the fourth mention:

ME/CFS and long Covid advocates typically describe mind-body therapies as aggressively marketed
brainwashing. Recovery is most likely an illusion, they say, produced by coaches who force clients to deny the reality of their symptoms, at great risk to their health.

Is this a wired.com thing to bury as many different links as possible in consecutive words?

S4ME is linked once:

Break through it did: The term “long Covid” was coined by a patient, not medical researchers. Virtually every
ME/CFS organization
pivoted to long Covid in their advocacy.
Online ME/CFS forums filled with discussions of long Covid. Everyone emphasized similar themes: Attributing long Covid to psychology, rather than biology, is another predictable chapter in the sordid history of medical sexism and gaslighting. Because the condition is biological, psychological therapies can’t offer a cure. Suggesting they can is just another way to blame the victim and say long Covid is fake.

 

[JellyBabyKid]

Very detailed and thorough rebuttal of the whole article in this very long but useful thread.

Worth a read for those with access to x/twitter.

I don't know how to share for those not on twitter,but have taken and attach a screenshot to part of the first post as a flavour.

 

[Chandelier]

I don't know how to share for those not on twitter

Thanks for sharing and thank you @Manuel for your thorough analysis!

There are many different frontends for the popular social networks that allow access for everyone, even without an account.
You can replace x.com in your link with xcancel.com and then it’s always accessible for everyone.

Social Network	Replacement
X/Twitter	xcancel.com
Bluesky	skywriter.blue
Instagram	imginn.com

 

[JellyBabyKid]

Thanks for sharing and thank you @Manuel for your thorough analysis!

There are many different frontends for the popular social networks that allow access for everyone, even without an account.
You can replace x.com in your link with xcancel.com and then it’s always accessible for everyone.

Social Network	Replacement
X/Twitter	xcancel.com
Bluesky	skywriter.blue
Instagram	imginn.com

Thank you very much

 

[Amw66]

Why are they so scared of a group of people who are majority housebound?

Because they know how crap their research is.

 

[JellyBabyKid]

Haven’t read (Todd Davenport)

Revisiting the Painful Truth of Long COVID

We Must Free Long COVID and the Patients Living with It from the Mind-Body Trap

open.substack.com

Excellent response.. particularly enjoyed;

the mind-body trap in Long COVID is simply two large logical fallacies in a trench coat.

 

[SNT Gatchaman]

Also

Misperceiving Long COVID as a problem of misperception has real consequences.

 

[bobbler]

yes, that was a terrific piece by Steve Lubet. I loved how he took the ship metaphor and used it to bust Simon. I discussed that with him afterwards--how useful it is to take people's metaphors and turn them around to make a counter-argument. I did that when White complained that using their protocol measures to compare with the final outcomes they produced was comparing apples and pears. (In the US we say apples and oranges, not pears. Whatever.) And I pointed out, Exactly, the PACE-ies got 5 million pounds to get pears at the market, and then they came back with apples. And then they're upset that no one is taking their word for it that the pears were rotten and that the apples were better.

Interesting point on the anecdote - I don’t know whether anyone else (haven’t looked ahead many pages in thread yet) has pointed this out so apologies if so

In England it’s absolutely ‘apples with oranges’ too.

In fact if someone said ‘apples with pears’ then, given they are thought to be somewhat similar fruits here (taste, use in cider/perry, autumnal on trees of a certain type etc), he would have been adapting that phrase to claim ‘no only slightly difference’ rather than the true analogy of different classes of fruit.

So he’s saying something there by saying his own tweaked version of that (almost like ‘it’s more like apples and pears [vs apples and oranges]’)

Of course I’ve now forgotten the exact context of what aspect he was using this for - was it the sample he recruited for pace not having PEM and just being those with fatigue?

 

[Amw66]

Post on substack from Todd Davenport re article

Revisiting the Painful Truth of Long COVID

We Must Free Long COVID and the Patients Living with It from the Mind-Body Trap

open.substack.com

 

[MrMagoo]

Davenport “this essay did a speed-run of one of medicines oldest mistakes within a mere 7,000 words”

 

[Jaybee00]

Zeynep thread—debates Levinovitz.


“Problem with this article isn’t that it’s about how medicine’s mind/body duality impedes scientific advances (true), but that it does it without referencing the truly interesting new scientific developments while repackaging stale and incorrect viewpoints by a few as “advances”.

Can someone please post the full interaction?