BREAKING NEWS: Long Covid IS Just Like ME/CFS! Trump Administration Closes LC Research Program
Long Covid is a chronic illness, Secretary Kennedy—are you planning to make this right?
Two science publications, Nature magazine and the SubStack Inside Medicine, reported today that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is closing the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice. (1, 2)
Both obtained copies of an internal email announcing the closing from the office’s Director, Ian Simon, Ph.D.
Dr. Simon reports to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health, a position that currently appears to be unfilled. However, if you visit the mostly vacant web page for the Office for the Assistant Secretary of Health, you will find email addresses for the people who report to the as-yet-unappointed Assistant Secretary, including Dr. Simon. (3)
“We are writing to let you know that the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice will be closing as part of the administration’s reorganization coming this week,” Simon wrote in a “Dear Colleagues” email. “...While our office is closing, we hope that the work we have been dedicated to will continue in some form. Updates will be shared as they become available.” (2)
According to Nature, HHS is “deprioritizing long Covid.”
It’s “a ‘real slap in the face of the many patients struggling with the long-term health effects of COVID infections’, says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.” (1)
Inside Medicine notes, “The number of Americans with Long Covid is unknown, but it is likely that millions of people have been affected.” (2)
In Nature, Brown University Professor Nuzzo also notes that stopping research on Long Covid is “not in the spirit” of HHS Secretary Kennedy’s campaign to “Make America Healthy Again.” (1)
It also contradicts Kennedy’s oft-repeated vow to emphasize research on chronic, as opposed to communicable, illnesses in the United States. So far, Kennedy has only directed new research to be performed on whether vaccines cause autism—an important and devastating chronic illness of childhood, to be sure. Is that it? No other chronic illnesses require new or expanded research efforts?
So, Long Covid patients, friends and families, prepare to hunker down for, oh, 30 or 40 years or longer, just as your ME/CFS compatriots have done. Of course, by the time you’ve waited 30 years for anyone to take your illness seriously, ME/CFS patients will have waited at least 60. Sounds like a long time for no one to care, doesn’t it?
As loathe as I generally am to admit it, I’m from Missouri, the “Show Me” state. So, Secretary Kennedy, if you really intend to champion research on chronic illnesses that affect millions of Americans, show me.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Max Kozlov. “EXCLUSIVE: NIH to Cut Funding for COVID Research, Documents Reveal.” Nature, March 26, 2025. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00954-y
2. “Scoop: HHS Office of Long Covid Research and Practice to Close This Week.” Inside Medicine, March 26, 2025.
3. Office for the Assistant Secretary of Health. https://www.hhs.gov/ash/search-results/index.html?query=Who+is+the+Assistant+Secretary+for+Health%3F&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hhs.gov%2Fash%2Fosm%2Fleadership%2Findex.html