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Congress Approves $1,000,000,000 for COVID-19 Long-Haulers Research : Implications for ME/CFS - (Health Rising)

Mary

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Crossing my fingers!

Congress Approves Over a Billion Dollars to Study the COVID-19 Long Haulers : Implications for ME/CFS - Health Rising

EDIT: Dang! That amount of money DID seem too good to be true! - Cort updated the article with this caveat:

Update! There is some controversy over how much funding will go to the long haulers or how much is devoted to long term studies of COVID-19 (or if both are the same thing). Apparently the bill refers to long term studies of COVID19. That suggests to me that it does refer to the long haulers. Otherwise why refer to “long term”? Large NIH studies generally last from 3-5 years (i.e. are long term) without ever using the term “long term”. On the other hand the phrase provides wiggle room and does not nail down the long haulers – so there’s some uncertainty. As Emily reported it will take time to unpack what’s going on. Whatever is going on one would think there is enough money for all.

So I'm sure some of the money will be used for long-haul research, but probably not the bulk of it!

1/15/2021: EDIT AGAIN! It's been confirmed that the money is for "post-acute COVID syndrome" (aka long-haulers!) - some of that has GOT to trickle down to ME/CFS research! THE FOLLOWING IS A HYPERLINK FOR AN MEACTION PAGE BUT I CAN'T GET IT TO LOOK LIKE A HYPERLINK: NIH official confirms $1.15 billion funding for long COVID research - #MEAction Network
 
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Rufous McKinney

Senior Member
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13,249
Wow

Wonder what legislation this was in ...the 20/21 annual budget?

I'm thinking about all the research papers we read which indicate: this is all preliminary, and additional studies (more bigger larger)..are required. Just about every study concludes- more study required to confirm initial findings. That was the case with the recent OMF Stanford studies...

So wouldn't it be nice if some of the most promising studies that have transpired could get further confirmation.
 

bensmith

Senior Member
Messages
1,547
Still seeing pace for lh. Most lh dont have pem in my experience, so might not matter. But still.
 

Mary

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I found the actual text of the bill (it was not easy to do!) The NIH funding is part of a huge appropriations bill - 5,593 pages (!): untitled (house.gov)

The funding talked about above is part of Division M, on pages 1831-1832 and reads in part as follows:

That of the amount appropriated under this heading in 14 this Act, $1,150,000,000 shall be provided for research 15 and clinical trials related to long-term studies of COVID– 16 19:
It doesn't mention long-haulers anywhere -- oh well, we can hope! (and lobby etc.)
 

Mary

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Division M...seems to be listed at the end of the document..so maybe it lives elsewehre..I did not see this info on pg 1831
Look at line 13 on page 1831 - you'll see the sentence I quoted above there. But Division M actually starts on page 1823. It encompasses a lot more than our "little" allotment! Actually Division M is called "Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2021". There are divisions for each letter of the alphabet (A - Z) but there weren't enough letters so they had to add on divisions AA - FF - (see pages 1 - 4 of the act) It's unfortunate that they did not include page numbers in this index!
 

hapl808

Senior Member
Messages
2,052
Strange symptoms and big crashes? Must be all in their heads. (Sorry for the sarcasm - I do hope that some of this research can benefit those of us that have been dealing with this for years or decades with minimal medical support.)
 
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Location
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Strange symptoms and big crashes? Must be all in their heads. (Sorry for the sarcasm - I do hope that some of this research can benefit those of us that have been dealing with this for years or decades with minimal medical support.)

I have joined two covid long hauler groups in my country (I've never had covid myself but wanted to see what's going on and give them some info on the similar ME/CFS). Anyway, people there did get told by some doctors it was all in their head, even after covid. However, there was a woman whose doctor apologized to her after many months, saying that now he can see that this really is a thing.

Btw, I'm also very happy about the 1.15 billion. :)