I
wrote a post last month about the recent wave of Long Covid coverage—some of it excellent (
The Atlantic) and some way over the edge in its assertions of psychogenic causation of symptoms (
The American Spectator,
Spiked). Then there was
the seemingly sympathetic New Yorker article by a physician, with its more subtle form of patient-bashing—portraying adherents of a pathophysiological perspective on Long Covid as irrational, anti-science zealots even as the author expressed compassion for their plight.
This New Yorker piece generated a wave of criticism and push-back from many of those experiencing Long Covid—not to mention ME/CFS patients, who have confronted similar attitudes for years. Among those troubled by it was my friend and sometime co-author Steven Lubet, a professor of law at Northwestern University, who wrote
the following commentary for Social Science Space, an academic site. I am reposting the essay here with Professor Lubet’s permission.
**********
On Taking Long COVID Seriously
By Steven Lubet
There was a time when doctors and patients inhabited a nearly “silent world,” as famously described by physician-educator
Jay Katz in his 1984
book of the same name. In those days, communication ran in only one direction and trust was expected only in the other.............
