Officials at the National Institutes of Health are so determined to find out what causes long COVID and what treatments might work for it that they’ve spent $1 billion and counting on studying it — the only problem is they have next to nothing to show for all the money they’ve spent.

What’s even more curious is they haven’t signed up a single patient for the expected clinical studies even though they have at least one prospective treatment that might work, were they to try it.

Other problems are brewing too: Some critics are saying at least one possible intervention if it ever does get used, might make patients sicker.

So where has $1 billion gone? Most of it’s been spent on observational studies; in other words, they’re simply watching, tracking, and recording symptoms of long COVID, rather than doing actual experiments to see how they can alter or stop it.

As far as one patient who was hoping to get into the trials goes, the whole thing is “pointless” and “a waste of time and resources.”

SOURCE:

STAT April 20, 2023