A troubling TIME magazine opinion piece, “How to End the Futile Blame Game Over Failed Long COVID Research,” by two prominent health leaders acknowledged the connection between Long Covid and ME/CFS, declared that decades of ME/CFS biomedical research has been unproductive, and warned that similar Long Covid research will likely fail to help patients.
Solve President and CEO Kristin Jacobson and Chief Scientific Officer Tim Hsiao responded to the TIME co-authors – Steven Phillips M.D., M.P.H. (Vice President Science and Strategy, COVID Collaborative and Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology) and Michelle A. Williams Sc.D. (Joan and Julius Jacobson Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, and former Dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) – by disputing inaccuracies and misplaced conclusions in their opinion piece that could adversely impact the lives of millions who suffer from post-infection diseases.
Jacobson and Hsiao flagged the very real risk that the TIME piece could be used to justify ending funding all public and private research into Long Covid, ME/CFS, and other post-infection diseases. We urged Phillips and Williams to acknowledge the potential harm of their statements, reconsider their position, join us for Advocacy Week 2024, and collaborate with Solve in a manner that benefits the patient population.
This disappointing and potentially dangerous TIME opinion piece only underscores the continued need for education and awareness, particularly among the medical and scientific communities. It also highlights the importance of our communities joining forces in advocating for more research funding to find diagnostics, treatments, and cures.
We hope you, too, will join us for Advocacy Week in April 2024. There is still much work to be done and this is a fight that together we can win!
Learn more about Advocacy Week here.
Click this link to join us for Advocacy Week 2024
Read Solve’s response to TIME here.
