Long COVID advocates and researchers in the United States have done the extraordinary. After a bruising battle, they managed to revive some of the research grants cancelled by the administration of President Donald Trump ― a rare victory for science as Trump’s team slashes funding and fires federal scientific staff.
The crisis began in late March, when the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) terminated the funding for dozens of long-COVID projects. Activists and researchers – including many with long COVID — began a dogged advocacy campaign, including an eleventh-hour effort to sway a sympathetic member of Congress to intervene, according to an employee of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the NIH. (The employee requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.) Within days, the cuts had been reversed.
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