University of Toronto researchers aim to improve access to high-quality research and biomanufacturing tools in resource-limited settings

Keith Pardee and international collaborators show freeze-dried reagents and low-cost hardware can reliably support research and diagnostics in remote locations around the world

University of Toronto - Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

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Using synthetic biology and cell-free systems, Associate Professor Keith Pardee and his team have developed a protocol to produce research-quality bioreagents without the use of traditional lab infrastructure

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Credit: Steve Southon

Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, working with collaborators around the world, have demonstrated the effectiveness of a suite of low-cost, portable biotechnology tools designed to improve access to laboratory research and diagnostics in resource-limited settings.

Published today in Science Advances, the study highlights how decentralized biomanufacturing tools and freeze-dried reagents can help researchers produce high-value biological materials locally — reducing reliance on fragile international supply chains and expanding access to life sciences innovation globally.

The research was led by Keith Pardee, associate professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, alongside collaborators including Camila González in Bogotá, Colombia, Fernán Federici in Santiago, Chile, and Lindomar Pena in Recife, Brazil.

“For labs in low- and middle-income countries, access to high-quality supplies and equipment is a chronic problem,” says Pardee. “Shipping can take a long time, it’s expensive, and products often require a cold chain to retain their effectiveness. This research is in response to those challenges to develop tools that are more accessible for labs in lower-resource settings and improve research equity.”

The team’s work focuses on synthetic biology and cell-free systems — technologies that isolate and freeze-dry the molecular machinery needed to produce proteins commonly used in life sciences research. Because the reagents are freeze-dried, they can be shipped and stored without refrigeration, then reactivated simply by adding water.

Researchers paired these systems with low-cost, adaptable hardware, including a 3D-printed hand-powered centrifuge developed by postdoctoral fellow Mohammad Simchi. Together, the technologies enabled teams to produce a range of research proteins and diagnostic tools in diverse settings, from conventional laboratories to remote field locations.

Using the platform, researchers successfully produced growth factors used in life sciences research and therapeutics, as well as a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate tested in mice and diagnostic tools targeting several clinically relevant pathogens.

“Our work shows that it is possible to produce high-value bioreagents on site, essentially anywhere,” says Severino Jefferson Ribeiro da Silva, postdoctoral fellow in Pardee’s lab and first author of the study. “Through this work, we demonstrated our tools across diverse international settings while maintaining performance comparable to commercial products.”

A key component of the project involved testing the systems in a variety of environments across Canada and internationally. Da Silva travelled to the Algonquin Highlands to evaluate diagnostic tools for tick-borne pathogens and tuberculosis, while graduate student Quinn Matthews travelled to the Yukon where he produced and purified proteins using the portable system on a mountain outside Whitehorse.

Collaborators in Chile, Brazil, Colombia and India also tested the systems, helping ensure the technologies addressed the practical realities faced by researchers in different regions. The project involved extensive international collaboration, including regular meetings, student exchanges and knowledge sharing among participating teams.

Da Silva says the research team experienced firsthand many of the logistical challenges their collaborators routinely face, including lengthy customs delays and damaged shipments containing critical reagents.

“Those experiences highlighted how dependent many researchers and labs still are on fragile international supply chains. If a shipment is delayed, an entire project can stop,” says da Silva. “This work makes it possible to reduce that dependency by enabling local production of key proteins directly at the point of need.”

The researchers say the long-term goal is to help research labs in remote and underserved regions gain access to high-quality diagnostics, research reagents and biomanufacturing capabilities produced closer to home, strengthening resilience against future supply chain disruptions while empowering their research capacity and address local healthcare needs.

“This work is really about access and scientific empowerment,” says da Silva. “Many labs worldwide have the expertise and ideas to conduct life sciences and applied science research, but they face major challenges accessing key bioreagents and essential materials. Decentralized biomanufacturing could help reduce those barriers and make research and diagnostics more accessible globally.”

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Media Contact

Steve Southon
Interim Director, Communications
Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy
University of Toronto
steve.southon@utoronto.ca
905 220 4963

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Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.aeb7039 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Lab-produced tissue samples

Article Title

International multi-site implementation of distributed cell-free protein biomanufacturing to advance health and research equity

Article Publication Date

29-May-2026

Brain Inflammation Unlikely To Explain Persistent Long COVID Symptoms

The TSPO-PET image of the brain on the right shows increased glial activation in the thalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus in a long COVID patient with persistent and severe symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, and depression following SARS-CoV-2 infection. The image on the left shows a corresponding scan from an individual with milder symptoms. Author: Joel Tuomaala


May 25, 2026 

By Eurasia Review


A new brain imaging study has found no evidence of widespread brain inflammation in patients suffering from prolonged symptoms after COVID-19 infection. Instead, the most severe long COVID symptoms were associated with increased brain activity in regions involved in mood and emotion.

Long COVID has been suspected to involve persistent brain inflammation following SARS-CoV-2 infection, potentially explaining symptoms such as fatigue, cognitive impairment, anxiety, and depression. While previous studies have suggested this possibility, direct evidence has been limited.

Researchers at the University of Turku, Finland, used advanced brain imaging techniques to investigate whether long COVID patients with persistent symptoms show signs of brain inflammation.

“We did not observe evidence of widespread brain inflammation in patients with long COVID when compared to healthy controls,” says Professor of Neuroimmunology and InFLAMES Research Flagship group leader Laura Airas, who led the study.


The study included 14 individuals with long COVID, 11 healthy controls, and 13 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), a neurological disease known to involve brain inflammation.

All participants underwent PET imaging sensitive to neuroinflammation, along with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to assess brain structure and white matter changes. Blood samples were analysed for biomarkers reflecting neuronal and glial damage.

Compared to MS patients, individuals with long COVID showed significantly lower inflammatory activity in the brain’s white matter. No differences in markers of brain inflammation or neurodegeneration were observed between long COVID patients and healthy controls.
Brain inflammation may be present early after infection

Clear signs of brain inflammation have previously been observed in neuropathological studies of severe acute COVID-19. In the current study, individuals scanned within 16 months of infection showed higher white matter inflammatory activity compared to those with longer disease duration.

According to Airas, this suggests that inflammation may be more prominent during the early phase of the disease and decrease over time.

An important finding of the study was that higher levels of depression and anxiety, as well as lower quality of life, were associated with increased cellular activity in the hippocampus and amygdala. They are brain regions involved in memory, emotional regulation, and stress responses.

These findings suggest that altered cellular activation in emotion-regulating brain regions may be linked to symptom severity in some patients with long COVID.
Toward a clearer understanding of long COVID and targeted treatments

The researchers note that the findings refine our understanding of long COVID and challenge the idea that persistent brain inflammation is the primary driver of prolonged symptoms in all patients. Instead, the results point to a more complex disease profile, where inflammatory changes may be strongest right after infection and diminish over time.


Long COVID is a recognised condition affecting millions of people worldwide, with symptoms that can persist for months or even years after the initial infection.

The researchers suggest that patients with prolonged symptoms may benefit more from treatments targeting stress and emotional regulation rather than therapies aimed solely at reducing inflammation.

“This study highlights the need to continue investigating the complex biological mechanisms underlying long COVID. Understanding these processes is essential for developing targeted treatments,” notes Airas.

The study by Airas and colleagues has been published in the Journal of Neurology.

 

FIU patent targets viruses with a breakthrough from linseed oil

Florida International University

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A common vegetable oil may hold the key to fighting some of the world’s most dangerous viruses. 

FIU received a U.S. patent for a linseed oil polyol-derived compound shown to inhibit viral infections including HIV and SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), as well as bacterial infections causing strep and staph.

Linseed oil, derived from flax seeds, exists in both edible and industrial forms. The edible version (commonly known as flaxseed oil) is widely available in grocery stores, health food shops, and pharmacies. In the hands of FIU researchers, polyols (chemically modified compounds) derived from food-grade linseed oil show promise as a starting point for preventing and treating challenging infections.

The invention, “Treatment and Prevention of Infections Using Vegetable Oil-Derived Polyols” (U.S. Patent No. 12,440,467), builds on earlier work in developing a unique nanogel that led to a patent in 2022. 

Now the FIU team has taken the science a significant step further.

“The linseed oil polyol had never been explored on its own for antiviral properties,” said Arti Vashist, lead investigator and assistant professor at FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. “Our research revealed that the polyol compound shows strong potential to inhibit a broad spectrum of viral and bacterial infections.”

What makes this compound particularly attractive, Vashist said, is not just what it does, but what it’s made of. Linseed oil is a renewable, widely available, plant-based resource. The polyol derived from it is biodegradable, low-cost and can be produced on an industrial scale, making it accessible far beyond the research laboratory.

Using computational modeling to determine exactly where the compound attaches to viruses, Vashist and her team discovered that it binds to the same regions on HIV and COVID-19 viruses that other antiviral medicines target. This blocks viruses from entering and infecting human cells.

“This is a major breakthrough. You can add this compound to existing treatments to give them broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties, and it’s non-toxic to healthy cells,” said Vashist, who has spent more than a decade using linseed oil-based polyol to create different nanomaterials and improve how they work. “It may be formulated into pills, tablets, lozenges, aerosols and sterile solutions.”

Additional benefits include enhancing the ability of nanocarriers to cross the blood-brain barrier, making it possible to treat many more neurological disorders, infections and tumors previously unreachable with conventional medications. The compound also has fluorescent properties that enable researchers to track it during imaging studies to confirm that drugs are reaching their target.

Vashist is the principal investigator on several research projects and holds multiple patents, including one covering polyols and polyol-based hydrogels for cancer treatment. Contributors to the patent include FIU Medicine researchers Hitendra Chand, Madhavan Nair and Andrea Raymond, along with Prem Chapagain from FIU's College of Arts, Sciences & Education.

Funding for the work has been provided in part by the National Institutes of Health. Vashist recently received an NIH R03 grant from the National Institute on Aging to explore linseed polyol-based nanogels as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

The timing of the patent is notable. In a world still grappling with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the persistent challenge of drug-resistant infections, a low-cost, plant-derived compound capable of targeting multiple viruses could represent an important new tool in the global health arsenal, Vashist said.

For her, the goal has always been to move from the laboratory to the marketplace by synthesizing and bottling the compound to sell to pharmaceutical companies.

“This is green technology, easy to synthesize, affordable, stable and versatile,” she said. “It’s a discovery that is a huge step forward for health care.”

 

Sabiá virus has been circulating in Brazil for 142 years and mutating, study finds

Researchers at a FAPESP-supported center developed a new method and identified the infection in two patients who died from acute hemorrhagic and neurological syndrome in São Paulo in 2019 and 2020

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

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Map of municipalities in the state of São Paulo indicating locations where natural Sabiá virus (SABV) infections were detected. Case 1 (1990) occurred in Cotia, and Case 2 (1999) occurred in Espírito Santo do Pinhal. Cases 3 and 4 are from 2019 and 2020 and are from patients in Sorocaba and Assis. Taken together, the data indicate the silent circulation and genetic diversity of SABV over time 

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Credit: Ingra M. Claro/FM-USP

The Sabiá virus causes an acute hemorrhagic and neurological syndrome. Four fatal cases have been recorded in the state of São Paulo since 1990. The virus has been circulating in Brazil for about 142 years. Genomic analyses of two cases recorded in 2019 and 2020 show that the virus has undergone genetic changes over time, which explains why it was not identified by existing tests.

These results are part of a study published in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The study was conducted by researchers from the Brazil-UK Joint Center for Arbovirus Discovery, Diagnostics, Genomics, and Epidemiology (CADDE), a research center supported by FAPESP and based at the University of São Paulo Medical School (FM-USP) and Imperial College London in the United Kingdom.

“The reference strain of the Sabiá virus dates back to 1990, from a case in Cotia. The diagnostic method was developed based on that genome. Since more than 30 years have passed, it was very likely that the virus had mutated. We don’t have enough cases to validate this method further, but it can be used for future suspected cases with greater accuracy than the tests used until now,” says Ingra Morales Claro, who conducted the research during her Ph.D. studies with a FAPESP scholarship at FM-USP and is currently pursuing postdoctoral research at the University of Kentucky in the United States.

The team developed primers – small DNA fragments used to detect the virus in laboratory tests – and sent them to the Adolpho Lutz Institute in São Paulo, the state’s leading facility for this type of testing.

The genomes recovered from Sabiá were approximately 89% genetically identical to strains previously described in 1999, when the second case in history was recorded. “When analyzing the genomes of the new cases, we identified mutations in target regions of the primers that prevented detection by existing diagnostic tests. We modified those regions, and now it’s possible to identify the circulating strains,” Claro explains.

The CADDE is coordinated in Brazil by Ester Sabino, a professor at FM-USP who led the first sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 in the country in March 2020, as well as the mpox virus in 2022 (read more at agencia.fapesp.br/32656/, agencia.fapesp.br/35414/, and agencia.fapesp.br/38928). In the United Kingdom, the center is coordinated by Nuno Faria of Imperial College London.

His team led the ZiBRA project which sequenced the Zika virus and mapped the yellow fever outbreak in Brazil and São Paulo. Together with Sabino, his team also coordinated the initial characterization of the SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant in Manaus (read more at revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/en/breaking-boundaries/ and agencia.fapesp.br/35449).  

How the virus interacts with human cells

The 2020 case of Sabiá virus infection was identified through metagenomic analysis, a technique that detects different microorganisms in a sample without knowing which virus to look for in advance. The virus was present in the blood of a 52-year-old patient from Sorocaba. A rapid metagenomic approach developed during Claro’s doctoral studies was used to detect emerging pathogens in clinical samples.

The man, who had a history of hiking in forested areas, sought care at a primary care clinic on December 30, 2019. He was then transferred to FM-USP’s general and teaching hospital (Hospital das Clínicas) in São Paulo with a suspected case of yellow fever and died on January 11, 2020. Initial tests were negative for yellow fever and Sabiá virus.

After detecting the virus in subsequent tests, the researchers analyzed blood samples from seven previous cases of acute hemorrhagic and neurological syndrome that had tested negative for yellow fever. They found a case involving a 63-year-old rural worker from Assis who was admitted to the Hospital das Clínicas on December 10, 2019, and died two days later.

In both cases, the researchers observed changes in the protein that allow the virus to bind to human cells. Phylogenetic analyses, which allow for the reconstruction of the evolutionary history of a virus, indicated that the pathogen has been circulating in Brazil for decades and is likely not a recent introduction.

“There were likely other cases in the past that went unidentified. It’s important to understand the virus, develop tests, and study the changes occurring in its genome so that we can anticipate future cases, and even outbreaks, of the disease,” Sabino warns.

The species that serves as a reservoir for the virus is not yet known, but it is believed to be wild rodents. The infections occurred in rural areas where wild animals and humans may interact.

“In this context, metagenomic approaches have proven to be essential tools for detecting rare or unexpected pathogens, especially when targeted diagnostic tests fail. This strategy was fundamental in identifying both fatal cases of Sabiá in humans and in wild animals, and it highlights the essential role of genomic surveillance in detecting public health risks,” says Faria, citing as an example a recent study by the group on the evolution and transmission dynamics of yellow fever in Brazil.

The Sabiá virus is considered one of the Brazilian viruses with the highest risk of aerosol transmission in a laboratory setting. Handling it requires the highest level of biosafety, a capability that does not yet exist in South America. 

The country’s first laboratory capable of storing and handling the active virus, Orion, is scheduled to open in 2030. It is currently under construction at the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) in Campinas. Currently, the Sabiá reference strain is stored in the United States (read more at agencia.fapesp.br/52207). 

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)
The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

 

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Journal

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

DOI

10.1371/journal.pntd.0014008 

Article Title

Genomic characterization of Sabiá virus in Brazil, 2019–2020: Implications for diagnostics, virus evolution, and receptor binding

 

Sweeping up dust to detect emerging viruses

As a reliable recordkeeper, dust can be used for disease surveillance

Ohio State University

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COLUMB

US, Ohio – Gathering dust from buildings may hold promise as a more efficient way to track viral outbreaks in indoor settings, according to a new study.  

After collecting nearly 30 vacuumed dust samples from places like schools, university residence halls and office buildings, researchers simultaneously identified the presence of 54 distinct viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, influenza, norovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, and others. 

Indoor dust tends to accumulate biological material shed by occupants and also integrates signatures from the air, surfaces and human activity over time, which means using these particles to monitor viral pathogen trends could aid early detection efforts against future outbreaks. 

“It’s really important that we understand broadly how to track disease in our community,” said Karen Dannemiller, senior author of the study and an associate professor of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering and environmental health sciences at The Ohio State University. “Similar to wastewater monitoring, which tracks disease clusters on a large-scale level, we’ve created an intermediate tool that has those same benefits for a smaller population.”

Compared to traditional sampling methods, dust-based techniques are advantageous because the particles are easily collected during routine cleaning, it requires no specialized plumbing access, and dust can remain stable at room temperature for extended periods. These simple but critical aspects can lead to quick, high-resolution insights into what is happening within a specific space and help researchers take appropriate measures to address it, said Dannemiller. 

“This is groundbreaking work,” she said. “While people have sequenced viruses out of dust before, it’s been on a pretty limited basis and was not proposed as a surveillance tool.”

The study was recently published in the journal Building and Environment.

To take a targeted look at these pathogens, researchers utilized both PCR analysis and a novel sequencing technique that detects the RNA molecules that viruses leave behind after they decay. By comparing the findings in their sample to a library panel of 200 potential pathogens, the team measured and categorized many viruses at once, a capability that, on the ground, would increase both the efficiency and utility of future viral investigations. 

“Research like this is useful for monitoring a range of buildings where there’s a variety of things that you're concerned about,” said Dannemiller. “By using that information to help pinpoint those issues, it’s possible to improve our decisions about where to direct limited mitigation resources.”

Significantly, building dust could also be used to capture data from both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals, a noninvasive aspect that would allow researchers and decision-makers to infer viral patterns without the need for direct clinical testing. 

While researchers in this study did not measure the viability of the sampled viruses, it’s unlikely that leftover viral particles in dust would still be infectious – depending on the bug. Given the minimal risk, establishing a robust and easily scalable dust-based monitoring tool would provide the public with a much broader understanding of community transmission. 

For instance, three of the viruses the team found were shown to be more prevalent in child-associated settings, like daycares, rather than in buildings primarily occupied by adults, and a total of 85% of all collected samples contained at least one rhinovirus. Such results signify that dust can even capture public health trends by occupant demographic, like age. 

Overall, findings suggest that dust-based surveillance may be a powerful complement to wastewater surveillance, particularly for early warning of threats in enclosed environments. Future work may include exploring the use of this sampling in military and healthcare settings and determining if the team’s new viral sampling technique could help automate detection pipelines. 

“This is an initial step to understanding how we can use technology to better monitor at the building level for different infectious diseases,” said Dannemiller. “Ultimately, that leads to a more informed use of precautions and better targeting for the use of resources.”

Other Ohio State co-authors include Austin Shamblin, Calissa Carlisle, Nicholas Nastasi, Seth Faith, Michael Sovic and Vanessa Varaljay, as well as Genny Cook, Anthony Fries, Richard Agans from the United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine. This study was supported by the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, the National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 

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Contact: Karen Dannemiller, Dannemiller.70@osu.edu

Written by: Tatyana Woodall, Woodall.52@osu.edu

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Journal

Building and Environment

DOI

10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.114530 

Article Title

Simultaneous detection of multiple viral pathogens in vacuumed dust from different building types

Article Publication Date

15-May-2026

RFK, Jr. Still Doesn’t Care About Long COVID Patients

Hayley Brown

 May 15, 2026

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Late last month, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. testified that he was making Long COVID a top priority, noting that his own son had been “debilitated” by the disease. It is certainly terrible that Secretary Kennedy’s son is among the millions of Long COVID sufferers in the US alone. But it’s difficult to take the Secretary seriously when he asserts his commitment to helping Long COVID patients, given that he has done an awful lot to contradict that claim directly.

Long COVID is a chronic, multisystem condition that persists following an infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID‑19. The condition can arise regardless of the severity of the initial illness, and symptoms may persist or emerge weeks to months following COVID-19’s acute phase. These symptoms can include, but are by no means limited to, difficulty thinking or remembering (sometimes described as “brain fog”), post-exertional malaise, shortness of breath, joint pain, chest pain, lingering cough, changes in or loss of taste and/or smell, and extreme fatigue. Surveys suggest that as many as a third of those who’ve survived COVID-19have experienced Long COVID symptoms. Researchers have drawn parallels between Long COVID’s impact and that of a stroke or Parkinson’s, and some studies suggest that Long COVID can lead to quality-of-life reductions comparable to those associated with advanced cancers.

In September 2025, we documented multiple ways by which Secretary Kennedy had shown the American people that he did not, in fact, care about Long COVID patients or about preventing future cases of Long COVID. Those actions included closing the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice without meaningfully replacing it; derailing or stalling Long COVID research and trials by cutting NIH funding; restricting access to COVID-19 vaccines, particularly for children; defunding mRNA vaccine research; stacking the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) with anti-vaccine allies; weakening wastewater surveillance; and generally reducing support for chronic disease prevention and treatment.

Fast forward to today, and many of these harmful developments are still in place. Secretary Kennedy claims to care deeply for those who are suffering, but he has done little to repair the damage he has already caused. Despite assurances that the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice had been disbanded to make way for a more effective replacement, HHS appears to have replaced it with little more than a web page. With no disrespect meant to the many impactful web pages out there, this particular web page is a far cry from the coordinated infrastructure that Long COVID patients actually need. The administration is also once again seeking to eliminate the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, after Congress prevented it from doing so in FY2026.

Additionally, while the administration ultimately (partially) reversed some specific cuts to Long COVID research, it appears to have only brought back particular grants, not the broader Long COVID infrastructure. The current five-year funding stream is smaller than the original investment that launched the program. The impacts of the previous funding disruptions have also persisted. Such abrupt cancellations, even when funding is ultimately restored, create uncertainty for investigators and patients, delay or threaten studies already underway, undermine trust in federally funded clinical research, and jeopardize the professional pipeline for new research talent.

Secretary Kennedy has also continued to deny or minimize looming Medicaid cuts, despite their relevance to the survival of disabled and chronically ill people. Working-age adults with disabilities are more likely to rely on public health insurance such as Medicaid relative to their peers without disabilities. Stringent new work requirements, enacted to offset tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, threaten to cut off people with Long COVID from the care they need for a condition that is often as medically complex as it is activity-limiting. Long COVID patients, in particular, may struggle to assemble the documentation required to qualify for an exemption from the work requirements, especially given how difficult it can be to obtain a diagnosis.

Kennedy’s HHS has also continued to undermine prevention efforts. Avoiding infection (including reinfection) is the best way to avoid developing Long COVID. Reinfection also poses substantial risk to those who already suffer from Long COVID, as reinfections can exacerbate existing symptoms and introduce new ones. Yet the administration has proposed further cuts to wastewater-based disease surveillance, a crucial public health tool and one of the only remaining ways to track COVID-19 case volume throughout the US. Access to COVID vaccines — which, while imperfect at preventing either infection or Long COVID, appear to at least be value-added on both fronts — also remains curtailed, especially for young children. (Long COVID has become frighteningly common among children, with uncertain implications for their long-term health and development.) The ACIP, which has traditionally played a key role in establishing vaccination guidelines, remains stacked with Secretary Kennedy’s hand-picked vaccine skeptics. Funding for mRNA research remains cut. And earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration (which is part of HHS) reportedly intervened to block the publication of research results related to COVID and shingles vaccines, including findings that demonstrate a reassuring safety profile for COVID vaccines.

Meanwhile, under Secretary Kennedy, HHS has folded Long COVID into a broader “invisible illness” category that it asserts should be “disease agnostic”. According to the HHS site, “A new paradigm is needed to address complex chronic disease because fragmented, disease-by-disease, and organ-by-organ approaches are insufficient for understanding multisystem conditions like Long COVID.” This statement acknowledges something about which Long COVID patients have often complained (a fragmented, organ-by-organ approach) and attaches it to something more problematic (rejecting going “disease-by-disease”). Many chronic conditions do have things in common, and many preventative measures can work against multiple pathogens (e.g., use of N95 respirators and improved indoor air quality, though funding for Biden’s indoor air initiative has largely been allowed to lapse under the second Trump administration). But taken alongside the behavior of Kennedy’s HHS, one could be forgiven for wondering whether this New Paradigm is instead meant to sidestep the actual causes of Long COVID and the chronic illnesses to which Long COVID is compared on the HHS site. This would certainly explain the deemphasis of disease prevention at HHS. The new approach to preventing and treating Long COVID and other infection-associated chronic illnesses risks overlooking the specific root causes of each — namely, the infections themselves. Tackling these conditions requires dedicated funding and staffing that treats patients’ conditions with the specificity they deserve.

If Secretary Kennedy really cares about Long COVID patients, he should try showing rather than telling. He can start by reversing the damaging policies he’s already put into place. He must also fully obligate all remaining funding to avoid any risk of rescission. Until he does these things, it’s hard to see his statements about Long COVID as anything more than empty words.

This first appeared on CEPR.

Hayley Brown is a Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.