Doctor Urges Trump Administration to Boost Long COVID Research Funding

Long COVID affects as many as 18 million Americans and remains a growing public health crisis. Senator Todd Young pressed Secretary Kennedy on the issue during last year's confirmation hearing and followed up at this year's budget hearing. Kennedy reported efforts to identify biomarkers and pledged to continue the work.

For many, the COVID-19 pandemic feels distant. But Long COVID patients face daily struggles. In 2026, three years after the Public Health Emergency ended, they report symptoms including cognitive dysfunction, extreme fatigue, post-exertional exhaustion, autonomic dysfunction, cardiovascular conditions, blood vessel pathology, air hunger, intravascular micro-coagulation, tinnitus and other neurological issues. No molecular diagnostic test exists, nor any clear understanding of the disease's pathogenesis or definitive therapy.

The author, a physician who served in the US Army, at the University of Maryland and in public service, now focuses much of his practice on Long COVID patients. The crisis evokes his early days treating AIDS patients before NIH and HHS prioritized that disease.

More than 30 years ago, academia, federal labs and industry tackled AIDS. Those efforts turned HIV/AIDS from a fatal disease into a treatable and preventable infection, allowing infected people to live full lives. The push came from aggressive focus and major US government investment in innovation. In 2020, President Trump launched Operation Warp Speed to develop COVID vaccines quickly with industry help.

Mistakes marked the COVID-19 response, but rapid vaccine development was not one. Given Long COVID's scale, the author says President Trump should direct his team to speed up research for effective treatments.

The NIH has not invested enough to understand Long COVID's pathogenesis or develop a diagnostic test. In 2025, the administration closed the Office for Long COVID Research and Practice and cut funding. The CDC and NIH said they would no longer spend billions of taxpayer dollars on a non-existent pandemic Americans had moved past.

That view misstates the situation. Long COVID drives hundreds of billions in annual productivity losses and medical costs. Research programs cut in 2025 were close to results that could spark clinical trials. Some cuts have been reversed, but overall investment falls short.

The NIH should aggressively fund Long COVID research to discover novel treatments for 18 million patients. The author praises Secretary Kennedy's focus on chronic disease and calls on him and the administration to tackle Long COVID.

AIDS went from a mysterious, mostly fatal disease to a treatable one through research and clinical investment. The same path could work for Long COVID if HHS and industry get the resources now.