Thank You Variants

"Long COVID" is the name for the phenomenon experienced by people who have "recovered" from COVID-19 but are still suffering from symptoms months after the virus invaded their bodies. In this episode, listen to highlights from a 7 hour hearing in Congress about Long COVID so that you can recognize the disease and know where to turn for treatment. Even if you didn't catch the rona yourself, Long COVID is far more common that you probably think and is almost certainly going to affect someone you know. Executive Producer: Michael Constantino Executive Producer: Robyn Thirkill Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links to contribute monthly or a lump sum via to support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send payments to: Send payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send payments to: $CongressionalDish or Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Episodes The Price of Health Care Articles/Documents Article: , By Jason Gale, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, June 8, 2021 Article: , By NewScientist, June 4, 2021 Article: , By Cindy Loose, Kaiser Health News, TIME, May 27, 2021 Article: , By Natalie Grover, The Guardian, May 18, 2021 Article: , By Alvin Powell, The Harvard Gazette, April 13, 2021 Article: , By Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service News Release: , National Institutes of Health, August 7, 2009 Sound Clip Sources Hearing: , House Committee on Energy and Commerce, April 28, 2021 Witnesses: Francis Collins, M.D., Ph. D. Director of the National Institutes of Health John T. Brooks, M.D. Chief Medical Officer for COVID-19 Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Steven Deeks, M.D. Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco Jennifer Possick, M.D. Associate Professor at Yale School of Medicine Director of Post-COVID Recovery Program at the Winchester Center for Lung Disease at Yale-New Haven Hospital Natalie Hakala COVID patient Lisa McCorkell COVID patient Chimere Smith COVID patient Transcript: 1:01:34 Francis Collins: We've heard troubling stories all of us have people who are still suffering months after they first came down with COVID-19, some of whom initially had very few symptoms or even none at all. And yet today these folks are coping with a long list of persistent problems affecting many different parts of the body, fatigue, brain fog, disturbed sleep, shortness of breath, palpitations, persistent loss of taste and smell, muscle and joint pain, depression and many more 1:02:35 Francis Collins: I would like to speak directly to the patient community. Some of you have been suffering for more than a year with no answers, no treatment options, not even a forecast of what your future may hold. Some of you have even faced skepticism about whether your symptoms are real. I want to assure you that we at NIH hear you and believe you. If you hear nothing else today here that we are working to get answers that will lead to ways to relieve your suffering. 1:03:13 Francis Collins: New data arrived every day. But preliminary reports suggested somewhere between 10 to 30% of people infected with SARS COVID2 to may develop longer term health issues. To get a solid measure of the prevalence, severity and persistence of Long COVID we really need to study 10s of 1000s of patients. These folks should be diverse, not just in terms of the severity of their symptoms and type of treatment received, but in age, sex, race and ethnicity. To do this rapidly, we are launching an unprecedented metacohort. What is that? Well, an important part of this can be built on existing longitudinal community based cohorts are also the electronic health records of large healthcare systems. These resources already include 10s of 1000s of participants who've already contributed years worth of medical data, many of them will by now suffer from long COVID. This approach will enable us to hit the ground running, giving researchers access to existing data that can quickly provide valuable insights on who might be most at risk, how frequently individual symptoms occur, and how long they last. 1:04:24 Francis Collins: Individuals suffering with long COVID including those from patient led collaborative groups will be invited to take part in intensive investigation of different organ systems to understand the biology of those symptoms. Our goal is to identify promising therapies and then test them in these volunteers. 1:05:07 Francis Collins: Finally we need a cohort for children in adolescence. That's because kids can also suffer from long COVID and we need to learn more about how that affects their development. 1:05:35 Francis Collins: As we recruit volunteers, we will ask them to share their health information in real time with mobile health apps and wearable devices. 1:08:09 John Brooks: Although standardized case definitions are still being de...