CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

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

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;........

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