Slate Long Covid Hate

What is it with Slate and their minimization and downright dismissal of Long Covid? If I didn't know any better, there has to be a similar "yarn on the corkboard" connection to PAC money or the likes of Jeffrey Tucker's Brownstone institute. The later explains the money-fueled bias of Vinay Prasad (aka  the "Angry Conspiracy Bear.")

It certainly can't be that they (Slate) has it right and the lion's share of the medical and research community has it wrong. At this point, there's a pattern of gaslighting at Slate; first with the "hack" aviation (using the term lightly) journalist Jeff (not) Wise. I say hack as he is known for writing about aviation and more famously (or infamously) featured in the Netflix documentary on the missing Malaysia flight 370 "MH370: The Plane That Disappeared."

Several theories emerged and by the end of the documentary, other (seemingly more reputable experts) dismissed Jeff's stories as tin-foil induced drama which made him the perfect candidate to be an expert author on epidemiology (sarcasm) in the the article "Long Covid Comes Into the Light." Don't waste your time as there's lots of yarn and tinfoil in this gaslighting of Long Covid.

I guess gaslighting pays as it seems articles like the above and the latest are better "clickbait" thus advertising dollars than the truth. I actually had a "blog in a twitter thread" breakdown of this garbage (HERE.) but suffice it to say, there's a lot of conclusions he draws (as a non-expert) such as "chronic comorbidities (implies ya have to be sick to get sick) might be experiencing the onset of new symptoms...others might be affected by the sorts of mood disorders and psychiatric symptoms you'd expect to find in a population undergoing the stress of a global pandemic.

Such gaslighting joined Jeff Wise along with other notorious minimizers Vinay Prasad and Steve Kirsch in my Long Covid Jeopardy. Yes, when you've lost your ability to run and your career becoming disabled from Long Covid, I'm more of an expert than Jeff and yes, I use humor as a coping mechanism, but it's far from funny (but I think Long Covid Jeopardy is.) 

Back to pay for clicks, Vinay's YouTube (I won't link to it) tinfoil segments garner 100K views while mine had a paltry 382 clicks; but 40K impressions on Twitter. The "angry bear" makes even more money on his paid substack which is a common grifter platform for him and Harry Balsach (you'd have to watch Jeopardy to understand that one.)

Anyway, as usual, I've veered off the path. Slate Hate. Back to that.

Just as the color returned to my face after being red-faced angry over the Wise piece, last week, Slate returned to "double down" with a piece surprisingly written by epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz who is an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong. More like University of "load my bong."

I repeated my "blog in a Twitter thread" when my online friend (Mary Jo) from "The ReSisters" podcast dropped me a DM over the weekend asking if I'd read or had an opinion on the latest piece I hadn't seen yet from Slate. (BTW; My Podcast with them on YouTube HERE.) The article is based on a Nature Med article based on a Long Covid study that included work and expert opinion from Eric Topol and Ziyad Al-Aly. Shockingly, household names among the Long Covid community were not quoted or consulted from the hack piece by Slate. More yarn. 

You'd be far better off reading the Nature Med link or a more credible news organization, like the Washington Post article that actually interviewed both Topol and Al-Aly. 

You couldn't be further apart than the actually headlines. Slate's "What the Actual Evidence Actually Says About Long Covid"versus WaPo's "Many Long Covid Symptoms Linger Even After Two Years: New Study Shows" written by Amy Goldstein. 

Did they read the same study?

Meyerowitz-Katz (who dropped me from Twitter faster than the spread of Covid at a Taylor Swift concert) after my weekend thread) veers off on several inaccurate gaslighting conclusions such as “There are still tens of thousands of people likely disabled due to their coronavirus infections.”

Ten's of thousands? You mean in Los Angeles county alone don't you? Sorry, sarcasm, but that number is way off.  This is gaslighting and minimizing. Most estimates indicate 20+% of those that get Covid have long-term damage or Long Covid. This is MILLIONS of people. Not tens of thousands. "Non-hospitalized cohorts still displayed greater odds after two years of medical problems including organ systems."

Yes, the study was based on a VA study so Meyerowitz-Katz draws confidence for those in the Long Covid community as this is the (drum roll,) comorbidities playbook--only those old or with pre-existing conditions are more susceptible to getting Long Covid ignoring the fact that there are kids getting sick and young adults with Long Covid. 

Which would explain why I was in the best shape of my life as a runner and triathlete and successful in the business world and now on Social Security Disability. 

He uses the word "immunity" from the playbook as well which gives the internet a false sense of security that "the really bad stuff" can't "happen to me" because "I've had it before or must have had it by now."

Gideon writes, "I find the evidence quite reassuring." I get it. People are tired of talking about Covid, and want to move on to normalcy. Politics has killed Covid and Long Covid between the badminton played by Trump and now Biden to the point where Mandy "the minimizer" Cohen, CDC Director talks more about the common cold than Covid and doesn't seem to have Long Covid in her vocabulary. 

Articles like this don't help the needed reform and research investments needed for the millions--not tens of thousands of people suffering from Long Covid. Shame on you Slate!

The rest of my thread on twitter (HERE.)