Merr*Seas

🌠 We’re All made of Stardust 🌠Empathy+Compassion+Sarcasm. Not necessarily in that order. 💛💜

[Merr*Seas @MerrSeas]

~ Integrity in Truth ~
👇🏻
“One of the biggest misconceptions aboutCOVID-19 is that the pandemic is over,”said Dr. Michelle Harkins, a physician and clinical researcher at the University of New Mexico. “Well, it’s not over,”…”The pandemic is smoldering.”
https://t.co/QTTlA4beZe

[Jonathan Richie @JRichieTX]

UPDATE: New World Screwworm is no longer contained to Texas.

USDA says that the infested dog announced earlier today lives in Lea County, New Mexico and will be reclassified as the first detection in that state.

And now a goat in Gillespie County, TX, has also been confirmed.

[Conor Browne @brownecfm]

I know I've said this many times before on this platform, but the moment I learned anosmia was a symptom of Covid-19 was the moment I decided I was going to do everything possible to avoid getting it. I knew anosmia was an early prodromal symptom of Parkinson's Disease.

[Dr Rae Duncan @Sunny_Rae1]

@hannahspierMD 1/Hannah, we have now almost 500,000 peer reviewed published research into long covid now. “Fatigue”, “post exertional malaise (PEM)” “Brain Fog” “difficulty concentrating” are not psychiatric symptoms. They have a pathological basis and clear demonstrable abnormalities 1/

[Raina MacIntyre @Globalbiosec]

Rates of infection with other pathogens after a +ve #COVID test versus a neg test - more brilliant work from @zalaly and team. COVID causes immune dysregulation and ⬆️risk of other infections. https://t.co/yIZ9LvD2NF

[Conor Browne @brownecfm]

1. Remember that any attempt to paint Long Covid as psychogenic in nature deliberately and completely incorrectly biologically decouples SARS-CoV-2 infection from Long Covid. In essence, this rhetoric shifts the causative factor for LC from the virus to the patient's mind.

[Merr*Seas @MerrSeas]

@Carlos42474 I think the current Novavax expired on May 31, 2026

[Harry Spoelstra @HarrySpoelstra]

There are plenty of world-class L0ngC0vid experts far smarter than I am.

But I bring something they don’t: I’m a CV surgeon and endovascular specialist. I’ve had hearts, lungs, arteries, and other organs literally in my hands. I’ve seen their insides, healthy and ravaged, with my own eyes.

That gives me one brutal, irreplaceable edge: I can take the science and translate it straight into the living, bleeding reality of human anatomy.

And what I see coming is ugly.

You, personally and as a society, are in for one hell of a shock.

Read this 🧵👇

If you keep minimising SARSCoV2, refuse to protect yourselves, and keep swallowing the lies of pseudo-experts chasing money or psychiatrists salivating over a fresh FND goldmine… you’re walking straight into disaster.

Tell every last one of them to https://t.co/rw58iRjUf4 off!

Then follow the hard, unfolding science.👇

Your organs don’t care about opinions. They only care about damage. And the damage is already stacking up, be it momentarily maybe still clinically "silent"! #AvoidSars2 #AvoidReinfections

[Davos Safety @DavosSafety]

@davidtuller1 @oldfshndanne The science is there, but by going around and say it doesn't have integrity nor systems is a blatant ignorance.
https://t.co/Q3Z3V0bcGn

[KATU News @KATUNews]

A federal decision to dismantle much of a major ocean-monitoring network off the U.S. coast is raising concerns among Oregon scientists, who say the loss could affect everything from weather forecasting to fisheries management and climate research. MORE: https://t.co/dPaZpD4geJ

[Volcaholic 🌋 @volcaholic1]

At a time when ocean temperatures are smashing records and scientists are still trying to understand how fast the system is shifting under climate change, they are talking about scrapping a 368 million dollar early warning network that has ALREADY BEEN PAID FOR by tax payers.

This is not just a few sensors in the sea. It is a network of ~900 instruments measuring temperature, currents, carbon, chemistry and ecosystem change. It was designed to deliver long term data over decades.

This would effectively end key long running records and that matters because ocean data only becomes powerful over time. You cannot rebuild a continuous climate record once it is interrupted.

[Leela Gray @LeelaJGray]

You can't solve problems you refuse to measure.

Yet this month, 900 ocean monitoring instruments are being physically pulled out of the water. A $368 million system. A decade to build. Designed to run 15 more years.

Gone.

This network tracked hurricane intensity, coastal flooding, marine heatwaves, and sea level rise. The data was free, public and used in over 500 scientific publications. Congress tried to stop it... twice. They got overruled anyway.

For a coastal community like FL-13 that just lived through Helene, this isn't abstract. This is the difference between an evacuation order that comes in time and one that doesn't.

Florida deserves a representative who fights for the science that protects us, not one who looks the other way while it gets dismantled.

#LeelaGrayforCongress #LeelaJGray

https://t.co/8SBFNnsFcU

[Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA @michael_hoerger]

"As part of President Donald Trump's budget plan, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) will see its funding cut from around $125 million a year to about $25 million." -Newsweek

[💜Javichu @javichu73]

@hannahspierMD "Privilege is when you think something is not a problem because you aren't affected personally"

[Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA @michael_hoerger]

Brain retraining does not fix blood vessels.

[Lazarus Long @LazarusLong13]

Thank you, @AlanLevinovitz, for finally admitting that you do not think LongCovid exists.

Of course, the fact that SARS-COV-2 receptor cell types are in every single organ system, is the reason for the myriad of symptoms shown by LongCovid.

Not because it doesn't exist.

[Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA @michael_hoerger]

You see these start to pick up right as transmission is about to. The denial (psychologizing Long COVlD), the misdirected anger (anonymous attacks on scientists), and the pseudo-intellectual intellectualization (pretending away excess deaths).

[Merr*Seas @MerrSeas]

@Carlos42474 @NicolaRW could you please post those links in the comments below.

[Salvatore Mattera @SalvMattera]

Honestly, the last year has been one of the worst years of my life. Somehow - maybe it was the maraviroc, maybe it was dumb luck - I finally *mostly* recovered from my Long COVID symptoms (recent fainting episode notwithstanding), and then my wife had multiple strokes, got hospitalized for a month, had part of her skull removed, and wound up even more disabled than I was at my worst.

For that reason, when @AlanLevinovitz emailed me a few months ago and asked me to talk about Long COVID, I missed it. By the time I got to it in my inbox, he had already finished his piece. But even if I had responded in time, I wouldn't have spoken to him - a quick search of his twitter history indicates that, despite not having read seemingly any of the scientific literature, he has strong opinions about what Long COVID is and who has it. He can cite no evidence for his claims, but felt it worthwhile to declare that "60-80%" of Long COVID is psychosomatic. A range that is somehow both bizarrely specific, and entirely fabricated.

I knew exactly the type of piece he would write before I read it, because he's not a neutral observer here. I don't know what his incentives are, but regardless of his intentions, I can tell you exactly how that piece in @WIRED functions: as free advertising for a cottage industry of alternative medicine scammers that prey on some of the most vulnerable people in society.

Here's what Levinovitz conveniently doesn't tell you (I wonder if his editors know about this stuff, assuming this was even edited - a 10 second search can reveal extensive articles on MEpedia and other websites detailing this; even wikipedia covers it a bit):

Like most alternative medicine scams, brain retraining is based on taking something legitimate from medicine (in this case, neuroplasticity and CBT) and putting a spin on it that involves pseudoscience and a money-making scheme.

I never knew these folks existed until I developed Long COVID and became exposed to this space, but they've operated for years. For a couple decades at least they've preyed on people with ME/CFS, and in more recent year, have set their sights on profiting from Long COVID.

There are far too many examples of them for me to name them all. Kennedy, the quack Levinovitz profiles, charges only a couple hundred dollars an appointment - which, for nonsense, is still far too much IMO - but others are worse.

There's this guy Toby Morrison who runs "CFS Health". He and his website look like a lame Tony Robbins ripoff, complete with high pressure sales tactics. He sells a $500 monthly membership and offers "coaching".

There's the Lightning Process, which costs somewhere around $900-$1500 for a course. There's ANS Rewire and the Gupta Program, which are a series of online videos you pay $500 to access. There's DNRS, which sells $2K + seminar tickets.

A lot of these programs have a sort of multi-level marketing feel to them as well. The Gupta Program gives you a pathway to become an "official" Gupta coach. Primal Trust offers a way to refer people into the program. etc.

These programs use social media to ensnare sick people into emptying their pockets. They operate a web of YouTube channels and Facebook groups, some of which I'm in. Below, I'll paste a screenshot of a moderator in one of these groups who seems to be implying that people with chest pain who go to the ER are wasting their time.

Which is maybe the more important point: This stuff isn't just a money-making scheme. It's dangerous and potentially deadly. Essentially, the core tenant is that the symptoms are all in your head, driven by an over-active nervous system, and you just need to think your way out of them.

We have, in fact, run this experiment before. It was called the PACE trial: the idea that these patients are deconditioned and frightened of activity, curable with exercise and a change of beliefs. Patients reported in droves that the exercise made them sicker (74% in one survey) and over time the major bodies reversed course. The CDC now opens its overview of ME/CFS by stating that its a biological illness. What Levinovitz is calling a brave, suppressed paradigm is a long discredited and dangerous theory given a different name.

Although it's lengthy, his article reads like something I might have written as a freshman in undergrad. He just didn't do the work, didn't follow the money, didn't talk to the right people. He doesn't look for the harm caused, or who profits from it.

And so what we wind up with is a lengthy advertisement for alternative medicine in a major publication. I doubt the industry could have bought anything better.

[Al Haddrell @ukhadds]

I’m proud to have our latest research published on how long #SARSCoV2 remains infectious while airborne! We studied the fundamental processes that drive the loss of viral infectivity in the aerosol phase. #COVIDisAirborne

Here’s a thread going over some of the findings.

[Merr*Seas @MerrSeas]

@WIRED https://t.co/To6m9kuJDa

[Danielle Beckman @DaniBeckman]

Crucial paper on #NeuroCovid just published! #LongCovid patients with neurocognitive symptoms showed increased antibodies against the nervous system that correlated with several neurological symptoms. Targeting these antibodies might offer therapeutic benefits for some patients