Immuno(un)compromising Writer

Part of that weird mentally ill cult that reads scientific studies and believes eugenics is bad. Blocked by Vinay Prasad. #WearAMask #FreePalestine.

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

Here it is: https://t.co/V9qq8QPHm1 2/2

[Masked Rogue 😷 🇵🇸 @unMaskedRogue]

We just want affordable food and housing

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

@OfficeHoursDrB @ryangrim 'GOP operative says' at least ought to be reason to raise an eyebrow at the uncorroborated claim

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

@jessesingal Breaking: ableist defends ableist

[Cee @AetherFox_]

I am going to say this one more time for the people up the back.

People claiming that ‘mind-body’ ‘cured’ their Long Covid most likely simply experienced the post-viral illness running its course.

Occam’s razor.

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

@NicoReznick I imagine part of it means assuming chronically ill women are just "hysterics"--among many arcane and reactionary beliefs

[tern @1goodtern]

When you boil it down, this is always what it comes down to.

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

@SpeakOutNow16 @AlanLevinovitz @zeynep @MeganTStevenson As he wrote this too, I think he is just just suffering from ableist, austerity brainrot: ppl must either be taking advantage or lazy and don't want to get better. And he's obsessively angry at the imagined subjects of his distorted worldview. https://t.co/A2F0Vydhhc

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

not a fan of minimizing Zeynep, but to her credit she got AL to say the quiet part of his article(/what his actual agenda is) out loud: "there is no 'Long Covid.'"

[Alan Levinovitz @AlanLevinovitz]

Zeynep — this is not like TB (or cancer, or HIV, or any of the other analogized conditions), because there is no "long Covid" in the first place. There's an extremely vague definition that could apply to a range of conditions, from post-ICU syndrome to basically every PAIS that's out there. Much of the article is dedicated to discussing the definitional problems, as well as the problems that creates for studying "the" condition in the first place. The piece isn't saying that "mind-body" therapies work, or don't work, for long Covid, or any PAIS. It's saying that right now there IS no single entity we can call "long Covid," there's just vague definitions of a family of syndromes and symptoms, which result in everything from extremely moderate to very severe illness.

Equally important, and also the point of the article: A subset of very, very ill people — and a larger subset of mild/moderate — attribute their recovery to mind-body interventions. Was it spontaneous remission? Was it "placebo"? Was it...something else? It would be great to know! But that patient group, specifically, has been of zero interest to researchers, and are actively ostracized by the advocacy world.

No one studies *recovered* LC patients who were severely ill and attribute their recovery to mind-body therapies, as, for example, they do over in ALS where the very, very few spontaneous remissions are of great interest to researchers. Instead, people like Larson and Lupi are told they are full of shit, or were never really sick, or are wrong about what caused their recovery.

That's what the article is about. Other articles can discuss other things! But those are the dynamics and themes I address. They are important. Failing to address them is holding back research on a very heterogenous and poorly defined set of conditions.

[Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz]

@MeganTStevenson @rhymeswithvery Hi! That email will go nowhere. The actual editor of the piece was Jason Kehe. You can email him on: [email protected]. Otherwise you’re sending mail into the void

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

@RBMD1982 The many LC suffers angered by this article must all be, I guess, "hysterical."

[Megan Stevenson @MeganTStevenson]

@AlanLevinovitz If anything it seems like it could be a violation of journalistic standards to criticize someone’s actions in an identifiable way — “UVA Law professor with long COVID"— and not even reach out to them for comment.

[Julia Marie @julia_doubleday]

@AlanLevinovitz Can you imagine having any other illness- MS, cancer, a severe autoimmune disease, and a reporter writing a long form article about how that illness is “totally real” but they interviewed a guy who says he was cured by envisioning himself getting better so maybe that will work

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

"LC patient community is telling me my article is misinformed and dangerous, hmmm:"

[Alan Levinovitz @AlanLevinovitz]

I don't think about this as some kind of "they are tearing my ass up" or not. I want people to get better, and I want the scientific community to be able to figure out what's going on with the huge variety of conditions categorized as long Covid.

When the culture around it is this polarized, it holds progress back.

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

@PacoOnPause Yeah but unfortunately it adds to a body of mainstream media mudding the waters on LC risk and real reseach into trestment whereas the science in actual medical journals is read by almost no one. So it adds to culmutively harmful effect among the public, imo.

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

@loscharlos @AlanLevinovitz @louise_today @WIRED This. You will find ppl if you look for them who will assert some alternative therapy or another cured them of a serious illness. That doesn't mean first line of treatment should be based on anectodal accounts especially for something with no scientific evidence to support it

[Justine Barron @jewstein3000]

@AlanLevinovitz @WIRED Hey Alan! I'm writing about this article for a media outlet. Curious: Did you not want to investigate any of the recent articles about the science of Long Covid and what it is doing to bodies? Have you kept up with what Nature has published, for one?

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

@AlanLevinovitz @gmfunkman @TaylorLorenz @WIRED You have so little understanding of the political economy of health, you're not able to understand my criticism of your article.

[gmfunkman @gmfunkman]

@AlanLevinovitz @jacobscheier @TaylorLorenz @WIRED If you think this article represents the voices of extremely sick patients, look at the discussion of your article in the long covid subreddit, filled with very sick patients.

https://t.co/r6o1bLi5LV

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

@TaylorLorenz @WIRED 💯 You're always be able to find, if you are looking, people who have or believe they have cured themselves from various diseases with alternative therapies. It's anecdotal and often confirms biases and ideologies towards health more than anything resembling science and medicine

[Immuno(un)compromising Writer @jacobscheier]

@AlanLevinovitz @gmfunkman @TaylorLorenz @WIRED sounds to me you got rolled by ideological warriors against viral persistence. As a result, your doing ideological work far more than anything resembling journalism--even if you are unaware of it.