Michael | APC Injury

Doctorally trained herbalist and acupuncturist; Integrative oncology(acupuncture); Author; Researching APC dysfunction in chronic illness; Long Covid since 2020

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

Lingering pathogens have been a big part of Chinese medicine, documented as early as 2,000 B.C. So much of the medicine operates around the interstices, ecapsulated spaces, and empirical evidence that lingering pathogens are not considered special or even rare.

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

🚨

[Dr. Allison Wiltz @queenie4rmnola]

We need independent investigations for Black people found hanging in America.

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

Here it is:

CW: suicidality, assisted dying, mortality in LC, ME

Long Covid mortality research shows a strong cardiovascular signal: one large cohort found major cardiovascular events about 4.5× more common and overall mortality about 1.5× higher.

ME mortality studies also document premature cardiovascular death - often decades earlier than expected - alongside cancer, infection, stroke, and pulmonary embolism.

Suicide is also a serious complication of both illnesses. ME research has found suicide mortality about 6.9× higher than expected, while a Long Covid meta-analysis found suicidality in about 19% of patients studied.

Assisted dying has also entered severe ME care, raising an awful ethical question when patients can be offered help to die while adequate symptom control, disability support, and meaningful treatment remain unavailable.

References by Topic(DOIs for concision):

Long Covid - major cardiovascular events and mortality
10.1186/s12872-026-06026-x

ME - premature mortality, cardiovascular death, cancer, suicide
10.1080/21641846.2016.1236588

ME - causes of death
10.1080/07399330600803766

ME - suicidality
10.3390/healthcare9060629

ME - suicide risk factors
10.1080/07481187.2020.1776789

Long Covid - suicidality meta-analysis
10.1371/journal.pone.0312351

Severe ME - assisted dying case report
10.7759/cureus.109798

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

Here it is:

CW: suicidality, assisted dying, mortality in LC, ME

Long Covid mortality research shows a strong cardiovascular signal: one large cohort found major cardiovascular events about 4.5× more common and overall mortality about 1.5× higher.

ME mortality studies also document premature cardiovascular death - often decades earlier than expected - alongside cancer, infection, stroke, and pulmonary embolism.

Suicide is also a serious complication of both illnesses. ME research has found suicide mortality about 6.9× higher than expected, while a Long Covid meta-analysis found suicidality in about 19% of patients studied.

Assisted dying has also entered severe ME care, raising an awful ethical question when patients can be offered help to die while adequate symptom control, disability support, and meaningful treatment remain unavailable.

References by Topic(DOIs for concision):

Long Covid - major cardiovascular events and mortality
10.1186/s12872-026-06026-x

ME - premature mortality, cardiovascular death, cancer, suicide
10.1080/21641846.2016.1236588

ME - causes of death
10.1080/07399330600803766

ME - suicidality
10.3390/healthcare9060629

ME - suicide risk factors
10.1080/07481187.2020.1776789

Long Covid - suicidality meta-analysis
10.1371/journal.pone.0312351

Severe ME - assisted dying case report
10.7759/cureus.109798

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

CW: suicidality, assisted dying, mortality in LC, ME

Twitter said the contents of my post were invalid when I tried to save and post a thread about mortality, Long Covid, and ME for some reason. I didn't feel great about posting it but thought some folks would find it interesting. I may or may not try again but the gist is that cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in Long Covid while earlier death due to heart failure is also documented in ME. The parts I think it flagged were with regard to elevated suicidality and assisted dying in ME which, of course, are not specific to ME - nearly 20% of those with Long Covid struggle with suicidality as well.

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

Blaming young people for struggling while Congress defends a minimum wage whose purchasing power rivals that set by literal Jim Crow politicians in 1938 is a choice.

[Naomi Harvey “PhD Witch” #WearAMask @Naomi_D_Harvey]

As an ME patient with ANOCA (Angina with Non-Obstructive Coronary Arteries), this is very good to see.

➡️ 89% of pwME tested had ANOCA
➡️ 18% of pwANOCA had ME when checked

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

@rhirhiarhii I’m thinking of specific flavonoids that have tolerogenic effects on antigen-presenting cells. Quercetin is particularly tolerogenic.

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

A caution I sometimes share with mast cell stabilizers is that they can sometimes impair APC function but that is not necessarily the case with Luteolin, moreso Quercetin and others.

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

...tweet

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

I got my old handle back. Apparently, no one figured out how to claim it after I deleted(took a few steps). 👀

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

For the first ten years that I had twitter, I posted "Tweet" once a year and thought I was so funny. I also had an inbox full of people asking me to give up my handle because my name was/is so common(not this handle). I've grown up since then but my sense of humor is still kind of the same.

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

Oops I didn't realize it was so blurry. I'm sorry!

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

Some people with Long Covid rapidly deteriorate in heat/sun while others feel much better. I’ve only seen these opposing phenotypes explained through Chinese medicine.

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

The heat aversion is definitely more common. The “Cold Transformation” that can sometimes include “Ying/Wei Dyshamony” is much less common and usually a temporary state(can flip into Heat Transformation easily due to the lingering pathogen).

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

Blaming young people for struggling while Congress defends a minimum wage whose purchasing power rivals that set by literal Jim Crow politicians in 1938 is a choice.

[Justine B @jewstein3000]

NEW FROM ME: How Baltimore media covers Covid.

- Under scrutiny: the "progressive" @baltbeat, which keeps portraying Covid in the past tense.

- A shoutout to @mercohn, health reporter at @BaltimoreBanner.

- A summary of why Covid is still a danger in 2026.

Link in next post.

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

Long Covid and ME carry some of the most severe quality-of-life impairment measured in chronic illness. In a Danish study, ME had the lowest EQ-5D score of 20 conditions compared - below stroke and multiple sclerosis. Other studies find physical-function scores below those seen in heart failure, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. A 2025 systematic review found profound impairment across essentially every quality-of-life domain in both ME and Long Covid. This isn’t “just fatigue.” These are among the most disabling chronic illnesses medicine deals with.

ME - lowest EQ-5D score among 20 conditions compared
10.1371/journal.pone.0132421

ME - SF-36 impairment vs heart failure, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, MI, etc.
10.1016/S0002-9343(96)00174-X

ME - SF-36 comparison with multiple sclerosis
10.1371/journal.pone.0201274

ME + Long Covid - 2025 systematic review of health-related quality of life
10.1186/s12967-025-06131-z

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

The science does not support that the pandemic is over, nor that repeat infection is benign. The evidence is vast, consistent, and only points the other way.

There is no shortage of data - only a refusal to reconcile with it.

[Don’t Boo…Revolt! @BreeNewsome]

friends……. 🥴 More people died from Covid during the Biden Admin because they actively undermined masking, pushed a failed vaccine-only strategy that was contrary to science, only distributed free tests after protests & then told states to give remaining Covid $$$ to cops… 1/

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

One large retrospective study reported a modest association between COVID-19 vaccination and subsequent acute kidney injury, but other large studies have not replicated that signal(only the opposite), and SARS-CoV-2 infection itself carries a substantially greater kidney-injury risk.

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

I just had a fascinating conversation with a renal physiologist who was adamant about something I don’t think we talk about enough: the long-term population-level renal fallout from repeated SARS-CoV-2 infections.

I can’t decide if “everyone is going to need dialysis” was hyperbole but the general trajectory he was warning about certainly wasn’t. What people don’t seem to understand is that a great deal of the kidney never actually heals from injury - it only accumulates damage over time.

[Michael | APC Injury @michaelmoran]

🫘The kidney is one of SARS-CoV-2's most vulnerable targets. It expresses ~100-fold more ACE2 than the lungs and is hit through at least eight converging routes: direct infection, RAS imbalance, tubular necrosis, endothelial/microvascular thrombosis, collapsing glomerulopathy, complement activation, mitochondrial failure, and rhabdomyolysis. The result is a high rate of acute kidney injury (up to 77% in ICU) and a persistent, severity-graded decline in kidney function that raises long-term risk of chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease even after mild infection. The kidney is a silent casualty of COVID, and the damage can keep accumulating long after the acute illness is "over."