What to know about RFK Jr.’s efforts to address long COVID research and treatments
PBS News Hour - Segments
PBS NewsHour
4.1 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is supported in part by the New England Innovation Academy in Marlborough, Massachusetts, |
| 0:05.5 | where today's students become tomorrow's innovators by discovering their passions and purpose while preparing for what's next, |
| 0:12.1 | reimagining education with a future-focused curriculum, entrepreneurial mindset, and real-world application, |
| 0:18.1 | currently enrolling grade 6 through 12, day and boarding students. |
| 0:22.0 | Learn more at NEI Academy.org. |
| 0:25.7 | It's been more than two years since the pandemic ended, but millions of Americans are still living |
| 0:31.5 | with long COVID. That's a catch-all term for COVID symptoms lasting at least three months |
| 0:36.8 | after testing positive. |
| 0:38.6 | Symptoms can vary from person to person, but they range from mild to severe to physically disabling. |
| 0:45.1 | Recently, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. kicked off new efforts to address long COVID |
| 0:49.9 | with a roundtable discussion with doctors, researchers, and patient advocates. |
| 0:54.7 | In the past, the response to epidemics of this kind has been to pump a lot of money into |
| 1:03.8 | ivory tower science to try to solve the problem. We've already put $1.5 billion into NIH |
| 1:10.8 | to solve long COVID, and we've got literally nothing from it. |
| 1:16.3 | Ali Rogan spoke to two members of the long COVID community. |
| 1:20.0 | Dr. Michael Paluso, a physician and researcher at UC San Francisco, who attended that roundtable meeting. |
| 1:26.4 | And Megan Stone, the executive director |
| 1:28.7 | of the long COVID campaign. |
| 1:31.2 | Michael and Megan, thank you both so much for joining us. Michael, first to you, we just heard |
| 1:35.6 | Secretary Kennedy say that there's been nothing to show for HHS's investments so far in |
| 1:41.6 | long COVID research. What do you say to that? Well, I think many of us agree |
| 1:46.3 | that progress has really been too slow. There are a lot of patients really suffering, a lot of |
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