The author of this article is selling outrage and we are all buying. They are getting views and benefiting from this anti-government outrage. The author repeatedly appealed to long-covid patient authority like their medical opinion has any weight at all.

This fear = views = status = profit conflict of interest is the problem in current America and why it feels like no one can understand anything and trust in our institutions is at a low.

  “The NIH RECOVER study is pointless,” said Jenn Cole, a 
  long Covid patient based in Brooklyn, N.Y., who wanted to 
  enroll in the study but found the process inaccessible. 
  The research is “a waste of time and resources,” she said, 
  and fails to use patients’ tax dollars for their benefit.

  “We didn’t need to recreate” existing studies that already 
  answered these questions, said Cole, the long Covid patient. 

This isn't journalism. This is garbage. This article produces anger, not understanding.