Thread by @PutrinoLab

As with most of the harmful #LongCOVID rhetoric that gets occasionally flung in my direction, I was going to ignore this particularly egregious take, but a few members of the community who I respect asked me to respond and this account also chose to sling mud at someone that 1/

https://twitter.com/Virus2Host/status/1934331709136486775

I truly admire, @VirusesImmunity, and I just cannot let that stand. Let's start with the obvious: we are not "heroes", we are not "saviors". We are people. People who saw a disaster occurring and did our best to lend a hand. I am fallible, I am frequently wrong and if you 2/

follow me or have seen my tweets you know that I am open to constructive feedback and honest, good-faith communication. I have 5 years of receipts on that in this community and 2 decades of receipts in other communities. Now, let's get specific about the roadmap document. In
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2022, myself, Akiko and some other colleagues were approached with an ask: the government was talking about fully reopening after quarantine and the only strategy on the table for that reopening was "let it rip". In contrast, we were asked: what would be the most responsible
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way to reopen the country? Can a team of experts come together and write a whitepaper that provides the best-practice guidance on a safe path froward, from a biosafety perspective, for a nation that is reopening regardless of what we do? Seemed like a reasonable ask at the
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time, so we helped out. If you read to document, you will see that wrote about:
- Clean air: HEPA filters and good ventilation
- N95s for everyone
- Vaccination strategies
- Disability equity and protecting children and other vulnerable populations
- Strategies to defend
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against the next pandemic
- Strategies to expand viral testing beyond COVID-19 and into other viruses and pathogens
- Long COVID care strategy
Was it perfect? No - we were on a tight deadline to pull it together. Was it ideal from an advocacy perspective? Also no - we were
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advised by the lead organizers that if a document like this were to gain any traction, it should appeal to a bipartisan readership, so utterly dismissing the idea of reopening the country was not considered advisable. Did myself and Akiko and some of our colleagues agree with
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everything in this document? Also no. In fact, in the document itself, we state that not all authors agreed with all statements made. In fact there were some heated and vehement disagreements about some of the content, but ultimately we all believed in the purpose behind it to 9/

form consensus and push through. Finally, did the whitepaper work? No. After all the advocacy in those pages to care for folks with disability, initiate clean air initiatives, protect the vulnerable, educate the public on #LongCOVID, etc the document got embarrassingly little 10/

traction in congress, no protections at all were initiated and the CDC really did just say "let it rip" (something I have openly and publicly protested ever since). So, if you want to give me feedback on this document from 2022 and tell me "you know, in hindsight maybe you
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shouldn't have even bothered - it didn't age well". I'll hear what you have to say, I'll reflect on it. If you, like this account attacking us, want to shout me down and say that we're "pro-infection", "grifters" and other inflammatory nonsense for attempting to engage in a
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conversation about advocating for the safe reopening of the US in 2022? If that's your 'smoking gun', then I'm sorry - your argument is in bad-faith and I think that you know it. To all who operate in good faith, I hope the thread so far explains this white paper. Now, re: 13/

this account that has been launching a hateful attack on myself and my colleagues. As a wise and great man once said,
"don't tell no lie about me and I won't tell truths 'bout you"
Too late. Let's drop some truth:
1) All this noise from an anonymous account. When I speak,
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it's from me. My name, my rep, my voice. This account could be anyone - pharma rep, paid agitator, lonely troll. No name = no accountability = no need for integrity.
2) Scroll their feed: vulgar ad hominem attacks, not just on researchers, but on other people with #LongCOVID
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3) Look to the people championing their tweet - a veritable "who's who" of fellow anonymous accounts who have a track record of stalking, doxxing, threatening, DARVO-ing the LongCOVID community. This is an unserious account spinning harmful rhetoric that is geared toward
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creating division, not unity in the #LongCOVID community.
I've said many times: I'm not sick with LC, I can't imagine the anger, frustration and negative emotions that some people must be feeling. I will always work with the community and never stop engaging in respectful,
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productive discourse. What is on clear display here is not respectful, productive, truthful or in good faith. For people that behave like this, please know: I'll block you today and I'll forget you ever existed tomorrow, because you're the 0.01% of a community that I deeply
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care for, and I'm not about to tolerate this sort of behavior aimed at me, my team, my colleagues or the millions of people with #LongCOVID who want actionable science and clinical innovation: not drama fabricated in bad faith by anonymous bad actors. Do better.

/end