News in Brief - April 2026
- Thread starter S4ME News
- Start date
Week beginning 6th April 2026
News, advocacy and articles
Norwegian Guidelines A draft for guidelines on fatigue and ME/CFS is currently under public consultation and receiving a lot of criticism. The ME researchers Olav Mella, Øystein Fluge and Karl Johan Tronstad have written an opinion piece with several important critical points where they argue for a new revision of the guidelines with a clear scope on ME, a broader review of the scientific literature and a better embedding of international guidelines.
Opinion piece (Norwegian) l Thread
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has published a detailed report on Long Covid, calling it the "the long shadow of the pandemic". It estimates GDP losses of 0.1-0.2% due to Long Covid, which could create "a major drag on the economy amounting to USD 135 billion per annum over the next decade."
Report | Thread
UK Hope for ME and Fibro Northern Ireland Videos are now available from the Newry conference 'Collaboration for Change' held on 27th March. Speakers include Professors Chris Ponting and Tom Trinick and Dr William Weir.
Videos | Thread
Canada The Canadian Pain Society's 2026 conference presented two posters from the McMaster group. One is a clinical practice guideline on physical activity for ME/CFS and the other is about benefits and harms of physical activity for ME/CFS patients. Both of them unfortunately endorse exercise therapy as treatment.
Thread
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Crowdfunding
Trial By Error Reporting on ME, ME/CFS, Long COVID, & so on ...
David Tuller is crowdfunding for the final time to continue his position and important work until he plans to retire from Berkeley University at the end of this year. The goal is to raise $75,000 by 5th May.
Crowdfunding l Thread
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Coming events
Solve ME Webinar The Discovery of Target Antigens for Dysfunctional T Cells in ME/CFS and Long COVID
Thursday, April 28, 3:00 pm Pacific / 6:00 pm Eastern
Announcement | Registration | Thread
UK Durham University Gender, affective injustice & ‘the greatest medical scandal of the 21st century'
Talk by Dr Katharine Cheston on Monday, May 11, 12 PM - 1:30 PM
Dr Cheston worked with Action for ME on their 2025 Big Survey.
"Drawing on preliminary analysis of the Big Survey data, alongside semi-structured interviews conducted during my PhD, I will interrogate this scandal, illuminate its gendered dimensions, and demonstrate how it constitutes a compelling case study of affective injustice in healthcare."
Free Zoom booking | Thread
.............
Research news and commentary
USA RECOVER-TLC announces public comment period for upcoming clinical trial
"RECOVER-Treating Long COVID (RECOVER-TLC) invites patients, caregivers, advocates, healthcare providers, and researchers to provide feedback on the draft protocol synopsis for its upcoming glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) clinical trial."
Website l Thread
............
Research
ME/CFS research
Perioperative outcomes in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome undergoing general anesthesia: a retrospective matched-pair study — Felix M Steinkirchner et al
"ME/CFS represents a potentially vulnerable population that remains underrepresented in the anesthesia literature and for whom evidence-based perioperative guidance is currently lacking." "Overall, general anesthesia appeared to be well tolerated from a hemodynamic perspective, whereas postoperative recovery, particularly pain, was more adversely affected compared with matched controls."
Preprint | Thread
Validation of the Wood Mental Fatigue Inventory in adolescents with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome — Welch et al
"Cohen's d was large for both the WMFI (1.83) and the Peds QL MFS cognitive fatigue subscale (1.95), indicating that the means between the ME/CFS patients and the healthy controls on both questionnaires differed by more than 1.8 times the baseline standard deviation."
Article | Thread
Long Covid research
Longitudinal study of genome-wide DNA methylation in individuals with and without post-acute symptoms following SARS-CoV-2 infection — Jon Bohlin et al
"Using a longitudinal design with matched samples, collected before and after infection, we analyzed genome-wide DNA methylation in 297 adults." "We found no evidence of genome-wide DNA methylation differences associated with COVID-19 infection or persistent Long-COVID symptoms."
Article | Thread
Immune correlates underlying small fiber neuropathy presenting as vaccine-associated post-acute SARS- coronavirus syndrome — Limongelli et al
"we describe a cohort of patients with postvaccine PASC satisfying SFN definition criteria, for whom an underlying persistent inflammation (evidenced by CD34+DNAM1bright cells) was observed, along with a peripheral expansion of innate-like T cells"
Article | Thread
Clinically confirmed cohort reveals antioxidant genetic polymorphisms as potential susceptibility factors for long COVID after mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 — Katsarou et al
"SOD2 and EPHX1 variants are associated with Long COVID susceptibility."
Article | Thread
The effect of pre-existing sleep disturbance on T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 variants, pro-inflammatory and pro-resolving mediators, and glucocorticoid sensitivity in Long COVID — Haack et al
"These exploratory findings suggest that preexisting sleep disturbance may be associated with compromised glucocorticoid mediated inflammatory suppression in a subset of individuals classified as Likely LC."
Article | Thread
Dysautonomia in Long COVID is Prevalent and Could Explain the Frequency of Symptoms — Leonardo Tamariz et al
"Orthostatic hypotension was observed in 12% of the study population, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) was seen in 10%" "Measures of exercise induced dysautonomia were seen in 57% among the 25 long COVID patients who had a CPET."
Article | Thread
School Difficulties and Long COVID in Children and Adolescents — Harrison T. Reeder et al
"These findings also provide evidence of a key disruption of functional status at critical points in the life course, which have profound implications both for the future health of this generation and for public policy."
Article | Thread
............
S4ME social media: Forum, Mastodon, Bluesky
News, advocacy and articles
Norwegian Guidelines A draft for guidelines on fatigue and ME/CFS is currently under public consultation and receiving a lot of criticism. The ME researchers Olav Mella, Øystein Fluge and Karl Johan Tronstad have written an opinion piece with several important critical points where they argue for a new revision of the guidelines with a clear scope on ME, a broader review of the scientific literature and a better embedding of international guidelines.
Opinion piece (Norwegian) l Thread
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has published a detailed report on Long Covid, calling it the "the long shadow of the pandemic". It estimates GDP losses of 0.1-0.2% due to Long Covid, which could create "a major drag on the economy amounting to USD 135 billion per annum over the next decade."
Report | Thread
UK Hope for ME and Fibro Northern Ireland Videos are now available from the Newry conference 'Collaboration for Change' held on 27th March. Speakers include Professors Chris Ponting and Tom Trinick and Dr William Weir.
Videos | Thread
Canada The Canadian Pain Society's 2026 conference presented two posters from the McMaster group. One is a clinical practice guideline on physical activity for ME/CFS and the other is about benefits and harms of physical activity for ME/CFS patients. Both of them unfortunately endorse exercise therapy as treatment.
Thread
...............
Crowdfunding
Trial By Error Reporting on ME, ME/CFS, Long COVID, & so on ...
David Tuller is crowdfunding for the final time to continue his position and important work until he plans to retire from Berkeley University at the end of this year. The goal is to raise $75,000 by 5th May.
Crowdfunding l Thread
.............
Coming events
Solve ME Webinar The Discovery of Target Antigens for Dysfunctional T Cells in ME/CFS and Long COVID
Thursday, April 28, 3:00 pm Pacific / 6:00 pm Eastern
Announcement | Registration | Thread
UK Durham University Gender, affective injustice & ‘the greatest medical scandal of the 21st century'
Talk by Dr Katharine Cheston on Monday, May 11, 12 PM - 1:30 PM
Dr Cheston worked with Action for ME on their 2025 Big Survey.
"Drawing on preliminary analysis of the Big Survey data, alongside semi-structured interviews conducted during my PhD, I will interrogate this scandal, illuminate its gendered dimensions, and demonstrate how it constitutes a compelling case study of affective injustice in healthcare."
Free Zoom booking | Thread
.............
Research news and commentary
USA RECOVER-TLC announces public comment period for upcoming clinical trial
"RECOVER-Treating Long COVID (RECOVER-TLC) invites patients, caregivers, advocates, healthcare providers, and researchers to provide feedback on the draft protocol synopsis for its upcoming glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) clinical trial."
Website l Thread
............
Research
ME/CFS research
Perioperative outcomes in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome undergoing general anesthesia: a retrospective matched-pair study — Felix M Steinkirchner et al
"ME/CFS represents a potentially vulnerable population that remains underrepresented in the anesthesia literature and for whom evidence-based perioperative guidance is currently lacking." "Overall, general anesthesia appeared to be well tolerated from a hemodynamic perspective, whereas postoperative recovery, particularly pain, was more adversely affected compared with matched controls."
Preprint | Thread
Validation of the Wood Mental Fatigue Inventory in adolescents with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome — Welch et al
"Cohen's d was large for both the WMFI (1.83) and the Peds QL MFS cognitive fatigue subscale (1.95), indicating that the means between the ME/CFS patients and the healthy controls on both questionnaires differed by more than 1.8 times the baseline standard deviation."
Article | Thread
Long Covid research
Longitudinal study of genome-wide DNA methylation in individuals with and without post-acute symptoms following SARS-CoV-2 infection — Jon Bohlin et al
"Using a longitudinal design with matched samples, collected before and after infection, we analyzed genome-wide DNA methylation in 297 adults." "We found no evidence of genome-wide DNA methylation differences associated with COVID-19 infection or persistent Long-COVID symptoms."
Article | Thread
Immune correlates underlying small fiber neuropathy presenting as vaccine-associated post-acute SARS- coronavirus syndrome — Limongelli et al
"we describe a cohort of patients with postvaccine PASC satisfying SFN definition criteria, for whom an underlying persistent inflammation (evidenced by CD34+DNAM1bright cells) was observed, along with a peripheral expansion of innate-like T cells"
Article | Thread
Clinically confirmed cohort reveals antioxidant genetic polymorphisms as potential susceptibility factors for long COVID after mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 — Katsarou et al
"SOD2 and EPHX1 variants are associated with Long COVID susceptibility."
Article | Thread
The effect of pre-existing sleep disturbance on T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 variants, pro-inflammatory and pro-resolving mediators, and glucocorticoid sensitivity in Long COVID — Haack et al
"These exploratory findings suggest that preexisting sleep disturbance may be associated with compromised glucocorticoid mediated inflammatory suppression in a subset of individuals classified as Likely LC."
Article | Thread
Dysautonomia in Long COVID is Prevalent and Could Explain the Frequency of Symptoms — Leonardo Tamariz et al
"Orthostatic hypotension was observed in 12% of the study population, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) was seen in 10%" "Measures of exercise induced dysautonomia were seen in 57% among the 25 long COVID patients who had a CPET."
Article | Thread
School Difficulties and Long COVID in Children and Adolescents — Harrison T. Reeder et al
"These findings also provide evidence of a key disruption of functional status at critical points in the life course, which have profound implications both for the future health of this generation and for public policy."
Article | Thread
............
S4ME social media: Forum, Mastodon, Bluesky