Long covid: Researchers “extremely angry” at Boris Johnson’s “bollocks” comment

Clinicians who led research on long covid from early on in the pandemic and who met government members to discuss the condition have expressed sadness and anger after messages emerged in which the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, described the condition as “bollocks.”During a UK Covid-19 Inquiry session on long covid on 13 October researchers were shown a memo provided to Johnson in October 2020 that discussed a report on long covid and its symptoms.1 On it he had written: “Bollocks. This is Gulf War syndrome stuff.” In February 2021 Johnson wrote in a WhatsApp message, “Do we really believe in long covid? . . . I bet it’s complete Gulf War syndrome stuff.”Chris Brightling and Rachael Evans, two of the investigators leading the Post-Hospitalisation Covid (Phosp-Covid) study,2 a national study looking at the long term effects of covid-19 on hospital patients, said they were “shocked” and “angry” by the…
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