Have you had covid?

Have you recovered?

I had covid. I did not recover. Three years after I spent 4 days in bed with what felt like a bad flu I have ongoing heart problems, possibly a viral-induced autoimmune blood disease, myalgic encephalomyelitis, and brain damage (also ongoing). I, who traveled too much, now rarely leave my house except for trips to the hospital.

Lots of other major damage, but the point here is not to list my (multiple) diagnoses, just the ones most likely to make you pause.

You were the lucky one. I am one of 400 million + people who still "have covid." It's usually called long covid, but that sounds like something you didn't "get." You and I got the same thing. You were lucky.

I'm in several medical research trials. On Thursday, I was scheduled to listen in to a conference call about the CURE ID initiative.* This was an effort started (in the U.S.) by the NIH and the FDA. The goal was to repurpose existing drugs to address ongoing physical harm from covid cases like mine.

Most of the medical research I am participating in takes place at San Francisco's General Hospital, the same place - indeed the same ward - in which treatment for people with AIDS and HIV was provided and research begun, back in the distant 1980s. Today, there is a poster on the wall in that ward that lists more than 50 drugs that keep people with HIV and AIDS (in wealthy countries) alive and living. I won't live 40 more years; I can't wait for new drugs.

The CURE ID call was canceled. The new president ordered a "federal freeze on meeting participation recently placed on NIH and FDA staff." The nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services is a known anti-vaxxer who raised tens of millions of philanthropic dollars from some of the nation's biggest (and most opaque) funders for his work.

This is only one way of several that the new administration's actions have harmed me, directly, in its few days of existence.

I'm sharing this in the hope that you will be moved by it. Moved to take action. Whether online, in the streets, at your representatives' offices, outside the federal building in your city. Whether through lawsuits or protest or general strikes or boycotts or creating loud collectives that politicians ignore at their peril (shame them loudly, vote them out, don't let them wiggle away from the shameful acts they're supporting with their obesiance. Don't hurt anyone - that's how tyrants act). The more privileged you are, the more these actions are yours to take. The vulnerable among us have too much to risk from an administration that has

Cut off the people's access to almost every federal department except those that involve guns and war

Been fomenting terror among the people. That is, by the way, the definition of terrorism.

Institutional philanthropists and nonprofit professionals, who make up the majority of the readers of this blog: I believe we have fewer than 100 days to save the U.S. democracy.

Civil society itself - the fancypants name for the space your institutions occupy - is being attacked, sued, threatened, often by other organizations that sit next to you in the tax code. Those efforts will affect you, directly. They will "hurt," intentionally. Your moment of being safe ended on Monday, January 20, 2025.

My neighbors and I are organized to care for each other. Families are housing other families whose papers aren't "in order;" we're crowdfunding to get trans friends out of the country; those who can travel will get to the border and we'll get in the streets; we're moving data overseas; we're abandoning the oligarchs' platforms. All of this is civil society. These actions take place without your institutional support, or even knowledge.

When you are attacked, when you are called before Congress (the shameless Jim Jordan, presiding) who will have your back? Who will be safe besides, possibly, the philanthropies of the oligarchs who've already paid their dues to their master? Who do you think might stick up for the rights of the XYZ family foundation to continue its participatory grantmaking? Or even the enormous, fully-staffed, professionally-run "big" foundation that fund independent nonprofit media or - heaven forbid - social justice?

The philanthropy/nonprofit "federal freeze" moment has come to those organizations that work in health, education, and any other non-gun-related division of the federal government. Are you ready? Will you testify? Organize? Push for positive change, or bend to the tyrant's narrative?

*I was shocked to find references to CURE ID still on the FDA website as of January 24, when I wrote this. The new administration is deleting data on the programs we taxpayers pay for as fast as it possibly can. It may well be gone by the time you read this.