virology blog

by Gertrud U. Rey On May 17, 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency of international concern in response to an Ebola disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The situation is escalating rapidly, with over 300 confirmed cases and 48 deaths as of today, highlighting the severity …

By David Tuller, DrPH Last year’s release of the results from the DecodeME, a UK-based genome wide association study of more than 15,000 DNA samples, generated significant excitement. Action for ME, which spearheaded DecodeME, recently announced a multi-phase follow-up project called Sequence ME & Long Covid. The UK government has committed £4,750,000, and private donors …

By David Tuller, DrPH When I write about functional neurological disorder (FND) or functional neurological symptoms, I sometimes get feedback from Zachary Grin, a physical therapist in New York. As an FND specialist, he disagrees with pretty much everything I write about the topic.  At first, I tried to engage with Zachary in a good-natured …

By David Tuller, DrPH This morning I sent the following letter to CNS Spectrums, a neuroscience journal published by Cambridge University Press. Subject line: “Correction needed for etiological statement in ‘Functional neurological symptoms occur commonly in healthy adults: implications for the pathophysiology of FND.'” Depending on the response, or lack of one, I might also …

By David Tuller, DrPH For decades, experts in functional neurological disorder (FND) have categorically asserted that the condition is strictly a “brain network” disorder, representing an issue solely with the brain’s so-called “software,” or functioning, rather than its “hardware,” or structural elements. According to this framework, structural elements of the brain, or other o...