That's a huge assumption -- that they're not healthy controls. Research groups gather CSF all the time for research purposes from both healthy and unhealthy individuals. They're looking at all the legitimate biomarkers of inflammation that should be there if there really was something different about COVID. In addition:
"The control group included asymptomatic participants who were recruited before the COVID-19 pandemic (prior to 2020) to serve as controls for other studies and included 1 asymptomatic participant who was enrolled in 2022 and had no history of COVID-19 illness, which was supported by a negative nucleocapsid antibody in the blood. Participants were excluded if they had any history of severe neurological or psychiatric illness, severe immunocompromising condition, or were receiving immune-suppressive medications at the time of the study."
If they had a neurological issue "serious enough to warrant a spinal tap" it sounds like they would be excluded (severe illness).
That's a huge assumption -- that they're not healthy controls. Research groups gather CSF all the time for research purposes from both healthy and unhealthy individuals. They're looking at all the legitimate biomarkers of inflammation that should be there if there really was something different about COVID. In addition:
"The control group included asymptomatic participants who were recruited before the COVID-19 pandemic (prior to 2020) to serve as controls for other studies and included 1 asymptomatic participant who was enrolled in 2022 and had no history of COVID-19 illness, which was supported by a negative nucleocapsid antibody in the blood. Participants were excluded if they had any history of severe neurological or psychiatric illness, severe immunocompromising condition, or were receiving immune-suppressive medications at the time of the study."
If they had a neurological issue "serious enough to warrant a spinal tap" it sounds like they would be excluded (severe illness).