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WHO declares highest alert over monkeypox
- Thread starter AHA-Lambda
- Start date
My god that article is awful. I think she uses the word condom one time and never backs up her reasoning at any point in the entire overlong article, unless I just completely missed something
She's an HIV/AIDS specialist.
With this whole schtick she said
at his point, she's deliberately causing harm.
Working in housekeeping at a Disney Resort sounds terrifying because we have to handle used linen that could potentially spread monkeypox
Disney doesn't offer vaccines
Disney doesn't offer vaccines
View: https://mobile.twitter.com/knotBoots/status/1551545872386760704
This shit is affecting health policy making. Disgusting as fuck.
why is it disgusting to focus limited vaccine resources on the most at-risk population? please, explain this. the overwhelming majority of monkeypox infections have been detected in these groups and studies have indicated that anal sex is the most common vector. I have not seen any evidence that this is simply a statistical artifact of who's getting tested like some speculate. Like UK test data has 52% of men tested for monkeypox coming back positive, but only 2.2% of women and 0.6% of children. As in, most women and children who get a monkeypox test are coming back negative. There's kind of a perverse desire for this outbreak to be worse than it seemingly is simply so we don't have to "stigmatize" gay men by sharing accurate public health information.
but it's being spread during sex, because it spreads best through the sort of extended close physical contact that happens during sex.
Because even though MSM make up the majority of these early cases (and let's put a pin in that!), it is not inherent to MSM: anybody can get this. And not just through sexual contact. Monkeypox is starting to pop up in children.
Yes, it's important to let certain demographics know when they're at an increased risk, but the international health community absolutely has a responsibility to consider not just the information they put out, but how they put that information out and how the public is likely to receive it.
Because when you have the CDC, and the media, and influencers/pundits, all shouting "GAY SEX! GAY SEX! GAY SEX!" you drown out "but be warned that monkeypox can be spread to anyone through close and intimate contact" and monkeypox gets seen as a "gay virus," which not only further stigmatizes gay people, but it also indirectly aids and abets in the further spread of the disease among populations of people not being made prepared for the reality that they can get it too.
And because people already love stigmatizing Queer folks whenever they can, and this country is ass-backwards and highly selective when it comes to how it chooses to apply "Christian" values, you end up with a government slower than usual to respond to a potential health crises because too many people in our government still believe that any calamity that can be portrayed as "targeting" Queer people is God's holy retribution and our own damn fault.
The CDC does not just have a duty to our health, they have a social responsibility. And they fail this again and again and it has cost millions of lives in this country.
It's actually insane the same article is talking about it spreading to children but also going "but condoms!"
So do you think it is disgusting to focus limited vaccine resources on the most at-risk population?
What?
The problem isn't just how they're limiting resources to vaccines. The problem is how they're disseminating this information. The CDC is trying to target a stigmatized, at-risk group with seemingly little thought to how the public is going to also target that group.
We've been here before.
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the post you quoted was in reply to someone saying NYC's vaccine requirements were "disgusting as fuck"
There's literally nothing wrong with diverting supplies of vaccines to the members of a community most vulnerable to a disease at this moment in time….. like you can't scream "homophobia" because health organizations are prioritizing the gay community, sorry. 😵💫
But who is doing that?
How is an expectation of the CDC and medical professionals to be more responsible with their messaging doing that? How is learning the lessons of history doing that?
Bet we're gonna see again 1st World (White) countries hoarding smallpox vaccines like they did COVID vaccines.
I really disagree with this.
It's true that this is a virus mostly spread by close skin-to-skin contact — that's why almost every case is from MSM. Yes, it can be spread in other ways, but that's not the reality of the situation and makes up a vast minority of cases.
Liz Highleyman of Poz magazine — who knows the HIV epidemic well! — does a good rundown about why this a well-intentioned but not helpful framing and why we should be more honest and less obtuse about transmission risk.
View: https://twitter.com/lizhighleyman/status/1551687982670745600?s=21&t=73D8L0wg8H-1l_hR3zmmDQ
We cannot decide this isn't true so homophobes don't target gay men. The reality is that the sex networks of men who have sex with men is a particularly unlucky incubator for monkeypox and we don't see it leaving the MSM community because of that:
View: https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1547998093789970435?s=21&t=73D8L0wg8H-1l_hR3zmmDQ
The takeaway from the HIV epidemic shouldn't be to not prioritize an at-risk community and focus messaging on that community to get vaccines. To do otherwise is creating confusing messaging that could make people think they can get monkeypox from trying on clothes at the mall and have them take vaccine slots away from the people who need them most.
Not wanting people not to stigmatize gay folks is great. The problem is 95% of the cases are from sex between men. You cannot ignore that just because 5% of the cases can be spread through other means, often times from a man who caught it having having sex with another man!
Hell, it's already happening in the US. We can't talk about the US diverting supplies of vaccines to communities most vulnerable when, to the surprise of nobody, Black and Brown Queer people are being left out:
Opinion: The problem with monkeypox vaccine distribution | CNN
As a gay physician-in-training who has taken care of LGBT people in low-income and immigrant neighborhoods, I am worried that our current approach to rationing available vaccine reserves is not equitable and disadvantages individuals who may need it the most, writes Lala Tanmoy Das
edition.cnn.com
This is a very good thing and they should continue to focus on this community and discourage others from getting the vaccine because they're not as much at an immediate risk.
Gosh I have such conflicted feelings about the messaging. This, from the Liz Highleymen piece Kaitos posted:
This is what scares me the most, and it kinda seems like damned if you do, damned if you don't on any messaging approach. I already had one cishet friend freak out on me when the WHO raised the alert level. Don't want to go down this road, there are so many serious implications and dangers that come with it.
Like my daughter goes back to school in a month and all her friends know she lives half-time with her gay dad. Worrying about how that is gonna pan out is keeping me up at night.
This is what scares me the most, and it kinda seems like damned if you do, damned if you don't on any messaging approach. I already had one cishet friend freak out on me when the WHO raised the alert level. Don't want to go down this road, there are so many serious implications and dangers that come with it.
Like my daughter goes back to school in a month and all her friends know she lives half-time with her gay dad. Worrying about how that is gonna pan out is keeping me up at night.
This is a real issue with saying it's not an STD and anyone can catch it anywhere. It's technically true but also doesn't speak to probability — it's the same reason why people didn't want to shake hands with HIV patients and why Princess Diana doing so on camera was such a big deal. Or when they didn't want Ryan White to go to school because he was positive even though he wasn't having sex with anyone. By overrating the risk of transmission through casual contact that isn't prolonged or doesn't have an exchange of fluids, we're potentially scaring the shit out of people being physically to close or touching gay men. We also have data from the UK that the case rate is slowing (yay!) but we're still not seeing a sustained rate of transmission outside of the MSM community, which you'd expect if non-sexual transmission was more likely. It can happen, but it doesn't seem particularly common.
View: https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1550664959729729536?s=21&t=73D8L0wg8H-1l_hR3zmmDQ
But this isn't really what I'm saying. I'm not arguing that vaccines at this time should not be focused on MSM populations. They absolutely should! I currently have it! But I'm not seeing why we can't do both -- both target at-risk groups for vaccines and be more considerate with how we present this information to the public.
I wasn't just thinking about the AIDS epidemic; I was also thinking of COVID, particularly when the data started showing that Black people were more at risk for serious health complications. The conversation in the US never focused on the finer points of that. No, the conversation became "What can Black people do about COVID?" and non-Black people began engaging in more reckless behavior...which drove COVID numbers up.
In Philly, for example, you still have to get an appointment for a vaccine. The only reason I have the vaccine today is because I was on a list of being an at-risk person and was contacted by the city health department. As of last I checked, you're still not able to just walk in and get a shot.
For me, the issue isn't just "homophobes are going to target us." My fear is who is going to be left behind by how we talk about this: people who engage in at-risk behavior but don't want to be associated with "gay" either because they don't view themselves as gay, are closeted, or don't view the activities they engage in as being high risk, because they're not gay. And from my vantage point, it's always the same people getting left behind.
Still, informative threads you posted, Kaitos . It's calming me down somewhat. It can be triggering to grapple with something that looks so much like history repeating itself.
Sorry — I guess I'm a little lost by your post. When you say this, I see it as a good thing. I don't want everyone to be able to rush in and get a vaccine because we don't have enough. That's a government failure, but what would be worse is scaring cishet suburban women that they're gonna get monkeypox from trying on a shirt at Kohl's and taking vaccine slots from someone who just went to Pines Party (which… I did, but I'm also fully vaccinated for monkeypox with a second shot). At this point, if you're not a MSM or someone who regularly has sex with men who have sex with me, don't get the vaccine yet and I'm okay with health officially gatekeeping those slots from panicked people.
I do get what you mean about men who have sex with men not getting the vaccine because they're worried they'd be seen as gay. The good thing here is there don't seem to be a ton of asymptomatic cases and it's not fatal *and* the vaccine seems to do a good job of lessening the symptoms even after exposure (though we need more info on this). So unlike HIV where it took a while to show up and was fatal, you'll probably know if you have it. And if you do, even if you're not out, you'll hopefully be more likely to get the shot.
The best thing we can do now is flood the market with vaccines so the most at-risk population can get it as easily as possible. But I worry in the name of trying not to stigmatize gay sex, health officials are inadvertently confusing the public of how to assess risk.
Ah, yeah. This is likely just Philly because national rollout seems to be a shitshow, but here, even if you sign up for the vaccine, they're only contacting people who are identified as being part of an at-risk group. So, the scared straight suburbanites can add themselves to the list all they want; they're not getting called.
At least, that's how it's supposed to work. Who knows.
Still, a valid angle I didn't consider as strongly is exactly what you and echo said: how Queer people could be further stigmatized if those same suburbanites come to believe you can get monkeypox from someone sneezing.
A lot of people on Twitter! And there's also a lot of shaming of the guy who's sharing his monkeypox story because he has an OnlyFans.
Contacted my primary care doctor, who got me in contact with the sexual health clinic, who got me in contact with the epidemiology clinic, who will call me back about getting vaccinated because I identified as an at risk community member (MSM, regularly lol)
Honestly, I've wanted the smallpox vaccine for years so if I can get it for monkeypox I'm game.
Why is there no education campaign happening at the medical care level? Seemingly at all?
I set off a minor panic in a surgical ward today when I informed the nursing staff that I had been vaccinated against monkeypox three days ago. *Nobody* knew what to do with this information. Did that mean I could have it and be contagious? Was it safe to proceed with the procedure (colonoscopy)? Is it a live virus vaccine? If I was going to have a reaction, would I have had it by now?
All of this and more. I heard the whole thing from my bed and it really stressed me out. Nobody knew *anything* about it. This is at one of the top hospitals in the nation. What the fuck?
I kept hearing, well the vaccine is so new...isn't jynneos older than the covid vaccines? I can understand why they might not have encountered it in the wild but surely the medical community should have easy access to all of this information?
I set off a minor panic in a surgical ward today when I informed the nursing staff that I had been vaccinated against monkeypox three days ago. *Nobody* knew what to do with this information. Did that mean I could have it and be contagious? Was it safe to proceed with the procedure (colonoscopy)? Is it a live virus vaccine? If I was going to have a reaction, would I have had it by now?
All of this and more. I heard the whole thing from my bed and it really stressed me out. Nobody knew *anything* about it. This is at one of the top hospitals in the nation. What the fuck?
I kept hearing, well the vaccine is so new...isn't jynneos older than the covid vaccines? I can understand why they might not have encountered it in the wild but surely the medical community should have easy access to all of this information?
just got my monkeypox vaccine, Seattle residents who are MSM PM me if you want more info on how to protect yourself.
The concern trolling from people who are desperate to have another pandemic so they can get their takes off on social media is really insane. 98% of cases are in the MSM community. It's as clear cut as it gets. Creating mass hysteria and attacking the government for prioritizing the people who compromise the entirety of the caseloads is really fucking dumb.
The discourse around this is truly bonkers. I get wanting to be extra careful to avoid stigmatising a marginalised group, but the vitriolic response to entirely reasonable and sensible public health messaging and action is incredibly short sighted and could end up causing real harm.
"Pandemic activists" are the worst social media byproduct of covid on the left.
Uh oh.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/07/23/1056399/monkeypox-california-wastewater/
This is bad, right?
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/07/23/1056399/monkeypox-california-wastewater/
This is bad, right?
Ah. Never mind. Edit!
The real thing these tests are trying to detect is just how prevelant the virus is in an area. Seems like it is getting around for sure.
It's not so much about being transmitted, it's about seeing the actual number of those who have the virus. This would mean there are likely a greater number of folks with it than previously thought.
WHO to Rename Monkeypox After Concerns of Racism, Stigma
The World Health Organization announced an urgent move to rename the virus after a group of scientists argued that it is “inaccurate” and “stigmatizing.”
www.nbcnewyork.com
Monkeypox is racist and I guess is going to be renamed?
Desperate to have another pandemic?
Didn't you read the headline thread title about the WHO declaring the highest alert over Monkeypox?
You're acting as if it is not much of a concern.
Didn't we already get over this when people shrugged away COVID like it was just another Cold of no concern back in early 2020?
Attacking the government? Oh think of the poor governments, it's not they're fault that the handling of diseases by them have not been enough. Think of the poor governments indeed.
Define "Pandemic Activists"
What are "Pandemic Activists"?
This is the first time I've encountered the term.
I told my mom I got the monkeypox vaccine and she flipped out because she heard it was just a bad gay STI and she didn't know there was a vaccine, and I consider her a pretty informed individual. Damn the messaging around this disease has been bad.
View: https://twitter.com/denise_dewald/status/1552226260071366657
This is the type of concern trolling from "doctors" and "professionals" that's commonplace on twitter now since covid. What ifs means to terrify people and gain engagement numbers.
The message that I have gotten from every corner of hetero society is that I should shut the hell up about it. They don't know anything about the disease or the vaccine except it's all scary and they don't like thinking about it. It's wild. I don't plan to volunteer this information to anyone again for the foreseeable future, it got weird or bad every single time
WHO chief advises men who have sex with men to reduce partners to limit exposure to monkeypox | CNN
The vast majority of cases in the growing monkeypox outbreak are among men who have sex with men, according to the World Health Organization. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus advised members of this community Wednesday to limit their exposure to the virus by reducing their number...
www.cnn.com