Monkey business will kill us, not Monkeypox

By Alex P. Vidal

“Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.”—Gore Vidal

IF health authorities will require us all to have a vaccine for Monkeypox, time to suspect it’s a monkey business.

They have been spreading fear and panic; and although there has been no immediate major knee-jerk reaction from the public, it’s another story if we will be mandated to have a vaccine for Monkeypox.

It is the monkey business of some unscrupulous “health experts” that will kill us, not this rare disease caused by infection with the Monkeypox virus.

Strike while the iron is hot? While people are still smarting from the terror of coronavirus pandemic that have not been totally eradicated?

Monkeypox virus is part of the same family of viruses as variola virus, the virus that causes smallpox. It’s not as deadly as Covid-19.

With symptoms similar to smallpox symptoms, but milder, according to health experts, Monkeypox is rarely fatal and isn’t related to chickenpox. No need to panic like a house on fire.

We have always been at the mercy of health experts. Giant corporations that produced the vaccines for the coronavirus have made billions of dollars while most of us have lost our livelihood and became poorer.

They stand to earn more if they can trick us into getting the vaccine for the Monkeypox.

Governments around the world will again scramble for funds to purchase vaccines. No way. No more. Not again.

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A large body of research currently points out that the viral outbreak known as Monkeypox is an STD that is more likely to infect homosexual men.

If this is the case, granting it is true, not all people are engaging in homosexual activities. For sure, not all those who have been infected with Monkeypox were homosexuals.

In the past month, it was reported that three new studies concluded monkeypox primarily spreads through sexual intercourse between men, as opposed to prior data suggesting that it is due to skin contact occurring during sex.

Published in the prestigious British medical journal the Lancet, the newly emerging studies debunk a core belief about how Monkeypox spreads.

Experts and health institutions had previously said that monkeypox spread mostly through skin-to-skin contact that could take place without sexual contact.

The World Health Organization classified the escalating outbreak of the once-rare disease as an international emergency in July; the U.S. declared it a national emergency earlier this month, just after Illinois declared a public health emergency over the virus.

A total of 14,115 cases have been reported across the U.S., with 888 of them in Illinois, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said most cases “are coming from much more intimate skin-to-skin contact or kissing.”

Person-to-person transmission is possible through “close physical contact with monkeypox sores, items that have been contaminated with fluids or sores (clothing, bedding, etc.), or through respiratory droplets following prolonged face-to-face contact,” according to the Chicago Department of Public Health.

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What are the symptoms? Monkeypox often begins with flu-like symptoms and swelling of the lymph nodes, and progresses to a rash on the face and body, according to health authorities.

Virus symptoms range from fever, aches and rashes all over the body.

“Suspected cases may present with early flu-like symptoms and progress to lesions that may begin on one site on the body and spread to other parts,” Chicago Department of Public Health previously stated, according to NBCChicago.

Dr. Irfan Hafiz, an infectious disease specialist with Northwestern Medicine’s McHenry and Huntley hospitals, said the virus causes symptoms that are similar to several maladies, including chickenpox or smallpox, as reported by NBCChicago.

“It can, to the layperson, look like chickenpox or warts,” he previously said. “But these (sores) tend to be in exposed areas.”

Health experts also stated the illness can be confused with a sexually transmitted infection like syphilis or herpes, or with varicella zoster virus.

In the U.S., some experts have speculated whether monkeypox might be on the verge of becoming an entrenched sexually transmitted disease in the country, like gonorrhea, herpes and HIV.

“The bottom line is we’ve seen a shift in the epidemiology of monkeypox where there’s now widespread, unexpected transmission,” said Dr. Albert Ko, a professor of public health and epidemiology at Yale University. “There are some genetic mutations in the virus that suggest why that may be happening, but we do need a globally-coordinated response to get it under control.”

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)