13 Comments

Thank you for your well reasoned reveal of this important topic. Never in my life could I have thought I’d be so mistrustful of medical science, and the global NGO’s and GO’s, empowered to provide honest advice.

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this is a thorough examination of the media coverage surrounding monkeypox. The issues you've highlighted, from media misrepresentation to potential conflicts of interest, raise important questions about the accuracy and transparency of the information being provided to the public.

It's troubling to think that public health messaging could be influenced by pharmaceutical interests, especially when effective, non-pharmaceutical interventions may be overlooked. It's vital that we strive for accurate, balanced reporting to inform the public about health threats without causing undue panic or contributing to misinformation.

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Thank you for your kind words.

I think it is absolutely the case that the public health messaging has been co-opted by Big Pharma. One does not have to be "anti-vaxx" to be opposed to such things. One merely has to be "pro-solution."

Even if JYNNEOS were highly effective as a vaccine--which it is not, at 66% efficacy, a far cry from the high-90s we see touted for vaccines against measles, et cetera--the practical reality of Africa's situation is that the doses needed for a mass vaccination campaign are not there. It's perfectly reasonable for public health officials and NGO workers to agitate for more vaccine doses in such situations--every doctor should argue for the medicines needed to combat disease--but it's absolutely unreasonable not to also message about what else can be done in the meantime.

Orthopox infections are not infectious respiratory diseases. They do not fall in with COVID or other influenza-like illnesses. They are not highly contagious the way that measles can be. Exchange of infected bodily fluids--either through direct contact or exposure to contaminated clothing and bed linens--is how the virus is spread.

This makes behavioral approaches, and in particular sanitary and hygiene behaviors, important to highlight. JYNNEOS might be hard for a hospital to obtain, but disinfectants, bleach, and other cleaning supplies are always going to be considerably less so. Making sure bed linens can be properly cleaned is going to be a far more readily accomplished task than cranking up vaccine production.

These approaches become especially relevant when one wishes to challenge the data itself, as James Lyons-Weiller does at Popular Rationalism.

https://popularrationalism.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-the-fda-the-urgent

Non-pharmaceutical interventions and mitigations involving improved sanitation and hygiene are generally going to improve individual and public health regardless of the overall accuracy of the data. Clean hospitals, clean living conditions, effective and compassionate isolation of symptomatic individuals, as well as greater access to PPE and related supplies will help mitigate any number of diseases, not just monkeypox. Even if the monkeypox case counts are overstated, the non-pharmaceutical interventions are still going to fall into the category of "good idea".

This was one of my early gripes about the COVID response. The practical was ignored and even refused.

https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/how-to-deal-with-coronavirus-part

https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/how-to-deal-with-coronavirus-part-4b6

As the saying goes, you fight with the army you have, not the army you wish you had.

I'm an engineer. I've spent 25 years doing network troubleshooting, disaster recovery, and business continuity within the IT field. I've made solutions work the "experts" insisted couldn't because there was no other alternative at the time. I'm just arrogant and cocky enough to believe that's the productive mindset that is needed in any crisis.

Public health messaging has lost that "solve the problem" mentality. For the healthcare professionals and crisis communicators involved, that's not just stupid, it's morally wrong.

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You keep right on being a data nerd, Peter - that hard data is TRUTH! (Or at least good indications of truth.) Your passion for illuminating the pertinent facts is GOLDEN.

A pet peeve of mine is that the media is filled with people who majored in Journalism or Communications or English. Most of them have zero education in the actual subjects they are writing about. They can’t tell if they are being manipulated by a corporation’s public relations department because they don’t understand what they are being told. Frequently they end up looking like incompetent fools because of their ignorance.

My undergrad degree was in geological engineering, so I’ve been educated in the basics of plate tectonics and earthquakes. It seems like every time I’ve read an article in the MSM about an earthquake, the writer had no idea of what he or she was saying. There was no understanding of the logarithmic scale of the Richter scale, no comprehension of the 3D nature of fault-line interaction, no grasp of the fact that the depth of a quake makes all the difference in the amount of damage done. I mean, it’s common sense that a quake centered 2 miles down is going to do more damage than one that’s centered 40 miles down, right? Yet the ‘journalist’ doesn’t even grasp that! “Earthquake in LA”!, screams the headline. Pffsst. It’s 3.9 on the Richter scale and 30 miles down. A large truck driving past your house will rattle your teacups more than that quake, and that journalist just made himself look like a fool to every geologist in the world.

In other words, we need more intelligent, educated writers who can THINK - people like you, Peter. Thanks!

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Yeah, I’m going to restack this….

Thanks for the high praise. It is truly appreciated.

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What makes me sad is the 'skin to skin' and 'mouth to skin' and the risk to innocent babies and children. Has it shown up in children? Maybe they have a strong immune system (and God's protection) against it...

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Sadly, the mortality for monkeypox in the DRC is highest among children.

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"While a Clade 1 or Clade 1b outbreak of monkeypox within the United States will undoubted trigger a cascade of corporate media pearl-clutching and would have an impact on the dynamics of the current election cycle, at present that has not happened."

YET!

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A person infected with monkeypox would have to come from Africa (probably the DRC) to bring that virus into the US. While it is always possible that someone could attempt to migrate from the DRC to the US, the time that travel would take if not by air would greatly exceed the incubation period for the virus.

What spread the Clade 2 strain so widely so quickly were the number of people traveling to international LGBTQ events (which, let's be honest, were little more than orgies), picking up the virus, hopping on a plane and coming back to the US or wherever.

What's keeping monkeypox alive in the US is the same promiscuous sex that spread it to the US.

Which makes Tom Lehrer's "I Got It From Agnes" eternally appropriate listening when discussing monkeypox in the modern era!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6qFG0uop9k&ab_channel=ComedyBay

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Excellent.

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Has anyone SEEN the dreaded??? I have not (mid -west hospital nurse).

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At the current levels of reported cases, that is not surprising. 300 cases in a country of 345 million people is a vanishingly small number of cases. Unless you are in a clinic that focuses on STD treatments the odds of you seeing a monkeypox case are quite small.

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