Just like the 80s the media sticks a tag on a disease that stigmatize a whole community and at the same time the whole population is thinking that they have nothing to worry about.
I was on a Zoom meeting that discussed Monkeypox with CT DPH, state legislators, NGO (Non-Government Organizations), and members from the LGBTQ+ communitive, a person from the ADL said,
We are seeing hate and bias incidents towards gay and bi and MSM men reference Monkeypox. The impact of the poor communications around this from public health will have lasting effects in terms of bias and hate.
Just like Trump calling COVID the 'Chinese Virus' or 'Kung Flu.' caused an increase in hate crimes against the Asian population so is the media labeling Monkeypox a “Gay” disease causing an increase in bias crimes against the LGBTQ+ population.
Fauci: Monkeypox Response Must Avoid Stigmatizing Gay and Bi Men
Infectious disease specialist says it's important not to treat infected individuals as the "enemy," as occurred during the AIDS epidemic.
Metro Weekly
By John Riley
July 28, 2022
Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned that the U.S. government’s response to the global monkeypox outbreak must include combating anti-gay stigmas that may be associated with the disease.Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a health advisor to President Joe Biden, said during an interview with Juana Summers, the host of the National Public Radio program All Things Considered, that it is important to treat the virus as one that can affect anybody, even though the overwhelming majority of infected individuals have been men who have sex with men.
Currently, there are 20,638 confirmed cases of monkeypox infection worldwide, and 4,639 confirmed cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The World Health Organization has recently classified the current outbreak as a public health emergency, underscoring the importance of public health officials prioritizing actions like connecting infected individuals with treatment, doing contact tracing to alert those at risk of acquiring the disease, and vaccinating those who have not yet been exposed to the virus but are among high-risk populations, such as men who have sex with men, trans women, and commercial sex workers.
According to an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 98% of infected individuals, out of a sample of 528 people from 16 different countries, were gay or bisexual men. But Fauci argues that just because the disease is prevalent in one community doesn’t mean that community should be shunned or stigmatized. He said it’s important for the federal government to underscore that infected individuals aren’t treated like the “enemy” — much as gay and bisexual men were during the early years of the AIDS epidemic.
I believe that the increase in hate crimes against the LGBT+ population is the direct result in the media labeling the disease a “Gay” disease. Spectrum News NY1 reported,
New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan sent a letter to the World Health Organization earlier this week urging them to immediately rename the monkeypox virus over fears that the term could lead to increased violence against marginalized communities.
"We have a growing concern for the potentially stigmatizing effects that the messaging around the 'monkeypox' virus can have on vulnerable communities," part of the letter reads.
The letter states that the term is especially concerning "given the stigma it may engender, and the painful and racist history within which terminology like this is rooted for communities of color."
The virus does not originate in monkeys and was only given the term due to an infection seen in research primates, Vasan wrote.
The disease is transmitted by “skin-to-skin” contact or by contact with an infected persons bodily fluids. From what I understand and I am not a doctor but it is transmitted the same way TB in close prolonged contact or exposure to an infected person.
It is believed that President Biden will issue a public health emergency on Monday and the Connecticut Governor Lamont is also believed to issue one for Connecticut.
Yesterday DPH had a QA session about the disease...
Nothing new with the naming and blaming game. It as old as who knows but here is an example of the good Christians reaction in another time and place.
ReplyDeleteGiovanni di Giovanni (1350 – 1365) is one of the youngest victims of the campaign against sodomy waged in 14th-century Florence., Italy.
His persecution came on the heels of the Black Death, the bubonic plague epidemic which had ravaged the city two years earlier. Some of the most influential people of the religious establishment, such as Bernardino of Siena, blamed sodomites for having brought the wrath of God down on the heads of the populace. So, as you can see extremist Christians have blamed the misfortune and disasters that fell upon them on homosexuals for centuries and we have been persecuted and murdered because of their hatred and bigotry.
The “remedy” they promoted was to purify the city of evil by means of fire, leading to burnings at the stake and other punishments (red-hot iron) such as that suffered by poor young Giovanni.
Di Giovanni was labeled “a public and notorious passive sodomite” and convicted by the Podestà court of being the passive partner of a number of different men. His punishment was to be paraded on the back of an ass, then to be publicly castrated. Finally, he was to have his anus burned with a red-hot iron (or, as the sentence read: “[punished] in that part of the body where he allowed himself to be known in sodomitical practice”) I am Richard Nelson and I approve of this comment.