May 30, 2022

By Bill Berkowitz and Gale Bataille

Americans, so over the Covid pandemic, may have a new virus to worry about – Monkeypox, a cousin of (now eradicated) Smallpox.  According to the epidemiologist Dr. Katelyn Jetelina[1], there are now up to 150 (111 confirmed) Monkeypox cases spread across 11 countries with 22 cases in Canada and 2 confirmed cases in the US. According to Jetelina, the spread of cases means there is likely “undetected community transmission and a high likelihood of more cases, possibly on a global level.”  

The kicker is that males—particularly younger men, comprise all but one of currently confirmed cases.  According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/monkeypox-cases-reported-uk-and-portugal) “Transmission between humans mostly occurs through large respiratory droplets. As droplets cannot travel far, prolonged face-to-face contact is needed. The virus can also enter the body through bodily fluids, lesion material, or indirect contact with lesion material…The monkeypox virus is considered to have moderate transmissibility among humans. In this event, transmission between sexual partners, due to intimate contact during sex with infectious skin lesions seems the likely mode of transmission…”  In other words, this may be a disease that disproportionately affects sexually active gay men. 

The danger is that the “threat” of this relatively new and largely sexually transmitted disease may play directly into the Christian Right’s fear-mongering. Since its inception, the modern day Christian Right has waged war on the LGBTQ community. Sometimes that war was laughable, like when the Reverend Jerry Falwell’s National Liberty Journal headlined a story “Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet.” "The character, whose voice is obviously that of a boy, has been found carrying a red purse," reported Falwell. "He is purple -- the gay pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle -- the gay pride symbol." 

Mostly, however, the Christian Right’s war on gays, lesbians, and now transgender people, has been deadly serious; rallying against a “gay agenda,” blaming natural disasters on gay communities, advocating the firing of gay teachers, banning books with LGBTQ content, and continuous attacks on gay marriage.  

On May 19th during her Facebook live show (https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-pushes-bill-gates-monkeypox-conspiracy-1708789), Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Green, notorious anti-vaxer and Q-Anon promoter, downplayed the threat posed by monkeypox saying that preparedness steps by the US or other countries were really just an insidious Bill Gates money-making scheme. 

The Oread (Not So) Daily’s Randy Gould recently expressed what many of us may be thinking: “I can’t keep up.  Covid surges and long Covid, Ebola and other filoviruses, infant hepatitis, bird flu outbreaks, and jumping worms, strange MERS clusters, and on and on. And now we seem to be on the verge of some sort of monkeypox outbreak.”

Gould cites the US Center for Disease Control’s advisory on monkeypox as potentially providing fodder to those who might blame gay men (and women) for the spread of the disease taking issue with how the information is sequenced to highlight the risk for people who self-identify as men who have sex with men.

“CDC is also tracking multiple clusters of monkeypox that have been reported in early- to mid-May in several countries that don’t normally report monkeypox, including in Europe and North America.

“It’s not clear how people in those clusters were exposed to monkeypox but cases include people who self-identify as men who have sex with men. CDC is urging healthcare providers in the U.S. to be alert for patients who have rash illnesses consistent with monkeypox. regardless of whether they have travel or specific risk factors for monkeypox and regardless of gender or sexual orientation.”

“Anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, can spread monkeypox through contact with body fluids, monkeypox sores, or shared items (such as clothing and bedding) that have been contaminated with fluids or sores of a person with monkeypox. Monkeypox virus can also spread between people through respiratory droplets typically in a close setting, such as the same household or a healthcare setting. Common household disinfectants can kill the monkeypox virus.”      

Gould comments: “First, they bring up gay men, and then they tell us to understand, that ‘Anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, can spread monkey pox virus.’” For Gould, one of the red flags that “jumps out” in the CDC’s report “is the mention of clusters possibly connected to men having sex with men.  I was here already 40 years ago.  I know where this goes.  We will be hearing in no time how this current unusual monkey pox development is the fault of gay men.  Of course, it is not, and the CDC report does not say it is, but there are good old Christian preachers just waiting.”

As Gould, a longtime social justice advocate and health care worker states “I cannot forget the early HIV days when Haiti was stigmatized as some sort of risk factor for AIDS.”

“There are ways to discuss (these concerns) in a historical and epidemiologically factual manner, without dropping red flags,” Gould stated. “The CDC seems to have not learned this very scary lesson from the HIV pandemic.  There are people always looking for someone to blame, someone especially who is ideologically or religiously already on their hit list.” 

The monkeypox virus does appear to be undergoing some level of community spread – though to what extent is still not predictable since it is not as contagious as Covid or flu viruses. US and European health policy organizations state that the risk for a widespread health crisis is low. The challenge for public health organizations and providers is how to alert and educate people who may be at risk, including gay men, both about the disease, and the availability of lifesaving (and potentially preventative) treatment without shaming and stigmatizing, and without playing into the hands of the Christian Right’s culture warriors.  

[1]Dr. Katelyn Jetlina, has a Masters in Public Health and PHD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics and has since March 2020 published a widely read newsletter on Covid to “translate” the ever-evolving public health science so that people will be well equipped to make evidence-based decisions.”

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