Frank discussion about the epidemiology of monkeypox is out there, but not enough. I’m talking specifically about demography here and who is most at risk. Monkeypox is disproportionately affecting a particular segment of western populations, namely gay men and men who have sex with men. There are two problems with failing to accurately report this fact.
First, by failing to tell the truth about demography, gay men and men who have sex with men—and women who have sex with these men—may not fully appreciate the risks associated with certain activities. I understand why there’d be reluctance to talk about this for fear of stigmatizing homosexual relations. But blunt talk is necessary in the face of a disfiguring and potentially deadly disease. Political correctness can literally be lethal in this case.
Second, by not discussing the demography of disease transmission, the general population is left with the presumption that monkeypox is a free-range virus, if you will, one transmitted across the general population. We have suffered too greatly from the hysteria generated by COVID-19 fear porn to go through this again with monkeypox. Indeed, COVID-19 hysteria was fueled in major part by public health officials and establishment media not informing the public—and in some cases censoring information to this effect—that COVID-19 was only especially dangerous to the very old and those suffering from autoimmune and severe metabolic disorders.
I hear a lot of griping among elites that large swaths of the population no longer trust authorities—that our institutions are losing legitimacy. Whose fault is this? When authorities don’t level with the public there will be a significant number of people who will come to distrust the government’s claims and, moreover, wonder whether there is an ulterior motive behind what is at times effectively disinformation being pumped out by our major institutions. Time will tell. Maybe it is too soon to try again to bamboozle the masses.
freedom and reason 