In article <t15m7r$2qqm0$44@news.freedyn.de>
<governor.swill@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ...I spent all night sucking cocks.

Nearly seven weeks after the World Health Organization said it
will change the name of the monkeypox disease, agreeing with
scientists who called it "discriminatory and stigmatizing," the
controversial label doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Critics say the name "monkeypox" plays into racist stereotypes
about Black people, Africa and LGBTQ people � and, they note, it
falsely suggests monkeys are the main source of the virus.

"Monkeypox should be renamed for two major reasons," said Dr.
Ifeanyi Nsofor, a global health equity advocate and senior New
Voices fellow at the Aspen Institute. "First, there is a long
history of referring to Blacks as monkeys. Therefore,
'monkeypox' is racist and stigmatizes Blacks."

"Second, 'monkeypox' gives a wrong impression that the disease
is only transmitted by monkeys. This is wrong," he adds.

Yet despite growing criticism of the name, the International
Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses told NPR that even if the name
is changed in the next year or two, the term "monkey" will
likely still be part of any revamped name. While WHO names
diseases, the ICTV determines the formal names of viruses.

In recent discussions held by the ICTV, "the consensus is that
use of the name 'monkey' is sufficiently separated from any
pejorative context such that there is no reason for any change,"
Elliot Lefkowitz, the organization's data secretary, told NPR
via email.

And when asked for an update on WHO's name-changing process, WHO
Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said last week: "We, as
far as I know, have not received any proposals for a name to
replace monkeypox." The process, she adds, remains open for
suggestions.

Nonetheless, the movement to change the name of the virus is
continuing. Last Tuesday, New York City public health
commissioner Ashwin Vasan sent a letter urging WHO Director-
General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to act immediately to rename
monkeypox, citing "potentially devastating and stigmatizing
effects."

Vasan described how, in the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic
in the 1980s, "misinformation about the virus led people to
believe that it was spread to humans after people in Africa
engaged in sexual activity with monkeys." With the monkeypox
name linked to similar feelings of stigma and racism, Vasan said
people of color and members of LGBTQ communities "may avoid
engaging in vital health care services because of it."

As calls to rename the disease are growing, so is the current
outbreak. In fact, the disease's spread prompted WHO to declare
it an international public health emergency in July. When WHO
announced its plan to rename monkeypox in June, there were
around 3,100 confirmed or suspected cases worldwide. There are
now 22,485 cases, according to the CDC � only 344 of them in
countries with a history of monkeypox.

One of the worst outbreaks is in the U.S., which has reported
5,189 cases, including 1,345 cases in New York state, the CDC
says.

The fact that the name change is still being debated presents a
contrast to the urgency the agencies showed in labeling COVID-19.

Less than two weeks after WHO declared the novel coronavirus a
public health emergency of international concern on Jan. 31,
2020, it announced the disease would be called COVID-19. The
same day, the ICTV said the virus would be known as SARS-CoV-2.
Early names for the disease had centered on Wuhan and China,
raising concerns about sparking stigma, discrimination and
repercussions against people of Asian descent.

There's been a desire to fix 'offensive and inaccurate' names
Even before COVID-19, there's been pressure to rename viruses
and diseases, says Christin Gilmer, the global health lead at
Global Health Labs, a nonprofit based in Seattle. Other
candidates for new names, she says, include Ebola and the
Spanish flu.

Monkeypox is making headlines right now, Gilmer told NPR via
email, partly because some populations are being exposed to it
for the first time. But, Gilmer added, "associating a disease
with a region has much longer lasting, negatively impactful
consequences than most people realize."

The WHO has embraced a similar idea, saying that when
researchers name diseases, they should seek to minimize
unnecessary harm to "trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare,
and avoid causing offense to any cultural, social, national,
regional, professional or ethnic groups."

Gilmer says she understands the psychology and human logic at
work in naming a new disease in a way that connects it to
details about its discovery, such as the animal or place in
which it was found. But in her view, "if we can help, protect
and improve the health equity of people by changing an offensive
and inaccurate name, it makes sense to do so," she said.

What have global health agencies said so far?
Recognizing problems with disease names, WHO issued criteria in
2015, specifically telling researchers to avoid including animal
terms or geographical places when they name new diseases. That
criteria cited monkeypox as an example � but the WHO didn't call
for revising the name.

And while the ICTV says a change to the monkeypox virus' formal
name could come in the next year or two, the revision wouldn't
be a response to the current outbreak. Instead, it's part of a
broad review of naming conventions for all virus species,
including monkeypox, after the ICTV adopted changes in 2020 to
standardize its naming format.

For example, the formal name for the virus could change,
Lefkowitz told NPR, from the current Monkeypox virus to
Orthopoxvirus monkeypox.

Experts say to focus on what matters
It's important for stigma to be a focal point in the discussions
around monkeypox, says Keletso Makofane, a public health
researcher and activist who is a fellow at the FXB Center for
Health and Human Rights at Harvard.

But changing the disease's name isn't a priority for Makofane,
he says.

"At the moment, the things that are really standing in the way
of a successful response are just having access to testing, to
vaccine and to treatments," he said. "And if those things were
fine, there'd be no monkeypox to talk about."

The government was too slow in mobilizing its monkeypox vaccine
stockpile, Makofane says. "What [was it] imagining that [it was]
waiting for? And why is that thing more important than people
who are saying they are experiencing the worst pain of their
lives right now? So, the naming of it is secondary to everything
else."

The WHO's executive director for health emergencies, Mike Ryan,
says the main problem isn't the name of the disease itself, but
the way in which some people use it.

U.S. health officials recently urged people not to "propagate
homophobic or transphobic messaging" when discussing monkeypox.
And in May, a group of international journalists in Kenya called
out U.S. and European media outlets for repeatedly using images
of Black people to illustrate stories about monkeypox � despite
the outbreak's fast growth in Europe and the U.S.

"No matter what names we use, if people are determined to misuse
and to weaponize names in order to isolate or discriminate or
stigmatize people, then that will always continue," Ryan said in
the WHO's briefing last week.

It's the scientific community's job, he added, to reduce the
chances for stigma to flourish.

The debate touches on another word: endemic
It wasn't until 1970 that the first human monkeypox case was
recorded. In the decades since, most cases in people were
reported in central and western African countries, where
monkeypox had long been considered to be endemic.

And here we arrive at another word Makofane says is due for a
closer look: "endemic," the term for a disease that's come to be
constantly or normally present in a population or in a
geographical region. It often implies a sense of equilibrium or
stability � but it can also engender apathy, particularly among
people who aren't directly affected by the disease.

The problem with the way the "endemic" is often used in the
media and public discourse, Makofane says, is that it can create
"the impression that those people's suffering [in Africa] is to
be expected and is acceptable, whereas the suffering that's
happening here as a result of monkeypox is highly exceptional
and that we should be responding."

"And that's obviously racist," he said.

Faggots are racist cock suckers. Deal with it.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/08/01/1113908154/
critics-say-monkeypox-is-a-racist-name-but-its-not-going-away-
anytime-soon