Medical Science: Is Monkeypox Replacing COVID-19

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Category: Medical Science

Published on Friday, 27 May 2022 08:03

Written by Dr. Jane M. Orient, M.D.,

With fears of COVID-19 subsiding, I hope life is returning to a normalcy. Even as the disease is not gone, officialdom may be poised to impose a new round of masking and lockdowns to fight off an emerging threat: monkeypox.

So far there are only a few hundred cases, but we have learned about the horrors of an exponential increase if cases start doubling every few days or weeks as they did with COVID-19.

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There was a March 2021 tabletop simulation of a hypothetical deadly outbreak of monkeypox predicted to occur in May 2022. Could some sinister forces be preparing to release the monkeypox virus or a genetically modified variant as a bioweapon? Should we rush to get a vaccine as quickly as possible?

        Here are some facts about monkeypox:

It is not new. It has long been endemic in Africa. Because it has an animal reservoir, including prairie dogs and some other rodents, it will never be eradicated.

It is caused by a pox virus, related to the smallpox virus.

The pox virus is a DNA virus. Unlike RNA viruses, DNA viruses mutate very slowly.

Monkeypox is similar to smallpox but far less lethal and less contagious.

There is some cross immunity between monkeypox, other pox viruses, and smallpox. People who have had smallpox vaccine likely have some protection.

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Smallpox has long been considered an excellent biowarfare agent and has been weaponized. There were fears that it might be delivered by intercontinental ballistic missile.

Because of this threat, the U.S. has maintained stockpiles of vaccine. And vaccine makers are gearing up to profit. The U.S. government has already placed a $119 million order to convert existing smallpox vaccine into a freeze-dried version.

Routine smallpox vaccination was discontinued in the U.S. in 1971, and it is only available now for persons at high risk because of serious adverse effects including myocarditis.

There is no evidence of asymptomatic transmission of monkeypox, and all current cases in the West appear to be in men having sex with men, writes Dr. Robert Malone, who warns against "FearPorn."

Promiscuous sex or sex with strangers places people at high risk  for any disease that can be transmitted by physical contact: syphilis, HIV, hepatitis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, etc., not just monkeypox.

The systemic symptoms of monkeypox (swollen lymph nodes, myalgia, asthenia, back pain, and headache) are also listed adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines. An image of a rash attributed to monkeypox appears to be a photograph of a shingles rash. (Incidentally, shingles outbreaks have been reported after COVID vaccination.)

Monkeypox should be easily controlled by classic public health measures of isolating symptomatic individuals and temporary quarantine of those with close physical contact with an infected person, writes Dr. Malone. Good hygiene and common sense are essential for good health. Panic is always harmful.

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Jane M. Orient, M.D. obtained her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1974. She completed an internal medicine residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital and University of Arizona Affiliated Hospitals and then became an Instructor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and a staff physician at the Tucson Veterans Administration Hospital. She has been in solo private practice since 1981 and has served as Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) since 1989.

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She is currently president of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. She is the author of YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy Skepticism about National Healthcare, and the second through fifth editions of Sapira's Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis published by Wolters Kluwer. She authored books for school children, Professor Klugimkopf's Old-Fashioned English Grammar and Professor Klugimkopf's Spelling Method, published by Robinson Books, and coauthored two novels published as Kindle books, Neomorts and Moonshine. 

More than 100 of her papers have been published in the scientific and popular literature on a variety of subjects including risk assessment, natural and technological hazards and non-hazards, and medical economics and ethics. She is the editor of AAPS News, the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Newsletter, and Civil Defense Perspectives, and is the managing editor of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

If you would like to discuss these issues, contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Jane M. Orient, M.D., Executive Director, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons