Please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, Gab TV, Gettr, Truth Social
The year is 2022. This is the year Americans no longer know how to define the words ‘recession’ and ‘woman.’ Thanks to progressive enlightenment, we can now add ‘STD’ to that list.
According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases website dated 6 August 2022,
“Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are infections transmitted from an infected person to an uninfected person through sexual contact. STDs can be caused by bacteria, viruses, or parasites. Examples include gonorrhea, genital herpes, human papillomavirus infection, HIV/AIDS, chlamydia, and syphilis.”1 The CDC echoes this medical reasoning concerning STD definitions on its 2022 website by stating “There are dozens of STDs. Some STDs, such as syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia, are spread mainly by sexual contact.”2 In 2020, the CDC published concerns about increasing STD prevalence in US society. Gonorrhea (677,769 cases, up 45% from 2016). Syphilis (133,945 cases, up 52% from 2016). Congenital Syphilis (2,148 cases, up 235% from 2016).3 The logical discussion seems to end here.
On the CDC monkeypox site as of 6 August 2022, the CDC states “Monkeypox is not considered a sexually transmitted disease, but it is often transmitted through close, sustained physical contact, which can include sexual contact.” It cannot be contracted by riding crowded buses, holding hands, or standing in a room full of people. Contact must be skin to skin, prolonged, and usually intimate. Ie sexually. Then it goes to on to describe how to decrease the risk of acquiring monkeypox through sex, why one should avoid sexual activity if a strange rash develops, and how to decrease the risk of catching monkeypox at “raves, parties, clubs, and festivals” where sexual promiscuity is rampant. The CDC even offers a downloadable pdf on how to have safer sex in the era of monkeypox.3 Aside from lab workers who may acquire a disease from accidental exposure to monkeypox specimens, the CDC states that the people most likely to get monkeypox are “people who have been identified by public health officials as a contact of someone with monkeypox, people who are aware that one of their sexual partners in the past 2 weeks has been diagnosed with monkeypox, and people who had multiple sexual partners in the past 2 weeks in an area with known monkeypox.”4
To date, the WHO has reported over 26,000 cases globally with 10 deaths. The question is why is the CDC and many woke/liberal doctors refuse to call monkeypox an STD? The likely problem with this disease is the fact that 98% of cases occur in men who have sex with men.
The semantics are defended by reasoning that because 100% of cases aren’t caused by sex, it cannot be an STD. AIDS is classified as an STD but can also be acquired through iv drug abuse, blood transfusions, and other nonsexual means. Yet, safe sex is still recommended to prevent getting AIDS and AIDS is classified as an STD by the CDC.
The other justification used for not calling monkeypox an STD is to avoid stigmatizing and marginalizing LGTBQ+ people. Medical journals are rife with articles that link just about every disease condition to structural racism and stigmatization of LGTBQ+ populations.
By refusing to classify monkeypox as an STD, several dangerous events are occurring. First, the censorship from the covid era is being broadened to suppress discussion on other disease entities. While many doctors rationalized censorship to ‘save the world’ during the covid pandemic, they are clearly continuing to use this weapon for political gain with a new disease. This was predictable given the immense power the left has achieved over society by censoring social media, mass media, free speech at large, and doctors in the name of their version of ‘science.’ These same doctors and organizations then complain about ‘vaccine hesitancy’ from the very population that doesn’t trust them anymore because of their actions to control information flow. Even with covid ending, the AMA and other major medical organizations are still waging campaigns to intimidate doctors they accuse of ‘peddling misinformation.’ Thus, it is not surprising that the word ‘misinformation’ is entering into the monkeypox forum to sway the discussion in their favor.
Second, by denying the most likely method of transmission, doctors and health organizations are lulling the highest risk populations into a false sense of security for this STD and other STDs that can be far more deadly, such as AIDS. This is unforgivable, as the message they are thrusting on US society is that sexual promiscuity (in any sexual orientation or lifestyle) is acceptable and those who engage in such behavior and not responsible for the consequences – pregnancy, STDs, sexual violence, prostitution, etc. They are instead victims. The CDC even advises those who engage in risky behavior: “People should take precautions to reduce their exposure to monkeypox until immune protection from vaccines has reached its maximum.”5 Translation: get the monkeypox vaccine and then resume your high risk lifestyle without consequence.
As in the era of covid, health care providers and the public need to push back once again against the medical establishment and remind them that words matter and lies in the name of ‘science’ won’t be tolerated.
I have no bias against any sexual orientations. Legal sexual behaviors in the privacy of consenting adults’ homes are none of my affair. However, unlike many of my colleagues, I have frequent conversations with patients that warn them about their behaviors and about the predictable consequences that they alone are responsible for. Patients who do cocaine should stop doing cocaine. Overweight patients should lose weight and eat healthy. Patients who get STDs through high-risk behaviors should stop the risky behaviors and inform their partners to do the same. If/when I ever encounter a suspected monkeypox patient, I will test that patient for other STDs per proper protocol (HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, etc), advise them to avoid dangerous sexual behaviors, and report the suspected case to the state per legal protocols. Patients deserve no less. Similarly, doctors should be protected from woke medical organizations and doctors that use censorship and political objectives to deny the facts about monkeypox and in doing so harm the very people they claim to help.
John Hughes, MD
Emergency Physician
USMA Class of 1996 (#1 graduate)
3rd Generation West Pointer
4 combat tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan
1https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/sexually-transmitted-diseases
2https://www.cdc.gov/std/statistics/2020/default.htm
3https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/sexualhealth/index.html
4https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/vaccines.html
5https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/vaccines.html
