Politically Diseased NY Times Sees ‘Racism, Stigma and Fear’ in Name ‘Monkeypox’

New York Times Health and Science reporter Andrew Jacobs made the August 24 edition with a ridiculous and ideologically diseased story on monkeypox, “Racism, Stigma and Fear: Why Experts Want Monkeypox Renamed.”

Are monkeys spreading monkeypox to humans?

According to researchers, the answer is “no”. But recently in Brazil, the unfounded fear that monkeys transmit the virus to people has spurred an outbreak of violence against marmosets and capuchin monkeys, leading to the death of at least seven animals, according to Brazilian officials.

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Just as the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918 wasn’t born on the Iberian Peninsula, the spread of monkeypox has little to do with monkeys.Rodents, according to scientists, are most likely the animal reservoir of this virus. It is actually a cousin of smallpox and made its first known leap to humans many decades ago in the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, in 1958 when Danish scientists discovered the virus in a group of laboratory monkeys, they chose to give the honor to their captive primates.

Jacobs worked overtime, reaching back a half century to make “monkeypox” a racist term, even bringing in Ronald Reagan..

The Monkeypox virus is not a mere misnomer. Experts say that Monkeypox evokes racist stereotypes and reinforces negative tropes about Africa’s perilous, plague-filled continent. It also encourages stigmatization, which could prevent some people from seeking treatment.

Through the centuries, Western literature is full of sexist comparisons between Black people and primates.Thin the early 20sThFor centuries, American magazines and newspapers have featured illustrations depicting African-Americans with simian features. Such racist sentiments haven’t entirely faded. President Ronald Reagan, when he was governor of California, was caught on tape calling African diplomats “monkeys.” Over the decades, racist slurs and imagery involving apes have repeatedly been hurled against Black people, including prominent politicians and celebrities.

Jacobs, who covered all the liberal bases by suggesting the name “monkeypox” was both anti-gay and anti-black, was angered that President Trump accurately identified COVID as the “China Virus,” and used dubious crime figures to accuse the president of fomenting violence against Asians.

Naming diseases is a contentious issue, and this has not been limited to Africa. In the first months after its emergence in China, the illness we call Covid-19 was unofficially dubbed “the Wuhan virus,” a designation that gained currency on social media before finding its way into the mainstream. It was not surprising that violence against Asians rose in America and elsewhere. Chinese restaurants closed down. President Donald Trump repeatedly referred to the disease as “the China virus,” long after the W.H.O. The current moniker, which sounds banal and quaint, was given to the disease by President Donald Trump.

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These so-called best practices in naming infectious diseases don’t affect names already known. Some critics believe they have negative associations to actual people or places, such as Rift Valley Fever and Middle East respiratory Syndrome. Ebola is the hemorhagic fever, named after a river in Africa.

Jacobs said it sounded like names had been pulled from a hat. Ebola, for instance, is called Ebola because the virus was first identified in the 1970s in a Congolese village near the…Ebola River. Ironically, it was named that because the virologist didn’t want to stigmatize the actual village, Yambuku. No good deed….

The rest of the year, however, will be Times is still calling monkeypox, monkeypox. By his own wacky definition, doesn’t Jacobs’ employer risk having blood on its hands for spreading suck vile language?

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