“We have had this monkeypox in large numbers in the past. We have vaccines to take care of it,” Joe Biden said Monday in Tokyo. “It is a concern in that if it were to spread it would be consequential. That’s all they told me.” Here Biden is likely referring to the federal Centers for Disease Control.
The CDC is monitoring six people in the United States for possible monkeypox infections. The six reportedly sat near an infected traveler who had symptoms on a flight from Nigeria to the UK early this month.
Other reports cite 80 confirmed cases worldwide, 50 suspected cases in the USA and others in Britain, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Canada, all in people with no history of travel to Africa. At this writing, no monkeypox deaths have been reported but experts are puzzled.
With 80 confirmed cases of the disease worldwide, the U.S. has only confirmed a pair of cases after a man in Massachusetts was diagnosed with the disease. Another man in New York City reportedly tested positive.
“Monkeypox does not occur naturally in the United States,” the CDC explains, “but cases have happened that were associated with international travel or importing animals from areas where the disease is more common.” A 2003 “outbreak” traced to a shipment of animals from Ghana to Texas. The various African squirrels, mice, pouched rats, porcupines and such were “housed near prairie dogs” at a facility in Illinois.
Contact with the infected prairie dogs caused all the 47 confirmed and probable cases, so monkeypox is a misnomer. According to the CDC “No instances of monkeypox infection were attributed exclusively to person-to-person contact.” That differs from current reports of monkeypox transfer by sitting near someone with symptoms, and the new breakout raises other issues.
To prevent exotic diseases from arriving on American soil, the CDC deploys Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS). As the CDC explains, “EIS officers serve on the front lines of public health, protecting Americans and the global community.” When diseases and public health threats emerge, “EIS officers investigate, identify the cause, rapidly implement control measures, and collect evidence to recommend preventive actions.”
In 2003, EIS officers failed to prevent the first outbreak of monkeypox outside of Africa.
The CDC slapped a restriction on the importation of African rodents, but that was after the fact. What the EIS learned from the experience is uncertain but in 2020, the vaunted EIS failed to prevent the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 from arriving on American soil.
Before longtime NIAID boss Dr. Anthony Fauci took center stage, the CDC mouthpiece was Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). Dr. Messonnier began her career in 1995 as an EIS officer.
In a series of telebriefings in early 2020, Dr. Messonnier echoed the talking points of the World Health Organization (WHO) and China. “We should be clear to compliment the Chinese,” Messonnier told reporters, “on the early recognition of the respiratory outbreak center in the Wuhan market.”
When a reporter asked about individuals returning from Wuhan, Dr. Messonnier said that was “not something that I’m at liberty to talk about today.” None of the reporters asked which government official was laying down the rules, and Messonnier was silent on any role the EIS might have played. Last May, CDC boss Dr. Rachel Walensky hailed Dr. Messonnier as a “true hero” but failed to explain why the EIS veteran suddenly resigned from the CDC.
As UC Berkeley molecular biologist Peter Duesberg noted in Inventing the AIDS Virus, the EIS came to be known as the nation’s “medical CIA.” With members embedded in federal agencies, the WHO, and the media, the EIS serves as “an informal surveillance network,” and as “advocates for the CDC viewpoint.”
When the CDC viewpoint is the same as China’s that could be a problem. CDC and National Institutes of Health bosses have not been warning about monkeypox, which came on suddenly. That marks a contrast to the Covid pandemic.
Back in January of 2017, Dr. Anthony Fauci said there was “no doubt,” President Trump would be surprised by an infectious disease outbreak. According to Fauci, “we will definitely get surprised in the next few years.” No such prophecy hailed the monkeypox outbreak, and embattled Americans have to wonder if it’s the same as in 2003.
The CDC reported no person-to-person spread but now says the cases include people who “self-identify as men who have sex with men.” Science magazine reports that men who have sex with men “make up a disproportionate number of the cases so far.” That was not the case back in 2003.
A patient in New York has tested positive for orthopoxvirus, the family of viruses to which monkeypox belongs. Gain-of-function research can make viruses more lethal and transmissible, which opens up a broad range of possibilities for white coat supremacy. Recall the lockdowns, masks mandates, vaccine passports and travel restrictions from the Covid pandemic.
Monkeypox, Joe Biden told CNN, “is something that everybody should be concerned about.” If monkeypox becomes a crisis, the Biden Junta won’t let it go to waste. A crucial election is just around the corner. As Trump likes to say, we’ll have to see what happens.
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