The WHO is changing the name “monkeypox”…is it really because of racism?

Guest Post by Kit Knightly

Yesterday Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), announced the WHO was officially changing the name of the monkeypox virus.

This decision was allegedly taken due to “stigmatization” and “discrimination” of the current “inaccurate” name.

I’m not sure how “monkeypox virus” can be an inaccurate name for a virus allegedly found in monkeys that allegedly causes pox, but that is the contention of the “experts” who called for an “urgent name change” in this report from last week.

In the context of the current global outbreak, continued reference to, and nomenclature of this virus being African is not only inaccurate but is also discriminatory and stigmatising,”

Of course, the problem here, as always with mainstream news, is their own mutually contradictory stories/agendas.

Because, according to the official narrative the virus does come from Africa, where it is endemic in some West African nations.

Changing the name of the virus will not change that, or make people forget they said so, will it?

So why do it?

Well, in yet another parallel with Covid, it allows them to fold a racism storyline into the greater narrative. With Covid they first engendered, suspicions about China and Chinese people being “the source” of the non-existent problem. Then they condemned these suspicions as racist.

Here, they are spreading fear about Africa, and then claiming that fear is racist.

It is just another great way to divide and distract people.

Alongside this, the irrationality itself seems to serve some purpose.

With Covid we were warned that “super-spreader events” were incredibly dangerous…but that Black Lives Matter protests were the exception because “racism is a worse pandemic than Covid”.

With Monkeypox, despite the narrative claiming it’s spreading among “men who have sex with men”, any decision to cancel pride events or close known cruising spots is apparently “homophobic”.

So maybe there’s an element of simply being irrational for irrationality’s sake. Confusing people to the point they don’t know where to stand.

There’s another potential answer too, a directly pragmatic answer related to other Monkeypox news that came out the last few days.

On June 14th it was announced the WHO will be meeting next week to consider whether or not to declare monkeypox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

In the US, the CDC has released updated guidelines and case definitions for monkeypox symptoms aiming to “encourage broader suspicion for monkeypox”.

Earlier today, Bloomberg was reporting the US had “not learned from Covid” and “testing bottlenecks” could mean monkeypox cases being missed.

And yesterday Hans Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, released a statement calling monkeypox a “neglected disease”, going on to say:

The magnitude of this outbreak poses a real risk; the longer the virus circulates, the more it will extend its reach, and the stronger the disease’s foothold will get in non-endemic countries. Governments, health partners and civil society need to act with urgency, and together to control this outbreak;

So, do you know what I think?

I think the real problem here is that they want to take the monkeypox narrative to the next level, but they’ve saddled themselves with a silly name that will never frighten anybody.

That is why they’re changing it…they want people to be afraid, and “monkeypox” just isn’t scary.