The World Health Organization will begin using “mpox” as a synonym for monkeypox because scientists say that the word monkeypox is “racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings and in some communities.”
In several meetings, public and private, a number of individuals and countries raised concerns and asked WHO to propose a way forward to change the name, the organization said. Both names will be used simultaneously for one year while “monkeypox” is phased out.
WHO recommended:
- Adoption of the new synonym mpox in English for the disease.
- Mpox will become a preferred term, replacing monkeypox, after a transition period of one year. This serves to mitigate the concerns raised by experts about confusion caused by a name change in the midst of a global outbreak. It also gives time to complete the ICD update process and to update WHO publications.
- The synonym mpox will be included in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) online in the coming days. It will be a part of the official 2023 release of ICD-11, which is the current global standard for health data, clinical documentation and statistical aggregation.
- The term “monkeypox” will remain a searchable term in ICD, to match historic information.
Considerations for the recommendations included rationale, scientific appropriateness, extent of current usage, pronounceability, usability in different languages, absence of geographical or zoological references, and the ease of retrieval of historical scientific information, WHO said.
Usually, the ICD updating process can take up to several years. In this case, the process was accelerated, WHO said.
Alaska has seen only five diagnosed cases of monkeypox since the outbreak came to America earlier this year.
Monkeypox does not spread easily between people. Transmission is possible either through skin-to- skin contact with body fluids or monkeypox sores, through direct contact with contaminated items such as bedding or clothing, and through exposure to respiratory droplets during prolonged face-to- face contact. While anyone can get or spread monkeypox, in the current outbreak in the United States, most cases have occurred among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men.
Maybe we as a society should spend more resources to figure out how multiple children and even more animals contracted this disease in San Francisco earlier this year.
Those of us with a little common sense know what happened. Everyone else is just in denial.
I guess the WHO thinks too much mocking is going on. How can something be “racist” if there is no race involved? Wokeness is insane.
More radical leftist extremist insanity.
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Since when have monkeys constituted a race? And even if they did, how would the word “monkeypox” be in any way racist?
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These linguistic Stalinists should know that the more they keep pushing their intolerant, rigidly ideological nonsense on people like me, the more we will push back and PURPOSELY use the words they try to pseudo-self-righteously shame us into not using.
…..and the M stands for …….”Monkey.”
Brilliant!
Here’s the big question Homo; what is the relevance of the monkey reference?
It’s origin kind of. Monkeypox was discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in colonies of monkeys kept for research. The actual source is unknown, kind of.
It is indicative of the origin of the virus.
Another victory for wokism. When will it stop?
It’s not going to stop. It’s how it is now. And it’s going to get worse. Get with the times or get left behind. As sad as that is for some of us…
Do monkeys identify as a race and not a specific species of monkey? Do all monkey’s find it offensive to call this disease monkeypox or is it just a certain species of monkey? Is chickenpox going to be renamed cpox in deference to offended chickens? So many question…
This site really needs a “like” button.
A big thanks to wokeism for destroying modern medicine.
Days like this I’m glad I’m old. You under 50 people will get to wonder if your doctor knows the difference between men and women, and if they got their degree on merit or a school’s fanatical desire for “representation”.
Wonder which was greater; the time spent finding a treatment or the time hand-wringing over the perceived insult to monkeys? My money is on the latter….
Since there is a vaccine that has been around for decades, I would say the latter.
The real question is, which alphabet soup org petitioned the WHO to take up and resolve this most urgent, grievous issue?
Who were these “individuals and countries” who asked the WHO for “a path forward to change the name?”
If the word “monkey pox” is racist, who are the ones associating monkeys with a particular race? The scientists who say it’s racist, that’s who. THEY are the ones who associate monkeys with a race. THEY are the racists.
Exactly what race is demeaned by this? Simion?
What does the “M” stand for?
and…among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men. Does not gay and bi cover all men having sex with men? Inquiring minds want to know.
Imagine how meaningless and shallow your life must be if you spend all of your time looking for ways to be offended…
What makes monkeys racist?
How does WHO know how monkeys identify ?
Maybe the monkeys identify as trans- species. They aren’t even monkeys at all , but rabbits.
All movies containing primates like Planet of the Apes 1&2 (including remakes)Bonzo, Any which way but loose, even Curious George are now seen as constructions of the white, cis-male patriarchy of the elitist black matriarchy of the, the, the , the .. capitalism bad!
* phew * I was starting to run out of labels.
Next time I’ll use my pronoun fluid dictionary- just open up the pages and point to any word and make up a meaning for whatever word that’s in there- the dictionary doesn’t like to define itself anymore- as a book or the words contained within.
What about Smallpox? This name could offend small people or those identifying as small, better call it spox.
So apparently, according to the Idiocracy-inspired medical diagnostic graphics, the symptoms of Monkey Pox are as follows:
1) Singing into a wireless microphone while leaking blue fluid from the left temple,
2) Panicking over an extremely bad hair day,
3) Placing bulls-eyes onto one’s back,
4) Squeezing hidden subdermal RFID chips in the elbow and upper arm, emitting electromagnetic signals to allow retrieval by the mother ship,
5) Finding ketchup splatters on the back of one’s hands,
6) In every case, loss of all facial features.
The only person I know of that’s calling people monkeys is/was Roseanne Barr. But as usual, the power think they know what we’re thinking before we even think it. Kind of like that one Tom Cruise movie. I can think of some much more demeaning words to classify some people that I’ve witnessed than a damn monkey. Calling somebody a monkey would be too good for them.
Thank God there is somebody in charge on this planet who has brain! I was afraid that I might come down with monkeypox. (Whoops! Did I say that?) Now that it’s been redesignated, there’s no way that I’ll ever catch it–what a relief!
The planetary council is on the ball. God bless ’em!
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