Monkeypox. Like, What the...?

After Covid-19 (which still has not gone away), we welcome the new kid on the block, Monkeypox! What exactly is going on?

On 3 March 2022, the European Union Council adopted a decision to authorise the opening of negotiations for an international agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. During this Summer a draft agreement will be drawn up to be discussed at a meeting in August, with a view to presenting the final agreement at the 76th World Health Assembly in 2023 and the final implementation in 2024. So what, then, is afoot?

The final wording should read along the lines of the objectives outlined by the World Health Organisation, namely: 

“ensure higher, sustained and long-term political engagement at the level of world leaders of states or governments

define clear processes and tasks

enhance long-term public and private-sector support at all levels

foster integration of health matters across all relevant policy areas”

and the idea is to create a global and legally-binding document.

“We need to create an environment where every scientist, health worker, and government can band together for a common cause. Working together to build new solutions to protect what is most precious - our health and our lives”.

Charles Michel, President of the European Council at World Health Summit, 25 October 2021

Something is brewing

So we can conclude that the authorities are aware of the appearance of new pandemics now and in the near future, that the authorities have no idea why Monkeypox has suddenly appeared across the globe, have no idea how it spread so widely and at the same time and while they say it will “probably” die out on its own, nobody has any evidence to say that this is the case.

Conclusion of the conclusion: here we go again. Nobody has a clue what is going on or why, this time we have a disease with human-to-human chains of infection and with a mortality rate of 3 to 10 per cent, depending on whether this is the West African clade or the DR Congo clade of the virus. So given that it is still growing and the only thing that can stop it is some scientists saying “It will probably grow then disappear...I think”, like WTF?

Let us make a few observations here.

Firstly, after Covid, we can discount any notion that the world health authorities are capable of protecting us since the policy has always been to let these things run their course, “be vigilant” (whatever that means. Taking a voyeuristic approach and watching as it goes through the six pandemic stages?) until the Pharma industry comes up with a wizzy cure costing billions.

Secondly, if the first cases were linked to MSM (Men having sex with Men, i.e. homosexual or bisexual males) but other cases not, then it is not by definition a “gay” or “homosexual” disease and until now has never been classified solely as a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD). So let us discount that one.

Thirdly, since the Monkeypox virus is related, albeit not that closely, to the Smallpox virus (Variola major) (mortality rate 30 per cent), is this nature’s way of getting back after smallpox was finally eradicated through a global vaccination program (1959 to 1977)? Some media outlets are claiming that those born in the 1970s after the vaccination program against Variola major was suspended may be more prone to being infected with Monkeypox but this is false. Even those vaccinated will by now have lost all immunity. Does global warming have a say in the propagation of what has until now been a tropical disease (which anyway some claim comes from rodents, not monkeys)?

Fourthly, if Monkeypox spreads through direct contact or proximity to an infected and infectious person, then let us all adopt the personal hygienic precautions which we practised at the height of Covid-19, meaning the wearing of masks outside the home, avoiding gatherings of people/social distancing and sanitising of hands and surfaces. As it is, it appears that in their wish to be free of Covid, people are walking around as if it had disappeared. It has not. When immunity from the third dose of vaccinations passes (it gets weaker after 3 months) then watch the statistics this Summer/Autumn as cases skyrocket and the Accident and Emergency wards are overflowing with critically ill patients. It will come back, mark my words. So while people are now in denial about the need for Covid precautions, Monkeypox can run riot.

Fifthly, I always ask myself Cui bono? (To whose benefit?) While I see no alternative to a mass vaccination program and willingly submitted myself to the three Covid vaccines (and have not, yet anyway, caught Covid so far as I know), obviously someone in the Pharma industry is making billions out of this and the second question is what effect on our bodies do multiple vaccines have?

Sixthly, let us forecast what the final agreement will focus on, and it will be something along the lines of:

·         early detection and prevention of pandemics

·         resilience to future pandemics

·         response to any future pandemics, in particular by ensuring universal and equitable access to medical solutions, such as vaccines, medicines and diagnostics

·         a stronger international health framework with the WHO as the coordinating authority on global health matters

·         the "One Health" approach, connecting the health of humans, animals and our planet

and these are not my words, they are the words of the WHO; let us take these points one by one.

Detection is one thing and today we have medical networks which communicate the appearance of new or existing viruses or bacterial infections in a timely manner. Another thing is prevention and the implementation of preventive measures. As I predicted on January 23rd 2020, (https://english.pravda.ru/science/144248-coronavirus/) the WHO would not impose any restrictions as Covid took off, its own website was out of date already within three weeks and the rest is the result we all know only too well. Chief Medical Officers were scoffing at the idea that there could be sustained human-to-human chains of transmission while I, a nobody, was saying that they existed. If I predicted the entire pandemic on January 23rd 2020, why couldn’t they?

Resilience is another good point. How resilient are our bodies when they are crammed full, daily, with antibiotics, hormones and God alone knows what else, fed to animals and passed on to us as we consume meat, fish and transgenic crops? I am not saying these things make us more susceptible to viral infections per se (antibiotics have nothing to do with preventing a virus), but what effect do these products have on our immune systems?

As regards “equitable access” give me a break. It is patently clear that Humankind 2022 is living in a world in which money dictates everything so if you are born in Africa, you are not going to get equitable access to anything, even drinking water, let alone vaccines. 

Wouldn't it be good to be in your shoes
Even if it was for just one day?
Wouldn't it be good if we could wish ourselves away?
Wouldn't it be good to be on your side?
The grass is always greener over there
Wouldn't it be good if we could live without a care?

Nik Kershaw 1985

Meanwhile we spend trillions on weapons systems. 

As for a stronger WHO, the Iraq conflict of 2003, as I said at the time, as I warned the perpetrators before the event and as I have been saying since, destroyed any credibility in the United Nations Organization which was derided and insulted by those nations which attacked Iraq outside the auspices of the UNSC, taking away any right to claiming a high moral ground in any ensuing event. The same ones today are taking the side of Fascists strutting around in Swastikas integrated in the official armed forces of Ukraine, so...

And finally, would it not be nice to have a One World policy? You know, where we can all sit down together and enjoy each other’s religions, cultures, traditions, languages, stories, habits, customs, songs, gastronomy, poetry, art, literature, music... On some other planet maybe and without the wonderful Homo sapiens sapiens. You know, the species which has polluted this one from the bottom of the seas up into space, which swallows a daily dose of fear and hatred from the mass media, which sees more money spent on weapons than on aid programs to feed the needy, more on arms than on education and development in countries which were held back by centuries of imperialism, countries left with literacy rates of 3 per cent after 300 years.

So don’t talk to me about a One World policy. I have been asking for this for decades. It is NOT going to happen any time soon and at 63, I will never see this in my lifetime. Crap stinks. So does Humankind.

So let us all get used to Planet Earth 2022, where forests are chopped down and indigenous people shot dead because a company wants the wood or land for cattle or for exploiting minerals, where orang-utangs fall to their deaths, burnt, because some bastard set fire to the forest to plant trees to get palm oil, where the sonars of ships blitz the natural navigation systems of whales, dolphins and fish, where there is practically as much plastic in the oceans as fish, where transgenic crops destroy a whole ecosystem including those which bees rely on.

Covid-19 yesterday (wherever it came from, bats in a cave is one story, manipulation in a lab is another, whether in China or in the USA and people these days can do their research on the Net) and Monkeypox today are the sum of all of our mistakes over many decades and our refusal to listen to nature, indeed to deride it and play God with transgenics and manipulation of viruses in laboratories. Hollywood has a knack of forecasting the future. Watch “I am Legend”.

So let us continue polluting our beautiful home, let us continue our policy of transforming natural food into the junk that they put on our tables, let us continue to force feed animals with hormones and antibiotics, let us continue to fell forests and then do not complain when something rears its head which make Covid.19, Monkeypox and Ebola Virus Disease look like a gaggle of grandmothers giggling over the fortified wine in their teacups.

Let us continue with Nik Kershaw

The heat is stifling

Burning me up from the inside

I don’t wanna be here no more

I don’t wanna be here no more

I don’t wanna be here no more

And let me end with Nik Kershaw's words...

 

It's getting harder just keeping

life and soul together

I'm sick of fighting,

even though I know I should

 

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey can be contacted at [email protected]

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