As the Biden administration considers declaring monkeypox a public health emergency, an epidemiologist says the easiest way to combat its spread is to discourage the practices of “aggressively hypersexualized gay men.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the U.S. has 2,890 diagnosed cases of the virus, which causes sores and open lesions on the skin, on Monday. Public health authorities acknowledge monkeypox is largely confined to men who have sex with men.
“Transmission was suspected to have occurred through sexual activity in 95% of the persons with infection,” according to a monkeypox study published late last week in The New England Journal of Medicine. “Overall, 98% of the persons with infection were gay or bisexual men.”
One in three people who tested positive for monkeypox had visited “sex-on-site venues” within the past month, the study found, and one in five “attended large gatherings (>30 persons), such as Pride events.”
“This particular outbreak has been fueled, suffice it to say, by gay bacchanalia,” Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, an epidemiologist and research physician at Brown University, said on Monday’s “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” He highlighted the study’s finding that those who contracted the virus had a median number of five sex partners in the past three months, and 20% engaged in “chemsex” (sex under the influence of drugs).
