“The future ain’t what it used to be.”

-Yogi Berra

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 29th, 2023

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  • Firstly, the term “monkeypox” is scientifically misleading. The virus is primarily transmitted to humans by small, forest-dwelling rodents, including species of squirrels native to Central and West Africa – not monkeys.

    The virus was originally named “monkeypox” because it was first identified in a group of monkeys in a European laboratory undergoing tests for the polio vaccine in the mid 1950s.

    The animals had contracted the infection before being shipped from Africa, most likely through hunting and consuming infected rodents.

    “I would even call it rodentpox than the mpox or monkeypox virus,” Dr Leandre Murhula Masirik, the doctor who discovered a new variant of the virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023, told The Telegraph.

    Okay but like, how is this “anti-woke”? I’m not sure any “wokies” were raging against the term? Like was that a thing? I mean we still call it chicken pox? We call it bird flu? It seems like a name that was used originally/ colloquially, and even mpox isn’t “really” the scientific name? Its just a colloquial handle.

    idk. Much ado?

    Dug a bit more thinking there would be a more technical term for it. Nope. Its specific epithet is Orthopoxvirus monkeypox. I think Monkeypox might be the more technically correct term.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox_virus