AIDS Echoes in Monkeypox Messages Worry LGBTQ Health Advocates

Survivors of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and ‘90s fear efforts to combat the monkeypox outbreak will unnecessarily stigmatize the LGBTQ+ community already bearing the virus’ brunt.

Men who have sex with men have been hit the hardest by monkeypox to date, but LGBTQ+ health advocates say improper messaging risks branding monkeypox as a “gay disesase,” eroding effective preventive measures and allowing the virus to spread. Reports that phlebotomists at LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics, two of the largest medical testing companies in the US, refused to draw blood from suspected monkeypox patients shows the stigma is already settling in, ...