TRUMPETED by Global Health NOW (GHN), a report in ABC News emanating from an article in Annals of Internal Medicine is headlined ‘More than half of mpox patients in 2022 outbreak experienced lasting physical effects’. This is the classic example of a claim that does not withstand any scrutiny.
The Annals article was titled ‘Long-term Mpox Sequelae 11 to 18 Months After Acute Illness’. As renowned children’s entertainer Rolf Harris might have said ‘Can you see what it is yet?’
The claim made in the ABC News article is not only misleading; it is absolutely wrong. Even if the claim were correct, it is merely another way of saying that nearly half of monkeypox patients did not experience lasting physical effects.
In fact, the Annals article only claims that 20 per cent of monkeypox patients experience long-lasting physical effects. The remainder of the ‘more than half’ only experienced physical effects that were mild, intermittent or no longer present. Moreover, these physical effects, long-lasting or otherwise, were not clinically diagnosed; they were self-reported.
Such studies, where the reporting of symptoms is subjective and not confirmed, are prone to the phenomenon of bias caused by suggestibility. The question being asked elicits a response in the affirmative, even if the person had not really thought about it before. A case of ‘come to think of it . . . yes I do’.
For example, ‘Did you think that the house we stayed in last night was haunted?’ to which the respondent says, ‘Come to think of it . . . yes, I felt a presence’.
It gets worse. Not only is the headline inaccurate and exaggerated (a blatant lie), but the study design is so flawed that it is impossible to have confidence in the results of the study.
The study did attempt to compare people who had been diagnosed with monkeypox with people who had not. However, the authors made no effort to achieve equivalence between the groups, meaning that the two groups could, and did, differ on some important and confounding factors.
In the group of people who had been diagnosed with monkeypox 80 per cent of the participants were men who reported having sex with men. Only 57 per cent of the group not diagnosed with monkeypox were men who reported have sex with men.
Also, the group diagnosed with monkeypox was 96 per cent male compared with 85 per cent in the group not diagnosed with monkeypox. These differences are important, as we shall see.
Sixty-three per cent of the people who had been diagnosed with monkeypox were HIV-positive. While the HIV status of the people not diagnosed with monkeypox is not reported, it can be inferred from reported participation in HIV treatment programmes that the percentage was much lower.
The physical effects reported by a minority of the group diagnosed with monkeypox included persistent skin lesions and discomfort related to those lesions. They also had continuing anorectal or genital pain and pain or difficulty with receptive anal or vaginal intercourse.
I think we’re all adults. I doubt I need to explain how the outcomes of the study may have less to do with the fact that someone had a previous diagnosis of monkeypox than, perhaps, with their lifestyle and associated practices.
This seems like nothing less than an attempt to exaggerate the effects of what is known to be a mild virus in most people who become infected. If fact most people are unlikely ever to become infected with monkeypox in the first place.
Here at TCW we have been reporting on the non-event that is monkeypox for several years. It has been overblown from the start, and it has been used as another battering ram by Big Pharma to sell vaccines to developing countries that can ill afford them and who do not need them.
This latest manifestation in the monkeypox story seems like nothing less than a blatant attempt to create the phenomenon of ‘long mpox’. You may think you heard that here first. But our thunder has been stolen. On the basis of the Annals of Internal Medicine article, the purported phenomenon of long mpox is already being reported.
Meanwhile, in other news, in another case of covid-type history repeating itself and, again, courtesy of a GHN link to the Daily Telegraph we hear that ‘Mpox may be spreading asymptomatically in parts of Africa’. The jury remains out on the dubious phenomenon of asymptomatic spread but watch this space.
And, in case you are wondering, yes, there is a test for monkeypox. It is a PCR test, and we all know now how accurate that was during covid. TCW reported on it extensively. How long before we have widespread, compulsory even, testing for monkeypox? You did hear that here first.
