Pain, Fear, Stigma: What People Who Survived Monkeypox Want You to Know (8-31-22)

Pain, Fear, Stigma: What People Who Survived Monkeypox Want You to Know, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/nyregion/monkeypox-stories-isolation.htmlShow more

NYT: Miguel Anda, a nightlife host and sex worker known professionally as Boomer Banks, hardly noticed the odd-looking pimple that appeared on his face on June 2, when New York City had fewer than a dozen diagnosed cases of monkeypox. He had read about monkeypox, however, and it worried him.

Most New Yorkers did not have the virus on their radar at the start of the summer. But Mr. Anda remembers the AIDS crisis; he is H.I.V. positive. And as a sex worker, he said, he tries to be “more informed and more of an advocate” when it comes to sexual health.

When a second strange pimple appeared on the palm of his hand, he started “freaking out.”

Mr. Anda does not have health insurance, so he called the man who used to be his doctor, Demetre Daskalakis, a former New York City health official with a long history of activism in the L.G.B.T.Q. community who now works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (On Aug. 2, President Biden appointed him to help lead the national monkeypox response.)