Why is Nobody Is Willing to Admit the Obvious? - Monkeypox is a Biological Attack

Note: The following article is my opinion. It is informed by 25 plus years of micro/molecular biology research and development experience, including significant experience in the areas of bacterial/viral diagnostics. You are free to disagree with any and all aspects of it. Though I make no claims to correctness (I never do), I do suggest you should at least consider the possibility that it is correct, and the implications thereof. It is important also to note that "Vocal does not accept stories that present personally-held beliefs about others or unfounded conspiracies as fact, or that implicate others in those beliefs." Since this article is an opinion article, nothing within it should be taken as "fact", and no one specific individual or group of individuals is implicated. Finally their is no conspiracy suggested or even implied. If there is a conspiracy at play, it is only one of ignorance and wishful thinking run amok.

I have been more than a little shocked at the global scientific and western media communities lackluster response to the monkeypox "outbreak" now spreading in the United States. If reports are to be believed the "outbreak" got its start at a "gay rave" in Europe. Now nine cases in nine different US states, seven of which had no international travel in their histories suggests things could get much worse, and that, if this a biological attack, the homeland itself has now been hit. This week also saw the release of sequence information from the "outbreak" strain which, in my mind at least, clearly shows evidence of human intervention in the monkeypox genome. There were two large deletions that could not possibly have happened naturally over the time frame in question. In addition, there were a large number of suspicious SNPs (singly nucleotide polymorphisms) spread throughout the genome that also bear the hallmarks of human tinkering, though more plausibly, could have occurred naturally. The fact that monkeypox does not transmit at all easily, or at all, between humans, and now suddenly does should have been suspicion enough. That sort of change just does not happen in nature this quickly. monkeypox comes on the heels of the ongoing COVID pandemic in which the devastating social and economic impact of using biological agents on human population centers was made glaringly obvious.

Meanwhile there is on ongoing war in the Balkans which continues its long slow grind. This is a war in which one of the participants has repeatedly been humiliated and made to look almost impotent by a much smaller power because of the support of the west and has been itching to hit back. Ideally, they would want to do so in a way which would exact a lot of damage but not trigger an all out Western power massive retaliation which would surely obliterate their country. A biological attack which cannot be linked definitively to anyone is a perfect solution, and given that at least one of the countries involved in this war has a well known, highly regarded and feared bioweapons program they have the skill and stockpiles of deadly agents to do it. My fear is that this attack is mostly a probing action to not only see how the West responds, but also to set us up for a much more dangerous smallpox attack. Make no mistake there are existing smallpox stockpiles. If they are used on the heels of monkeypox, doctors will mistakenly think they are just seeing more monkeypox cases because the initial symptoms are virtually identical. It is only when the mortality rate climbs from 10% to 50% or higher that they will know something has changed. Even more frighteningly if virologists, using a perversion of the techniques of virus reverse genetics, engineer or have already engineered an even more transmissible or virulent strain, the amount of death and destruction caused could be unimaginable. If these attacks are definitively linked to another country the United States and the West will be forced to respond in kind.

I have heard some commentators suggesting this is no big deal because "we have a vaccine." The people that say this have no idea of just how terrible is the smallpox vaccine. I have recent second hand experience with it and it lived up to its reputation and then some. The amount of vaccine the US has stockpiled is not totally clear but it is not nearly enough to vaccinate a large enough portion of the population (unconfirmed estimates suggest their is enough to vaccinate approximately 1/3 of the US population with a difficult and uncertain path to produce more quickly) to prevent a massive catastrophe. Moreover, credible rumors (and first hand knowledge) suggest at least some number of the stockpiles are contaminated with the bacteria Clostridium. The contaminated vaccine, makes an already horrendous vaccine experience much, much worse and could be deadly for some. If people thought Covid vaccine was bad, they are in for a real shock because this makes those vaccines look like a walk in the park.

To some extent I understand why the scientists involved in this investigations are unwilling to say the obvious. Monkeypox is considered a "dual use" biological agent and there are very specific rules about what persons working with these agents can and cannot say, can and cannot publish. But to my knowledge the dual use rules do not prohibit scientists from having opinions and stating them publicly, even if those opinions are with respect to the agents with which they are currently working. The news media however, have no excuse. Why are they not all over this angle? Speak up somebody. Before it is too late.