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Well, I'm just going to throw this out for comment. Would this really be so terrible? Monkeypoxy kills 10% of the Congalese children who get it, and abot 1% of the Congalese adults who get it. I've read, and I don't know, that there is some thought that the fatality rate will be MUCH lower in the U.S. because we have medicine (seems the villages in the Congo don't have any type of medical care), we are better fed, and generally healthier. I've also read that Monkeypox exposes will give immunity to Smallpox. In a generaltion or two, we could end up with with a population that is sufficiently immune to the spread of Smallpox. I'm just throwing this out. I'm also assuming that in the U.S. there the death rate from Monkeypox will be about the same as Chickenpox (almost none).

Since we're throwing out ideas, I'll fling this:

In the 1300's, Bubonic Plague wiped out a third of the European population. It was spread by fleas, carried by rats. The disease burned itself out, in part, because hygiene improved and rats were no longer constant human companions.

Bubonic plague exists in the US today. Specifically, in prairie dog populations. Once in a while a human will get the disease, and is treated. Bubonic Plague does not kill millions of Americans -- but not because we have marvelous medicines. It's because we don't hang out with prairie dogs and rats.

Monkeypox is just something the Media is using to scare people and sell their product.

You could be right. Our medical system (despite what the democrats say) is the best in the world. Most Americans have access to medical care - even if it starts in the emergency room in some hospital. So, from that perspective, it may not "matter" so much that Monkeypox is now part of our landscape. However, as one Infectious Disease specialist that I work with mentioned, if Monkeypox becomes relatively common and then a smallpox attack is launched, there would be some difficulty for a clinician to determine early on, which pox is present. I would hope by then that some kind of test would be developed that would make it easy to tell quickly and accurately which pox virus is present.

It's also unknown what kind of genetic changes might happen in the monkeypox virus as it jumps from various animal hosts to humans. To me, that's kind of a wild card.

BTW, I don't think Chicken Pox is the same virus family as Monkey Pox and smallpox. I might be wrong on that but I think Chicken pox is in the herpes family and monkeypox and smallpox are in a different family. I am not a clinician so maybe someone else can confirm whether I've got that right or not.

It seems like most articles ignore this little detail, that in unvaccinated population, which we are now, the mortality is 10%, NOT 1%. The only reason mortality was lower in earlier outbreaks, because people were still being vaccinated against smallpox at the time.

"A study of 338 cases from the 1980s in Congo found a fatality rate of 9.8 percent for people who hadn't received the smallpox vaccine."

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0603/10monkeypox.html

I don't want to start sounding like a doomsday predictor, but if monkeypox takes hold in the US, at 10% mortality a lot of people could die. I am glad that so far of the 40 infected, nobody died, but they said there is no cure, there is nothing they can give to help, you either get well or you don't and you get well, when you get well.

I think it is really time for the government to allow at least voluntary smallpox vaccines, before things get out of hand.