Monkeypox has taken the world by storm, but thankfully ‘experts’ have been talking about potential monkeypox and smallpox pandemics for some time, particularly since the start of COVID. Here’s what you should know.
What is monkeypox?
According to the Harvard Global Health Institute, “Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease that may lead to flu-like symptoms, swelling of lymph nodes, and a characteristic rash in humans. The virus is related to smallpox, but is less infectious and has milder symptoms. The term “zoonotic” refers to a disease that typically passes from animals to human.”
The HGHI continues, saying that while human-to-human transmission is rare, there have been a few outbreaks, including in the US, and monkeypox is endemic in some areas of Africa.
“…The first recorded incidence of monkeypox in humans occurred in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a nine-month-old boy. Since then, a majority of monkeypox cases have been reported in the Congo Basin and western Africa. Clusters of cases have on occasion been recorded elsewhere. For example, in 2003, the US experienced the first recorded monkeypox outbreak outside of Africa,” the HGHI continues.
Additionally, there are currently two distinct genetic strains of monkeypox: the West African clade (1 per cent fatality rate) and the Congo Basin (10 per cent fatality rate).
The ongoing outbreak is of the former strain of monkeypox.
Besides physical contact, whether with humans or animals, researchers also believe the virus can be spread through respiratory droplets.
“Monkeypox is not easily spread between humans. That being said, the true burden of disease may be underestimated, and better understanding of transmission is needed. Monkeypox can spread human-to-human through several pathways, including large respiratory droplets. This typically requires close contact between individuals. Transmission can also occur through contact with lesions, body fluid or contaminated objects, such as clothing. Monkeypox is transmissible from the time symptoms appear through the course of the illness (until lesions have healed and a fresh layer of skin has formed), which can be several weeks,” the HGHI writes.
If the monkeypox outbreak gets to endemic levels, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that health officials will use the virus as an excuse to recommend mask mandates.
The recent monkeypox outbreak
The recent monkeypox outbreak began on May 13 in the UK when it was found in a man who’d attended the Gran Canaria gay pride event. One day later, a second man was diagnosed with monkeypox.
Despite the extremely low human-to-human transmissibility of the virus, there are now 20 confirmed cases in the UK, and it has made its way to several other countries, including Canada, the US, Australia, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Israel, Italy, Portugal, and the Canary Islands.
The Gran Canaria gay pride event has now been labelled a “superspreader” event.
How is monkeypox being treated?
Typically, monkeypox is treated with smallpox vaccines, which have been proven to be 85 per cent effective in preventing monkeypox. However, because smallpox has been eliminated from the human population, the availability of smallpox vaccines is limited.
A monkeypox vaccine has also been developed. Curiously, the FDA approved the first live, non-replicating vaccine to prevent smallpox and monkeypox on September 24, 2019, right before COVID appeared in China.
Also of note, despite smallpox supposedly being eradicated, multiple countries, apparently fearing a bioterrorism event, have “strategically stockpiled” smallpox vaccines, causing pharma stocks to soar.
On October 8, 2020, the Public Health Agency of Canada procured Oral TPOXX as part of a strategic smallpox medicine stockpile from SIGA. Likewise, the US made a $101.3 million order of Oral TPOXX, which was fulfilled in April 2021.
Overall, the US government granted SIGA over $1 billion in contract value. But, again, this was granted to produce drugs for a virus supposedly eliminated.
“SIGA’s most recent contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), primarily for the maintenance of a strategic stockpile of smallpox antiviral therapy, was awarded in September 2018 and has a value in excess of $600 million (if all options are exercised). To date, approximately $240 million of TPOXX has been delivered under this contract. In 2011, SIGA was awarded a contract with BARDA which led to the delivery of $460 million of oral TPOXX® to the strategic stockpile,” SIGA’s website reads.
The US government isn’t the only one invested in SIGA, though. You can see a more comprehensive list of investors by clicking here.
As it stands, many already very rich people are set to see major gains in the event of a smallpox or smallpox-like pandemic.
What were experts doing before the outbreak?
In March 2021, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) partnered with the Munich Security Conference (MSC) to “conduct a tabletop exercise on reducing high-consequence biological threats.” The “biological threat” they chose just so happened to be “an unusual strain of monkeypox” with increased transmissibility between humans.
“The exercise scenario portrayed a deadly, global pandemic involving an unusual strain of monkeypox virus that emerged in the fictional nation of Brinia and spread globally over 18 months. Ultimately, the exercise scenario revealed that the initial outbreak was caused by a terrorist attack using a pathogen engineered in a laboratory with inadequate biosafety and biosecurity provisions and weak oversight. By the end of the exercise, the fictional pandemic resulted in more than three billion cases and 270 million fatalities worldwide,” the NTI report reads.
The tabletop exercise produced four key findings:
- Weak global detection, assessment, and warning of pandemic risks
- Gaps in national-level preparedness
- Gaps in biological research governance
- Insufficient financing of international preparedness for pandemics.
To address these findings, participants say the world needs to “bolster international systems pandemic risk assessment, warnings, and investigating outbreak origins.”
They further state that national governments “must adopt a “no-regrets” approach to pandemic response, taking anticipatory action — as opposed to reacting to mounting case counts and fatalities, which are lagging indicators.”
Put simply, they recommend national governments should constantly surveil their citizens and consider implementing COVID-like restrictions before a pandemic is even declared.
However, the most shocking aspect of the report is that participants unilaterally and repeatedly recommend giving the World Health Organization and United Nations more power and authority in light of a monkeypox outbreak.
“Participants noted that biological incidents of unknown original fall into a gap in the UN system. The WHO, as one participant highlighted, is the outbreak equivalent of a firefighter, not a police officer; the organization is best suited to public health and medical response, not security investigations. In cases where an outbreak is deliberately caused, a security investigation by the UN Secretary-General’s Mechanism (UNSGM) would be appropriate,” the report reads.
“…. A UN agency or credible non-governmental institution should partner with experts from the scientific, philanthropic, security, and public health communities to create an international entity dedicated to identifying and reducing emerging biological risks associated with technology advances.”
“The mission of this entity should be to strengthen global biosecurity norms and to develop tools and incentives to support adherence.”
The WHO pandemic treaty and International Health Regulations
It just so happens that the WHO began drafting its global pandemic treaty only six months later during a special session entitled “The World Together.”
The treaty is to be upheld by the WHO’s constitution, which under Article 19 “[provides] the World Health Assembly with the authority to adopt conventions or agreements on any matter within WHO’s competence.” [Emphasis added]
This authority was initially designed to pertain only to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control but is being expanded to include dictating Member States’ future pandemic responses.
“When there is a health crisis or a pandemic like we’ve just been through, the World Health Organization will be able to dictate terms,” author Nick Corbishley said during an interview with The Epoch Times.
“They will be able to tell countries, more or less, how to respond.”
Additionally, participants in the NTI tabletop exercise explicitly recommends amending the WHO’s International Health Regulations.
“Under the current International Health Regulations (IHR 2005), the WHO could be empowered to provide more detailed risk assessments to member states. One participant noted that formally shifting the WHO PHEIC to a graded system might require a change to the IHR, which could pose significant political challenges.”
It just so happens the World Health Assembly is debating amending the International Health Regulations tomorrow at the request of the Biden administration, which sent publicly undisclosed recommendations to the WHO that weren’t revealed until April 12.
According to the proposal, any amendments to the International Health Regulations (which have thus far been used to justify lockdowns, border closures, and discriminatory vaccine mandates) would immediately come into effect for all member states.
“Pursuant to paragraph 3 of Article 55 of the International Health Regulations (2005), any amendments to the Regulations adopted by the Health Assembly would come into force for all States Parties on the same terms, and subject to the same rights and obligations, as provided for in Article 22 of the Constitution of WHO and Articles 59 to 64 of the International Health Regulations (2005),” the proposal reads.
As for the stated amendments being proposed, the Biden administration is recommending the following: intensifying health surveillance; creating a global communication network that is in a constant state of assessing risks and reporting to the WHO; giving the WHO the authority to tell other member states when one member state isn’t reporting in and recommending they take action; giving Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus the authority to declare when a pandemic or emergency is occurring; giving the WHO the authority to determine what steps a country should take in its pandemic response; and giving the WHO the ability to mobilize capital in the event of a pandemic.
As Dr. Peter Breggin explains, “Under the new regulations, WHO will not be required to consult with the identified nation beforehand to “verify” the event before taking action. This requirement is stricken by the US amendments (Article 9.1). The amendments require a response in 24 hours from the identified nation, or WHO will identify it as “rejection” and act independently (Article 10.3). If the identified nation “does not accept the offer of collaboration within 48 hours, WHO shall… immediately share with the other State Parties the information available to it…” (Article 10.4).”
“…. Under the proposed regulations, WHO itself would develop and update “early warning criteria for assessing and progressively updating the national, regional, or global risk posed by an event of unknown causes or sources…” (New article 5). Notice that the health-endangering event may be so nonspecific as to have “unknown causes or sources.” Thus, Tedros and any future Director-Generals of WHO will be given unrestricted powers to define and then implement their interventions.”
“The proposed regulations, in combination with existing ones, allow action to be taken by WHO, “If the Director-General considers, based on an assessment under these Regulations, that a potential or actual public health emergency of international concern is occurring…” (Article 12.2). That is, Tedros need only “consider” that a “potential or actual” risk is occurring.”
Additionally, a recent WHO White Paper has indicated the organization intends to create a “Global Health Emergency Council” that will include a “Review Committee on the Functioning of the International Health Regulations” that will hasten the process of making more amendments in the future.
“But to build further trust and strengthen global governance for health emergencies, amending certain articles of the IHR, while strengthening their implementation, is necessary. Such targeted amendments should make the instrument more agile and flexible and should facilitate compliance with its provisions,” the White Paper reads.
“A related issue is the need to streamline the process to bring IHR amendments into force, which at present can take up to two years. Ensuring that the IHR can be efficiently and effectively amended to accommodate evolving global health requirements is key to their continued relevance and effectiveness. A targeted amendment to achieve this streamlining has been proposed and is currently being discussed informally. The approval of this proposal at the 75th World Health Assembly will contribute substantially to ensuring that the IHR remains a foundational and relevant global health legal instrument.”
As previously reported by The Counter Signal, on the eve of the WHA meeting to decide whether to sign away Member States’ health sovereignty, the WHO announced they were holding an emergency meeting over the monkeypox outbreak.
It isn’t a stretch to suggest that discussions at their emergency meeting on monkeypox will be brought forth to the WHA, with the outbreak being used as more evidence that the WHO needs to amend its IHR and countries need to sign the new pandemic treaty.
