I wasn't the first person to raise that monkeypox was primarily being transmitted through gay sex. Dimie Ogoina, a researcher in Nigeria, raised this in a 2019 journal article when he reported on unusual findings from the 2017 Nigeria outbreak:
Blog
100 W0rd Outbreak Stories
Guilty Fish
9/23/24
Pull up a bean bag chair for outbreak stories. It was just after the Jewish high holidays, 2000. My first year at the department. Six separate celebrations reported salmonella gastroenteritis following catered meals. All six had been supplied Gefilte Fish by the Mezonot Deli. In tracking back it was determined there was mishandling in the food prep and two workers had Salmonella in their stool samples. My job was to interview the rabbi's wife. When I called a child answered, her name was Rachel. She told me she was home sick. I commiserated. She then added, "I ate guilty fish."
Update-September 5, 2022
The NYC Department of Investigation (DOI) is the agency that investigates wrongdoing by city workers. I submitted a complaint of whistleblower retaliation in the last days of July and received an acknowledgement from DOI on 8-2-22. It takes DOI a long time to close investigations. The median days an investigation remained open in a FY21 was 96, but this includes ones opened at various times over several years. Some investigations have been open 700 or more days.
Of the 16 whistleblower retaliations closed in the most recent report, none resulted in a finding that the complainant was entitled to protection under the City's Whistleblower Protection Law. The report, however, has this qualifying statement:
"However, even when a complainant is found not to have met the technical requirements for protection under the Law, DOI will still make recommendations to an agency to redress any problematic conduct or issues, where warranted."
DOI website: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doi/report/AnnualWhistleblowerLetters.page
Public Health Pugilism
Authoritarianism
08/17/2022
My iPod battery died at the gym so I plugged in and listened to CNBC. They made a compelling case for the Republican party becoming authoritarian and squashing debate. Liz Cheney, who stood up for truth and democracy, lost in a landslide.
There's a new study out today. I found out about it through an email I received that said this: "As you clearly stated."
Perspective
08/13/2022
I know my situation doesn't amount to a single salty tear in all the world's oceans of injustice. If we allow our elected and appointed leaders to lie, however well-meaning they claim to be (I am sure Putin has a litany of reasons), we become complicit in the destruction of freedom.
Ignaz Semmelweis was an Austrian-Hungarian obstetrician who worked in a Vienna Hospital in 1840s. He had no formal training in epidemiology, the discipline didn't exist back then, but he used his powers of observation and deduction to solve a serious problem. Women were dying of puerperal fever, an postpartum infection causes by Streptococcus...
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have updated their monkeypox guidance to align with the World Health Organization (WHO). They finally recommend that MSM alter their sexual behavior. The MMWR article, posted on Friday, August 5, 2022, included this statement (near end of article, bold added):
I don't know. If transmission occurs when a penis goes into a rectum, regardless if live virus is in semen, that's a sexually transmitted infection (STI). STI proctitis is a known condition, "Chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes simplex virus (HSV), and syphilis are among the most common causes of sexually transmitted proctitis (1)." Add monkeypox. CDC is...
Primer on Prevention
08/03/2022
In the first year of medical school, wedged in between gross anatomy and histology, was a course in Preventive Medicine. Many students cut the class to go study. I didn't. The professor was Dr. Donald Louria (1928-2021), a man I grew to respect and admire greatly. He was passionate about the subject and in the first lecture he laid out...
Penis Rectum
08/02/2022
I continue to hear this messaging about how monkeypox is transmitted: "prolonged skin to skin contact," "prolonged skin to skin contact as happens during sex."
Leadership, Part 2
07/31/2022
A friend asked if I could expand on my concept of leadership. The New York City Commissioner of Health is a tough job. You have responsibility for the health and welfare of 8.6 million people and millions more commuters and tourists. It is not position that should be given as a prize or reward to a political donor or their...