A recent New York Times report detailed an extremely messed up story of social media vigilantism: A 33-year-old woman with a health condition unrelated to monkeypox was filmed by strangers who assumed she was just out and about with the virus, based solely on the appearance of her skin. The video was posted to TikTok, where it went viral enough that it was sent back to the woman, Lilly Simon, who lives in Brooklyn.
Simon explained in a follow-up TikTok of her own that she doesn’t have monkeypox but a genetic condition called neurofibromatosis type 1, which causes tumors to grow along her nerve endings. “I’m not new to people being mean to the condition,” Simon told The New York Times. Given the current monkeypox outbreak, which was recently declared a public health emergency in the U.S., she assumed something like this would be “inevitable.”
I can’t believe we have to say this, but please do not attempt to diagnose monkeypox in strangers. It’s both immoral and impossible to look at someone you don’t know and accurately claim, based on appearances alone, that they are infected with monkeypox. While it’s true that one common symptom of the virus is a painful rash that typically appears as pustules, or little bumps that look similar to pimples or blisters, other symptoms—and medical testing—will ultimately confirm a person’s diagnosis. Also, not all monkeypox lesions look the same; while some people have full-blown rashes, others have a single, pimple-like bump. Like with any other condition, it’s impossible to know what any given stranger’s current health status is.
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“In general, we shouldn’t be trying to diagnose people based on looking at them,” Shari Marchbein, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in New York City and a member of the SELF Medical Review Board, tells SELF. “We don’t go up to people and start diagnosing things on their skin with an untrained eye. And I think what has happened with monkeypox is that it’s become very stigmatizing.”
Dr. Marchbein is right. Monkeypox is currently spreading predominantly, though not exclusively, via sexual contact between men who have sex with men, which has led some people to discount the seriousness of the virus. Even the name has negative connotations; in June, the World Health Organization announced it is “working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of monkeypox virus” after scientists voiced concerns that the current name is discriminatory and stigmatizing. And while monkeypox is caught in the midst of a debate over whether or not it should be referred to as a sexually transmitted infection, Dr. Marchbein emphasizes that thinking of the disease that way is currently incorrect: The virus is widely spreading via close, prolonged, skin-to-skin contact, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not yet determined whether it can be transmitted via bodily fluids, such as semen or vaginal fluid. The CDC also says that monkeypox is not transmissible via “casual conversations” or “walking by someone with monkeypox” in a public space like a grocery store or thrift shop.
Source: SELF
