HHS Is Wrong to Bring Back the Stigmatizing Name Monkeypox

HHS Is Wrong to Bring Back the Stigmatizing Name Monkeypox

When the World Health Organization (WHO) renamed “monkeypox” to “mpox” in 2022, we saw firsthand that the decision was more than cosmetic. As leaders of the Biden Administration’s White House response team, we sat in real and virtual meeting rooms with community leaders, patients, public health officials, and clinicians who all told us the same thing: The old name carried stigma and confusion, making people less likely to get vaccinated, tested,…