The CDC's #ACIP meeting on #mpox/#monkeypox is going on. Some interesting stats! Cases have remained overwhelmingly among men who have sex with men. Cases in kids have been extremely rare. Vaccine uptake has been racially inequitable. 🧵⬇️
The CDC estimates the Jynneos mpox vaccine efficacy based on 9,544 mpox cases among men 18-49 from July 31-Oct 1. Mpox rates were 7.4 times higher than those with 1 dose of the vax and 9.6 times higher than those with 2 doses. No difference based on subdermal vs intradermal. 2/
More mpox stats: 3/
An Israeli study estimated that the Jynneos mpox vaccine reduced the risk of the virus by 86%. 4/
Another study estimated that the Jynneos vaccine was 66% for those fully vaccinated, including 76% of those with no immunocompromising conditions. 5/
Yet another study found the #mpox vaccine was 90% effective among those without immunocompromising conditions. 6/
A New York City study of the #mpox vaccine found it was 66% to 83% effective. 7/
The mpox vaccine is safe according to multiple means of monitoring safety, per the CDC #ACIP meeting.
BREAKING: French researchers estimate the Jynneos #mpox vaccine is 99% effective. Per #CROI2023: of 472 participants in HIV PrEP study, 77 got mpox. Before and after mpox outbreak and July 2022 vaccination campaign, the only factor tied to reduced mpox risk was vaccination. 1/2
The French researchers found that after the mpox outbreak started, the only significant shift in sexual behavior change in the 472 men who have sex with men on HIV PrEP was a reduction in the proportion reporting >10 sexual partners during previous 3 months (45% to 35%). 2/2
@Boghuma analyzed data on military vets and service members, many of whom received the smallpox vaccine between 2002 and 2017. 1,007 were tested for suspected #mpox, 298 tested positive. In this group, vaccination, typically 13 years before, lowered risk 66% to 72%. #CROI2023
I interviewed a number of the first monkeypox (mpox) cases in 2022. They were largely affluent gay men who enjoyed traveling around the world and going to sex parties. I am not certain how stigma is connected to such a pastime.
During the outbreak, the CDC downplayed how central sex between men was to driving the outbreak. Dr. Daskalakis in particular invariably led with the exceptions to the rule of who was at risk, such as by uttering the misleading slogan, “Anybody can get monkeypox.” I once challenged him on this fact during a press call in August 2022 and asked why he wasn’t instead being direct and clear that gay men were overwhelmingly the ones at risk. He responded by saying he thought he and the CDC were doing a fantastic job.
Meanwhile, I was constantly getting DMs from parents who were scared to send their kids back to school or to daycare, despite the fact that their children were literally at greater risk of being struck by lightning than getting mpox.
Many people were angry that summer that some of the same people who insisted on masking children or keeping everyone at home during Covid were now insisting that gay men should not be asked to take a break from sex with multiple partners. It is evident that this contradiction eroded trust in public health, as you can see here from what @steveguest is saying:
I cannot begin to tell you how much rage people directed at me for simply saying gay men should modify their sexual behaviors to lower their risk of monkeypox. I broke a cardinal gay sin: Never tell a gay man to reel in his sex life. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
Nearly 40 percent of students at Brown University identify as something other than straight. The growth has been largely among students identifying as bisexual or as queer, pansexual, asexual or questioning. There has been little growth in gay identity.
Mother Jones is re-upping this article from January. The study in question found that, among minors with private health insurance, by age 17, about 1 in 1,000 were on cross-sex hormones during 2018 to 2023. The rate was higher than that for natal girls and was likely higher overall by 2023.
One way of reporting this news is to simply provide readers with the figures and let them decide whether they represent a little or a lot. open.substack.com/pub/benryan/p/…
Puberty blockers themselves, multiple studies have found, are not actually associated with any change in mental health metrics.
The Advocate reports: "Asked whether a parent concerned about their child facing a trans kid in girls’ sports 'has a case,' Pete Buttigieg @PeteButtigieg said, “Sure.” But he rejected blanket policies like the federal bans being enacted by the Trump administration, saying, “These decisions should be in the hands of sports leagues and school boards and not politicians, least of all politicians in Washington trying to use this as a political pawn.”
This statement has inspired a blistering response on Bleuskie—see the 🧵⬇️
Journalist Walter Bragman issues a blistering response to @PeteButtigieg’s statement over trans inclusion in sports, calling it “craven shit” and saying Mr. Buttigieg is catering to bigots.
“To just put a fine point on it: Parents do not, in fact, have legitimate concerns about trans kids playing sports,” Mr. Bragman says.
“Just because they believe bullshit doesn’t make it legitimate.
“Fuck anti-trans bigots.”
@PeteButtigieg A person called Guillotine Hunger Force argues that sports is not about winning.
Clara Jeffery, editor in chief of Mother Jones, says that it is for the best that JD Vance’s children be subjected to boos at Disneyland, so that they “know now what their father is about.”
Debunking podcaster Michael Hobbes also endorses the jeers at @JDVance’s family at Disneyland.
Clara Jeffery, editor in chief of Mother Jones, adds the following to her post endorsing the jeering of @JDVance while he is with his children at Disneyland. She argues that he actually wants the optics of being booed while having family time in public. bsky.app/profile/claraj…
Democrats Lost Voters on Transgender Rights. Winning Them Back Won’t Be Easy.
The party’s vanguard position got ahead of voters in 2024, and the internal debate now underway reveals an uncertainty on how to adapt, by @chashomans for @nytimes.
"Stuck in a widening gulf between the views of the party’s liberal voters and advocacy organizations on one side, and those of the broader American electorate on the other, many Democratic politicians had resolved to say as little as possible about the subject. In surveys, Ms. Erickson and other public-opinion researchers had found that this allowed Republicans, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars on ads attacking Democrats on transgender rights in 2024, to define voters’ perceptions of Democratic policy positions."
The dilemma is reflective of the Democratic Party’s broader struggles with identity politics as it dissects its losses in 2024. Recovering its standing with voters, many in the party believe, requires coming to terms with the party’s transformation during the Obama and first Trump presidencies, when American liberals broadly embraced what had previously been vanguard positions on a range of social and cultural issues, including gender and race, immigration and policing.