U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL) is calling on President Joe Biden to appoint a Monkeypox Czar to heighten the administration’s response to the “outbreak that is primarily impacting gay and bisexual men.”
Congressman Crist, who is running for his former job of governor of Florida, is calling the outbreak an LGBTQ rights issue. He says in his letter to the President, “a Monkeypox Czar would send a message to anxious Americans, as well as federal health agencies, that the Administration has learned from the mistakes and successes of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
He is urging the CDC to “update guidance for getting vaccinated against Monkeypox for high-risk groups.”
“If CDC’s consensus is that the best way to reduce Monkeypox spread is for all sexually active gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men to receive the JYNNEOS vaccine for pre-exposure prophylaxis, the guidance should say so,” Crist stresses in his letter. The heads of CDC, FDA, and NIAID are copied on it.
Crist’s letter comes as Axios reports “health officials are racing to halt the spread before the disease becomes endemic in more countries. Cases are rising quickly — New York City, for example, has seen a tripling in patients over the past week.”
CNN adds that demand for vaccines is rising but “supply remains low.”
The Florida Democrat says a Monkeypox Czar would be “focused on preventing spread and treating patients with the best care possible will reduce suffering, spread, and the risk of monkeypox becoming endemic in the United States.”
“Just as CDC guidance for behaviors to reduce Monkeypox risk received widespread praise for being reality-based and focused on harm reduction, so too should vaccine guidance. Providers and health departments are looking to CDC guidance for how to proceed, and they should be given the best answer that CDC can produce.”
He also calls for CDC to “improve testing and tracing,” warning that “COVID-19 effectively seeded the United States in February 2020 due to a lack of early, targeted testing and tracing.”
“Similarly, Monkeypox has been spreading throughout the United States for the last two months.”
Axios on Thursday reported the “CDC has now partnered with five commercial firms to make testing more widely available, but there’s concern it hasn’t reacted quickly enough.”