Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
As monkeypox case numbers climb nationwide, the Biden administration says that it remains opposed to efforts that would bypass the bureaucratic red tape keeping more than one million doses of vaccine stuck on another continent.
But with fears mounting that the previously rare disease now is on the verge of becoming endemic in the United States, patients, physicians and public health experts say that refusal to learn from the mistakes of the coronavirus pandemic is unacceptable—particularly when a safe and effective vaccine is already in reach.
“It’s just déjà vu all over again,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law Center. “When you have a fast-moving, out-of-control spread of monkeypox in the United States, when the White House goes the extra mile and purchases a million doses, and then to not have them available to respond in a smart, effective way, it’s intolerable.”