Post Makes Baseless Allegations About Public Health Response to Monkeypox Outbreak

SciCheck Digest

A post published in English and Spanish repeats the debunked idea that the current monkeypox outbreak might have resulted from a virus that was created in a lab. The post also baselessly alleges that the World Health Organization’s decision to declare the outbreak a public health emergency was due to financial incentives.

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On July 23, the World Health Organization declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC. The decision was made by the organization’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, after the emergency committee could not come to a consensus on the matter.

With many countries facing a growing outbreak, Tedros overruled his advisers, who had voted nine to six in favor of not declaring a PHEIC. Many public health experts cheered the decision.

But a post from Dr. Joseph Mercola, a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has been labeled one of the top spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation, claims without evidence that the PHEIC declaration was financially motivated — and part of a plot to “justify continued tyranny” following the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Ever since the first European cases of monkeypox were confirmed in early May 2022, many suspected smallpox or monkeypox would become the next global pandemic to justify continued tyranny and the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset,” the post published in English and Spanish reads.

Drawing a parallel to unsupported theories about the origins of COVID-19, the post also falsely suggests that monkeypox virus was “made” at a lab in China — a claim we recently debunked — and gives a distorted view of the monkeypox vaccines.

What makes Mercola’s text particularly confusing is that he intertwines accurate and false information