WATCH: Monkeypox Activists Disrupt AIDS2022 with Rageful Protest
This article was republished with permission from My Fabulous Disease, a blog by HIV advocate Mark S. King. You can read the original story here.
There was something more than the typical passion on display when activists stormed the plenary stage at AIDS2022 today to protest the slow monkeypox response by United States public health officials.
The cries of the diverse crowd of protestors were urgent and inflammatory. Their demands felt deeply personal.During a plenary session on monkeypox epidemiology and treatment, the activists stormed the stage just as Demetre Daskalakis of the CDC was about to speak. “Share the shot!
Share the shot!” the activists chanted.The focus of the activists’ ire was the low supply of available vaccines in the United States, and the fact vaccines that might have been used for men who have sex with men (the community most affected at this time) have been withheld. “I’m sad to say, I feel like a refugee here in Canada,” said Asher McQueen, a trans man living in New York City, during the protest. ”I had to come all the way here to get a shot that I should be able to get in my very own city.” Montreal has already provided more than 10,000 vaccinations by setting up tents in predominantly gay neighborhoods.“Everything for us in New York is community led,” McQueen continued. “We get no help.”“We are facing a disease that has been present since the 1970s, and we are not prepared,” said speaker James Krellenstein, a gay man from Brooklyn who has been active in PrEP4All.
