A 1971 photo from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows monkeypox-like lesions on the arm and leg of a female child in Bondua, Liberia. (CDC/Getty Images)
There has been much speculation that the novel coronavirus was a bioweapon developed in a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lab. Now, an American doctor has a theory that the new monkeypox outbreak may also have similar nefarious origins.
Dr. Syed Haider told The Epoch Times that the development of the monkeypox outbreak seems identical to the way COVID-19 was introduced to the world.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), monkeypox is a rare disease caused by infection with the monkeypox virus, which is part of the same family of viruses that causes smallpox. The symptoms of monkeypox are similar to those of smallpox, but are much milder and rarely fatal.
Monkeypox was discovered in 1958, after two outbreaks of the pox-like disease infected colonies of monkeys being kept for research. However, the source of the disease remains unknown. While African rodents and monkeys might harbor the virus and infect people, the first human case of monkeypox wasn’t recorded until 1970.
Prior to the 2022 outbreak, cases of monkeypox in humans had been reported in several Central African and West African countries. However, nearly all cases outside of Africa were linked to international travel.
About a year after the COVID-19 outbreak, Haider said he learned about “Event 201,” which was a tabletop exercise conducted a few months before the coronavirus began to spread.
“It really set the tone for the response by governments all around the world,” Haider explained. “They followed the recommendations that were developed during that tabletop exercise in terms of lockdowns and masks and how to deal with misinformation online. They addressed all of these topics.”
Haider noted that in March 2021, before the current monkeypox outbreak, there was another tabletop exercise hosted by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Munich Security Conference. This time, it was for “a strange variant of monkeypox” that was hypothetically bioengineered and released to the world on May 15, 2022, by a terrorist group as a weapon. This hypothetical strain of monkeypox was also defined as resistant to the vaccines that are already available for smallpox, which Haider said are supposed to work on monkeypox as well.
“The bizarre thing is the actual outbreak started within a day or two of the date predicted in the tabletop exercise,” Haider said.
An ‘Unusual Variant’
“It’s an unusual variant,” Haider said. “We’ve never had a variant of monkeypox that primarily spreads between gay men.”
Haider said there are other signs that lead him to believe the current strain of monkeypox was engineered.
He said the monkeypox virus mutates very slowly and that the last known precursor to this variant is so different that it could not have happened naturally, adding that there just wasn’t enough time for natural evolution to create the variant spreading right now.
While it isn’t “proof” or considered to be the proverbial “smoking gun,” Haider said it is very suspicious and that there is “concern that this is also a bioweapon or some sort of bioterrorism event that’s unfolding.”
Haider said that during the monkeypox tabletop exercise, the researchers involved recommended that mandatory masking and lockdowns be instituted and that people should be vaccinated.
“My main concern is to make people aware that this could be used to take away our freedoms the same way the COVID pandemic was used,” he said.
Haider did note that this does not mean that monkeypox may not harm some people or that it’s not a real virus.
“Some people may end up being hospitalized and some might die eventually, especially with the health care system being overwhelmed,” he said. “Right now what we’re seeing is 10 percent of people with monkeypox have been hospitalized just for the sheer pain of the lesions. It can last for weeks, and they may need strong pain killers.”
Repurposed for Control
The important message Haider wants to give to people is that authorities shouldn’t be insisting on trying to control an outbreak with measures they know don’t work. Rather than widespread lockdowns of entire societies, it’s best to establish a program that involves “isolation of the cases.”
“That works,” Haider said. “That’s what stops the spread of monkeypox. It’s a pretty slow-moving virus. It doesn’t spread as quickly as COVID. If you just isolate the cases until they are no longer symptomatic, that’s all you really need to do. At this point, there is no asymptomatic spread, or it’s vanishingly rare. In terms of public health, if something is vanishingly rare, it doesn’t really enter into the equation of public health.”
As Haider explained, what people should be concerned about is the usual route of transmission.
“While it might be possible to get it from kissing someone or being one inch from their face for six hours, that’s not what’s going to drive the pandemic forward,” he explained. “It’s not going to lead to a wildfire spread through society. What’s going to lead to widespread transmission is contact with lesions or contact with the fluid that comes out of the lesions. So we need to educate people to know that if you think you have monkeypox, isolate yourself and you won’t spread it to other people. This is the way to stop a pandemic. Masking is a ridiculous measure for monkeypox, even more ridiculous than it was for COVID.”
That being said, Haider explained that the monkeypox outbreak “can all be easily repurposed as a way to take control away from people, especially going into the midterm elections to try to get us to avoid going to the polls or to use mail-in voting rather than in-person voting.” He said it can also be sued as “an economic weapon.”
“COVID ended up being an economic weapon that destroyed economies around the world and impoverished people,” Haider recalled. “It destroyed medium and small businesses and concentrated wealth at the top. Then it spreads beyond economics into people’s health.”
Inflating the Numbers
As Haider explained, people end up dying when an economy is destroyed through a phenomenon known as “deaths of despair.”
According to the American Council on Science and Health, “deaths of despair” are defined as “mortality resulting from suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol-related liver disease,” which became increasingly problematic during the extended isolation during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Statistics show that easy access to handguns, alcohol, and opioids—either prescribed, diverted, or obtained through illicit means—increases the likelihood of these deaths.
Haider also noted how—just as they did during the COVID-19 pandemic—people may also die at home of a heart attack or a stroke simply because they are too afraid of contracting monkeypox to leave their homes to go to a hospital. Haider also noted that most of the deaths attributed to COVID-19 were actually people who died “with COVID, not from COVID.”
According to a report by the CDC, 95 percent of the Americans who died from COVID-19 as of Aug. 7, 2022, had comorbidities that played a role in their deaths, such as influenza or pneumonia (44.2 percent), hypertension (18.2 percent), diabetes (13.6 percent), Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias (10.3 percent), and sepsis (11 percent). Deaths from heart attacks, and even a death caused by a motorcycle accident, were coded as COVID-19 deaths.
Resist the Fear
According to Haider, the preventable death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what should be avoided with this monkeypox outbreak, is the self-inflicted death tolls caused by mismanagement, lockdowns, and unnecessary mandates that force people into depressive conditions of isolation.
Haider said most people aren’t at risk of contracting monkeypox because it’s primarily being sexually transmitted among gay men.
“I don’t want to be fear-mongering,” Haider insisted, citing the fear he saw in younger patients who had essentially no risk to COVID-19 asking him how many masks they needed to wear or if a biohazard suit would keep them safe.
“Fear itself is harmful to your immune system,” he said. “It triggers immunosuppressants, which will actually make your body more susceptible to infections and illness.”
The main message Haider wants to pass on to people is “don’t be afraid of this thing.”
“If it does get bigger and spread more we will develop protocols, just like we did during COVID,” Haider assured, noting there are already promising preparedness protocols, which he is already offering his patients through his online practice.
“We should not allow governments to seize control the way they did last time,” Haider admonished. “Anyone who thinks it’s laughable and that we’re not going to put up with that again, think again. Once the mainstream media gets going and decides to give monkeypox 24/7 coverage the way they did with COVID, people are going to be convinced again, afraid again, and will accept society-wide lockdowns again.
“We need to start working now to prevent that from happening, again.”