In 2022, the medical establishment and public health world nixed the name "monkeypox" for two key reasons. Animal-to-human transmission comes from rodents. And the name "monkeypox" was seen as racist and stigmatizing language.

To replace it, World Health Organization (WHO) officials decided to call the disease that causes painful lesions " mpox ."

Now, the U.S. is reverting to the old term "monkeypox."

"The first question is: 'Why?' It doesn't make any sense," says Dr. Joseph Cherabie , an assistant professor of infectious diseases at Washington University in St Louis. He cares for mpox patients and, back in 2022, pushed for the term "monkeypox" to be retired.

Dr. Boghuma Titanji echoed that sentiment. "This reversion is just very baffling to me," she says. "No one in the res

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