https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3addx3/conspiracy-theories-and-uncertainty-about-monkeypox-are-spreading-really-really-fast

A round of new public policy polls show that awareness of monkeypox is growing in the United States—and so are conspiracy theories about it, many of which have been directly repurposed from false claims made about COVID-19. While the far-right uses monkeypox to peddle anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theories and prominent anti-vax figures have already declared they won’t take the disease seriously, there’s evidence that a broader suspicion could, once again, be taking root. There’s also a noticeable—if still minor—percentage of people who don’t know what to believe about the disease, creating a fertile market for conspiracy peddlers. 

The main source of information we currently have about monkeypox conspiracy theories is from a poll released on July 29 by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. We know from other polling in May that most Americans said then they weren’t paying attention to the monkeypox outbreak, but the Annenberg poll seemed to show that awareness of the disease is starting to grow. While about 80 percent of respondents said they weren’t worried about catching monkeypox in the next few months, 69% percent of the respondents knew that monkeypox usually spreads via close, prolonged contact with an infected person, suggesting they’ve been hearing the disease.