People with chronic skin conditions say they've faced increased harassment and stigma amid the monkeypox outbreak, The Washington Post reported Sept. 22.
In one instance this summer, Jacqueline Nguyen, 21, who has eczema, was escorted off a flight and asked to prove that the condition was not monkeypox.
"I was just existing in the skin that I have, that I wear every day and I got treated like a problem," Nguyen told the Post.
The increased scrutiny is posing troublesome for millions of people nationwide living with a skin condition. Psychologists said the trend may be linked to a general increase in medical anxiety spurred by the pandemic.
"In the last three years, disease has been on people’s mind a lot because it's been on the news a lot," Mark Schaller, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada, told the Post. "When people are more concerned about disease, they express more prejudice against people with physical disabilities."
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