(From Ron: Photos of people with monkeypox sores are too grusome to post, but then so were the sores of HIV infections. Above photo: People lining up for monkeypox vaccination in NYC.)

NBCNEW: As cases of monkeypox surge around the globe, four pioneers of the AIDS activist movement watch in awe and with a sense of nostalgia.

Some of the similarities between the two viruses speak for themselves. Like the HIV strain that started the AIDS pandemic in the late 1970s, the current monkeypox outbreak has emerged from sub-Saharan Africa and has been found overwhelmingly in men who have sex with men who live in the world's metropolises. And while epidemiologists have not reached a complete understanding of how the current outbreak of monkeypox spreads, recent research points to sexual transmission.

Four pioneering AIDS activists of the 1980s and 1990s contend that there are other, consequential yet less obvious parallels playing out in real-time. (For the complete article, Click Here.)