Thursday, April 30, 2009
The importance of public relations in the naming of a disease
Is it just me, or has religious, national and commercial sensitivity jumped the shark?:
"We should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu," Israeli deputy health minister Yakov Litzman -- an ultra-Orthodox Jew -- said April 27. He stated that the reference to pigs is offensive to Jews and Muslims, whose respective religions prohibit consumption of pork. Pork producers -- likely worried about their product's image -- also have reservations about the name "swine flu."
Of course, Mexicans probably find "Mexican flu" offensive, but the name does seem to fit with the tradition of naming flu pandemics after the places where they were originally identified. On the other hand, there's debate about whether the current swine flu even originated in Mexico. "It was a human who brought this to Mexico," the Mexican ambassador to China told the New York Times, saying that the person was from someplace in "Eurasia." (The virus contains part of a swine flu virus of Eurasian origin.)
Meanwhile, "North American influenza" is the name suggested by the World Organisation for Animal Health.
If it makes all the sensitive people feel better, I'm more than willing for the bureaucrats to name all future deadly diseases "middle-aged white guy corporate tool" flu, fever, etc. Whatever it takes to end this stupidity.
12 Comments:
By 
Mike, at
Thu Apr 30, 11:22:00 AM:
As a religious Jew, I'm appalled by this man's hypersensitivity.
To say nothing of his backwards thinking. Shouldn't he be happy to have pork unfairly stigmatized with this disease? Let's hear it for Cheeseburger Black Death!
On a more serious note, I'd hope this disease makes us think a little deeper.
- Should we be restricting antibiotics (antivirals?) used in factory farming?
- Is the decision to not temporarily close the Mexican border driven by public health or politics?
By 
, at
Thu Apr 30, 11:36:00 AM:
I suggest letting Joe Biden figure this one out.
By , at
Thu Apr 30, 12:15:00 PM:
Why can't they refer to it as the 2009 flu? Any subsequent strains this year could be known as 2009-a, b and so forth. Does it really matter if the strain originated from pigs, birds Mexicans or Chinese? Or maybe we could name the strains after women, like we used to do with Hurricanes. Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.
By Unknown, at
Thu Apr 30, 12:21:00 PM:
There's actually a good point hiding here. If Orthodox Jews and Muslims (who make up a lot of Litzman's constituents) are persuaded they won't get the the flu because they don't eat pork, they won't follow the public health directives and the results could be very bad. So give the guy some credit, even if he doesn't express himself well.
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Apr 30, 12:42:00 PM:
Sara, good comment. I admit I had not thought of that.
By Elise, at
Thu Apr 30, 01:15:00 PM:
I liked the idea of calling it the "H1N1" flu so long as we can pronounce that "hiney".
By Mike, at
Thu Apr 30, 02:05:00 PM:
Sara -
Thanks for pointing that out. The news article makes the man sound like an ass, but his quoted words say nothing about his reasoning. He may have not even misspoken.
Mike
By , at
Thu Apr 30, 03:08:00 PM:
Don Surber, the wonderful Charlestown (W.Va.) Daily Mail columnist, initially suggested selling the naming rights to the flu, presumably thinking some drug company might pony up some big wampum or maybe George Soros might want to pay up to call it the "George Bush" flu. But then, after some thought, Don has settled on what strikes me as the exact right approach: name it after the pork king of Congress, and call it the Robert C. Byrd flu. Pork busters unite!
By John Cunningham, at
Thu Apr 30, 04:02:00 PM:
Don Surber's idea is excellent, but impossible--no way can fun be poked at our Demo masters. I prefer one I read on a blog somewhere, "Porcine American sniffles."
By , at
Thu Apr 30, 06:05:00 PM:
Are we sure he's Jewish? He sounds like a typical Muslim trying to push Islamic values on everybody else, not a Jew.
By Elise, at
Fri May 01, 02:53:00 PM:
Ya'acov Litzman is the new Israeli Deputy Minister of Health and is apparently "Ultra-Orthodox". I agree that Sarah has a good point - particularly since Egypt is planning to slaughter its pigs in response to the flu - but I do not think that was Litzman's point. I have not found a verbatim report of his comments from a primary source but this article refers to Litzman's concerns as "Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork." (In an extension of TH's original point, the article is about Mexico complaining to Israel about calling the flu "Mexican flu".)
By Belasarion, at
Fri May 01, 07:23:00 PM:
I thought we should have named it, "The flu formerly known as swine flue."
