Naming the pandemic: it’s a flu-id situation

We said yesterday that the name of the pandemic was becoming a political football. Well today, the ball is still in motion.

President Obama opened yesterday’s press conference by calling it the H1N1 flu virus. I know he promised us a science-based administration, and maybe H1N1 could slide by as a name for a star in a remote galaxy, but not for something that’s going to be on everybody’s mind  for the next few months.

This sudden change was in response to a tremendous amount of pressure brought to bear on the government by the pig farmers of America, who are hurt by the public perception that the flu has something to do with pigs.

Dr. Paul A.Offit, an infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, quoted in today’s New York Times, says that the answer is yes and no.  Yes, at some point months or years ago the virus passed through a pig. No, pigs are not playing any role in the transmission of the disease right now.

So Smithfield Farms, one of America’s behemoth pork producers, is putting out press releases left and right telling people that it’s okay to eat pork and calling it North American Influenza. Good luck with that. Everyone in American knows that anything that dangerous comes from overseas.

Then, moving over to the Centers for Disease Control, well nobody in the White House is going to tell them how to name diseases because this is what they do for a living. So they are sticking for now with Swine Flu, saying that we are dealing with an “influenza virus of swine origin.”  Is pork safe to eat?  Talk to the Department of Agriculture.

A friend of mine who works for a state health department came up with a name of his own based on the category, which is “swine-origin-influenza viruses.” He simply shortened that to “S-Oy Vey!”

But then he added a cautionary note. The 1918 flu pandemic started with mild symptoms, then became a serious killer. Says he wouldn’t want to be the guy who had coined a cutesy name for that one.