Tag: flu

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Swine flu doesn’t seem to cover it. First of all it’s not a swine flu anymore. Secondly, what do we call influenza that still only infects pigs…or the next flu virus that jumps from pigs to humans? Edit: And then you have morons who think you can get the flu from eating pork.

Mexican Flu, naming it after its country of origin like the Spanish Flu or Hong Kong Flu kind of makes sense, but in today’s politically-charged climate, it ends up sounding less like an identifier and more like blame. Edit: Plus we’ve already got jerkwads scapegoating anyone who might be Mexican. (Comment threads on news sites are depressing.)

The CDC and WHO seem to be going with H1N1, but that doesn’t work either, because people get it confused with the H1N1 human flu virus that’s one of the regular seasonal flu strains.

Yeah, on one hand, what’s in a name? A flu, by any other name, would still get you sick. But there’s something to be said for precision in terminology.

Update: For a less serious take on the subject, check out posts with the #namethatflu tag on Twitter.

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  • Grr. Amazon wants to stop paying me because they think I’ve been buying search keywords to link to them. No, I haven’t. Update: Two days later, they responded: it’s a bad form letter, and even if I were buying keywords, they’d only stop paying referral fees on those links.
  • More concerned than usual about person sneezing in stairway.
  • Bad idea: leaving your pay stub in the brochure holder by the ATM. WTF? Someone’s asking for identity theft.
  • Good deed for the day: tearing it into tiny pieces and tossing the confetti in the trash.

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According to Marketplace, critics of President Bush’s flu pandemic preparedness proposal contend that it’s too focused on vaccines and antiviral drugs, and that the money would be more effectively used by monitoring outbreaks and trying to stamp out bird flu in the third world.

In other words, they say we should take the fight to the flu abroad so we don’t have to fight it at home. Why does that sound familiar? 😉