And they said the Bush administration was ignorant about science?
What’s in a name? U.S. pork producers are finding that the name of the virus spreading from Mexico is affecting their business, prompting U.S. officials to argue for changing the name from swine flu.
At a news briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack took pains to repeatedly refer to the flu as the “H1N1 virus.”
“This is not a food-borne illness, virus. It is not correct to refer to it as swine flu because really that’s not what this is about,” Vilsack said.
Ummm….no. Swine flu isn’t called that because of how it’s transmitted but because of where it originates. Like bird flu. And chicken pox. And cow pox. It is correct to refer to it as swine flu (or swine influenza) because that’s exactly what it is.
At this point, you may be wondering why we haven’t seen the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the head of the CDC, or the Surgeon General in front of the cameras yet. Well, that’s because the administration just yesterday got around to swearing in the Secretary of HHS and doesn’t actually have a head of the CDC or Surgeon General.
So we’re left with random Cabinet secretaries telling us that swine flu isn’t really swine flu because bacon isn’t a vector. Nice.
Monique Stewart is not terribly impressed. It’s as if our government is a lot more concerned about what they’re calling the Unnamed Flu of Some Concern than they are about actually doing anything useful to stop more of it coming in from Mexico.
In the meantime, much fun is being had at protein wisdom where Dan Collins is taking suggestions for what to rename the not-Swine Flu. The best suggestion, by a long shot, comes from commenter “The Monster” who writes:
To recognize these diverse components, there is but one name that can do it justice:
ManBirdPig.
Because it’s half human flu, half bird flu, and half swine flu. I’m super cereal.
I like it.
Tags: Janet Napolitano, President Barack Obama, Swine Flu, Tom Vilsack
“Well, that’s because the administration just yesterday got around to swearing in the Secretary of HHS”
You know, if the Republicans hadn’t delayed her confirmation for so long, she could have been sworn in weeks ago. This isn’t Obama’s fault, it’s the fault of the Republicans in the Senate. Now Obama did screw up on the Surgeon General thing, but Sanjay Gupta sure didn’t do him any favors. As for CDC head, I’d pick Dr. Jeffrey D Klausner (http://www.sfcityclinic.org/drk/whoisdrk.asp) of San Francisco, but that’s because he was in my fraternity at Cornell. But he’s a respected specialist in infectious diseases. He helped develop Thailand’s AIDS program, which still ranks as the most effective ever. His only problem is that he has a reputation for making outlandish but true statements in the press. There have been times when San Francisco’s gay community has called for his lynching. Knowing him, that doesn’t surprise me one bit. He always loved to push people’s buttons. Obama’s a careful guy who doesn’t really like to make waves, so Dr. Klausner is way out of consideration. Which is too bad, we could use a good kick in the ass. And Dr. Klausner would do that.
As for the “Swine Flu” thing, you’re right. But it just shows how powerful the agricultural lobbies are. And it’s sad to see to Obama administration cower under them. But then again, Obama’s a guy who doesn’t like to make waves. So I can’t say I’m surprised.
For so long? He nominated her a month ago, after waiting a month to do so when his tax cheat first nominee withdrew his nomination. Per usual, his nominee didn’t have much experience for the job she will now do and you can hardly fault the Republicans for wanting to be a little more careful with Obama’s nominees given his track record.
[...] prepared is Obama? Jimmie at the Sundries Shack has the alarming facts: At this point, you may be wondering why we haven’t seen the Secretary of [...]
Its republicans fault that she didn’t pay enough taxes for several years or that she lied about how much money she got from a man the slaughters babies for a living?
That’s a flu and a half.
Yeah, I’ve heard it’s a pretty good flu.
wait, you think the obama administration is ignorant about the mechanics of disease transmission because they would like to see ’swine flu’s’ name changed? even though they would like that, by your own admission, in order to help america’s pig farmers, whose business has suffered, first as a result of an economic crisis and now as a result of a clumsily-named epidemic?
you (as a career scientist and linguist, i’m sure) think the consistency of diseases’ folk names is more important than reducing the economic effect of this insult-to-injury plague?
what a patriot you are!
I think the quote in the post speaks for itself.
forgive me, but if you thought that, then you wouldn’t have written a blog post about it.
What?
Look, a member of the admininstration said that we shouldn’t call is Swine Flu because it wasn’t transmitted by eating pork. It was a stupid thing to say and I called him on it. Don’t blame me for the administration’s ignorance.
i don’t think i’m blaming you for ‘the administration’s ignorance.’ in fact, i’ve been pretty careful only to blame you for your own ignorance — most notably, your ignorance of the power of a disease’s popular name to affect the economy.
more honestly, i don’t think you’re ignorant of that at all. i am just making a show of taking your argument at face value. after all, how could a ‘freedom fries,’ ‘war on terror’ republican possibly be ignorant of the importance of re-branding?
i, for one, would rather the administration resolve to use a name for this epidemic that doesn’t harm our economy. the alternative would be a million-dollar program aimed at allaying the fears of people who do actually think this disease is transmitted by consuming pork products. (i wonder who those great minds voted for.)
The difference is, when you “rebrand” a virus, you remove scientific accuracy. Not so with “freedom fries”.
And we certainly know what sticklers the folks in the administration are about being scientifically accurate, right?
The truth is, the pork industry in America wasn’t taking any real hit at all. All it would have taken was some calm education from the administration, but we didn’t get that. We got panic and a name switcheroo.
i’ll paraphrase your point; please correct me if i’ve misunderstood something: since this virus originated in pigs, we are obliged, in the name of science, to call it ’swine flu’?
are you equally outraged that we don’t call bubonic plague ‘rat plague’?
’swine flu’ isn’t the virus’ scientific name; it is its popular name. popular names aren’t beholden to standards of scientific accuracy; if they were, we would call chicken pox ‘varicella zoster virus.’
as to whether the pork industry ‘took any real hit at all’:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30461327/
and if you’re one of eminent scholars who prefers his news “fair and balanced,” here you go:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518854,00.html
That has been its traditional name for how long, now?
Actually my original point is this: the Secretary of Agriculture said calling is Swine Flu was “not correct” because you can not contract it by eating pork. He was wrong, and not in a tiny way, either. He should not have been wrong since he was one of two people sent out by the administration as authorities on the flu whose purpose was to educate America about it.
Now, had he said, “you can not contract Swine Flu from eating pigs. It got its name because pigs are where the flu originates, which means if you have protracted contact with live pigs, you may contract the flu” that would have been both correct and a calm and reasonable way of educating the public.
As for accuracy, which is another point altogether (and one that you created, by the by), why not call it what it has always been called? People who have been alive for thirty years or so will have some memory of a Swine Flu outbreak ot three, which is good from a public health point of view. It means that you only have to reinforce the message that you spread the last time there was an outbreak. Otherwise, you have to send out completely new information because the perception that people will develop, given a brand new flu name is that they’re looking at a brand new flu. Keep that up and folks will begin to believe that they’re under assault from a host of never before seen viruses, even though they aren’t. That would be silly and irresponble.
Stick with the name everyone knows and continue basic education, including educating the Secretaries of Agriculture and Homeland Security.
I did read your links and didn’t see any evidence that the pork industry took any serious harm. I did see some concern that it might, but not that it did. Slightly lower pork prices is not a real hit. Come on, now.
I will say that my use of the phrase “scientific accuracy” wasn’t quite what I meant. However, there do seem to be some general conventions for giving viruses common names. Swine Flu isn’t different from a lot of other viruses in that regard.
now we’re getting somewhere! however, i think you’re still misrepresenting your point a little: you don’t care that the secretary of agriculture used wording that made it sound as if he misunderstands the conventions of assigning popular disease names (that is, you aren’t an opponent of inaccuracy, foremost); you care that he seems arrogant enough to think that renaming something is the only way to communicate its danger to the dumb, ‘right wing-extremist’ public. if that is indeed your point, it’s not a bad one. it wasn’t easy for me to tease that point out of your argument, though; either i’m dumb (which i’m not ruling out), or you should argue more clearly.
i’ll withhold my argument against that point until you tell me whether it is, in fact, what you meant. i hope this isn’t really an argument about whether the agriculture secretary should have, from the standpoint of english usage, said the word ‘correct.’
your second post: there are no conventions for giving viruses common names, as there is no central body in charge of their assignation. there are only trends. some viruses are named after their animal origins (e.g. ‘bird flu’); some are named after their geographic origins (e.g. ’spanish influenza’); some popular virus names are corruptions of foreign names (e.g. ‘chicken pox’, in whose name ‘chicken’ is a corruption of old english ‘giccin’ — ‘itchy’); still others are named after the symptoms they cause (e.g. ‘bubonic plague’, which is named after the bubos on the skin of its victims).
No, you’ve still misstated the original point.
Try again. This time, don’t try so hard. My point is pretty plain if you just read my post.
But I’ll make it plain again. Vilsack was wrong when he intimated that Swine Flu has that name because you get it fron eating pork. It was a stupid statement. He should have used his camera time giving plain, easy to understand information about the disease instead of confusing the issue by ruminating incorrectly about the name.
My secondary point is that the mistake would likely not have happened if the President and his Chief of Staff were competent in staffing the administration. To my knowledge, we still don’t have a head of the CDC nor do we have a Surgeon General. I don’t think he’s named a nominee to either position, though I could be wrong.
ok, one more try:
you think that it was irresponsible (or ignorant? i’m still not sure which you mean) of the agriculture secretary to say that calling the h1n1 virus ’swine flu’ is ‘not correct’. you think it was irresponsible because it will make people forget that there was once a flu that came from pigs.
i’ll keep trying, if i’m still off. thank you for your patient indulgence.
i can’t think of two, four-second sentences that could communicate more clearly the two points that:
1. what is called ’swine flu’ is dangerous, but
2. you should keep eating pork.
i’ll concede that his brevity came at the expense of respect for the virus’ popular name, but as i’ve been saying, i don’t think its popular name is particularly consequential. people just spontaneously agreed on it when they saw a picture of a pig next to a picture of a virus on the news.
if there’s anything to lament in what he said, it’s the compulsion our politicians feel to speak in sound bites, for fear of what mean-spirited bloggers might make of de-contextualized extracts from longer quotes.
No, I think it was factually incorrect to say that Swine Flu gets its name in any way from eating pork, which is what he said. That was my point. Like I said in my original post.
yeah, i get that now. thank you.
like i said (not clearly enough, it sounds like) in my last response, it is of no consequence where the name ’swine flu’ comes from, as it contains no information about the disease it refers to.
the message you propose — ‘yes, it is called swine flu, but not because it comes from eating pigs’ — contains substantively more ‘rumination’ about the name’s origin than what the agriculture secretary actually said. so, his message, again, was, brief ‘at the expense of respect for the virus’ popular name.’
my other point was that the message you propose, taken out of context, would be torn apart by vicious bloggers because it contains the context-less phrase, ‘yes, it is called swine flu…’
there would be posts like, ‘first this administration allows itself to be photographed shaking hands with unfriendly world leaders; now they concede that the h1n1 virus is called ’swine flu’! they are criminally careless in how they present themselves!’ in fact, i wouldn’t put such a post past you, had this administration done what you suggest.
do you think his message fails to communicate his ideas? do you think it’s undermined by an error in nomenclature? tell me, how did you come to learn that the h1n1 virus is not transmitted by eating pork? it couldn’t have been from the agriculture secretary’s error-filled statement, right?
Here’s the deal, Adam. Tom Vilsack got his facts wrong and screwed up his announcement.
You can argue around that all you want (and you do seem determined to do so) but that basic fact stands. That was the point of my post.
thanks for being so direct, jimmy.
here’s the deal, as i see it: tom vilsack got the price of pork back to normal without endangering americans. whatever he said clearly did the trick!
Adam Lanphier is so right, get over it Jimmie, and if you disagree one more time its because you hate gays and minorities you fascist pig.
adam lanphier honestly your kinda complaining more then anyone here and it kinda seems like your getting mad because you couldnt buy your pork for a normal price what are you a fat freakin retard?
Whoa, haven’t been here in a while
Yes, Seth Allen, you got me figured out!