FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

[sharon sanders]

New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase or, NDM-1, is the incorrect name, and is discriminatory, against persons who live in New Delhi.

We have no idea where this gene originally developed and we probably never will.

We will refer to this gene as MBL2009 or metallo-beta-lactamase 2009

I know this is an "unpopular" and unconventional stand.

We also took the same position in the naming of the A/H1N1 pandemic strain:

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101180


Thank you everyone!

 

[alert]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

I agree that we don't want to be biased against geographical locations, especially large populated ones like New Delhi or California, but what do we do with widely accepted names. We commonly refer to things such as Brisbane flu or Perth flu or hemorrhagic fever viruses such as Marburg which are named after where they are first discovered (not necessarily where they come from). I don't think we want to invent alternate names for these agents.

I don't have a good solution to this problem.

On a related note, is it still appropriate to refer to the 2009 H1N1 virus as "Pandemic H1N1" now that the pandemic has been officially declared over? Or do we have a better name of the virus now? I don't think we want to call it something like California flu (or Lviv flu or...)

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

I agree that we don't want to be biased against geographical locations, especially large populated ones like New Delhi or California, but what do we do with widely accepted names. We commonly refer to things such as Brisbane flu or Perth flu or hemorrhagic fever viruses such as Marburg which are named after where they are first discovered (not necessarily where they come from). I don't think we want to invent alternate names for these agents.

I don't have a good solution to this problem.

On a related note, is it still appropriate to refer to the 2009 H1N1 virus as "Pandemic H1N1" now that the pandemic has been officially declared over? Or do we have a better name of the virus now? I don't think we want to call it something like California flu (or Lviv flu or...)

Toscana virus (arthropods-borne virus for encephalitis) is another example, among others.

All of us know Tuscany (Toscana in Italian) as one of the beautiful region of Italy, plentiful of arts and ancient historical locations.

Notwithstanding, tourists are not scared for this virus name and continue to flock to Florence en masse...

Everything should be taken with some degree of good sense or criticism without prejudices.

We are talking about an enzyme, one among a lot of others - discovered all around the world - who are disabling our defenses against bacteria and other dangerous germs.

Our goal is to find a solution, a research and development path to cope with these new (not so new, since antibiotic resistance dated back the early stages of sulfonamides and pennicilin) threats.

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

Pandemic H1N1 is fine. The "pandemic" is not actually "over" since novel A/H1N1 still continues to circulate en masse i.e. India and New Zealand.

I wish the names for diseases, bacterias, enzymes, etc. would follow an alpha numeric system, with possibly the year of discovery added too.

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

Pandemic H1N1 is fine. The "pandemic" is not actually "over" since novel A/H1N1 still continues to circulate en masse i.e. India and New Zealand.

I wish the names for diseases, bacterias, enzymes, etc. would follow an alpha numeric system, with possibly the year of discovery added too.

This would require an intense nomenclature revision and adaptation toward a perceived ethnic/belief/gender/etc. bias in taxonomics, that is instead a 'sterile' field.

What would be the course of germs or diseases named as Tularemia (from Tulare, CA), or Kawasaki disease, V. Cholerae Ogawa, the family of Hantavirus (from Korean Haantan), Puumala virus, and a lot of others.

It is a strange kind of sensitivity you should acknowledge.

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

Ok. I admit I am strange.

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

Ok. I admit I am strange.

Not worry. The nomenclature is strange, not you. But this is the reality...

 

[alert]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

What we can try to do is avoid naming new diseases after LARGE, POPULOUS areas. That's why the arenavirus in Johannesburg in 2008 is named Lujo, and not Johannesburg, and why we don't call H1N1 as Mexican flu or Oaxaca flu.

We can't do anything about existing names, and I really don't even have a problem with a geographic name unless it is either ethnically biased, or a very large area. I don't see a problem with naming a new virus after the village it is first found in.

 

[Francoise Ramona]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

La liste est longue....
West Nile Virus
japanese encephalitis ....

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

The problem may be less the name, but more how it is used in context. When it is used to assign guilt to a group , it is that action that is wrong. Diseases are part of life. We cannot live in group-exclusive bubbles. The problem is thinking that everything unpleasant must be blamed on someone else.

.

 

[mixin]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

Whatever entity names a disease should consider these issues; but I don't think it should be up to us to rename them.

If the entire medical/science community is going to call it NDM-1, then I think that's what we should call it, too.

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

I do not think we have to stick to rules just because this is the way it has always been done.

Why not change it? How about something about the infection vector in the description so that lay persons can get a hint of what the disease is about:

MBL/bac/2009

:magnify:

 

[mixin]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

I do not think we have to stick to rules just because this is the way it has always been done.

Why not change it? How about something about the infection vector in the description so that lay persons can get a hint of what the disease is about:

MBL/bac/2009

:magnify:

Because people Googling a disease officially named NDM-1 may not be able to find our postings?

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

Because people Googling a disease officially named NDM-1 may not be able to find our postings?

We might be not be high on the google search our twitter account is fairly well read and most of the major main stream media lurk on FT.

We also have a regular following of international and national public health organizations, nonprofits, universities.

 

[alert]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

We do not want to create a system where many diseases have alternate names in FT than in the world as a whole. Too confusing.

We may not like the names given to certain diseases, but we don't get that choice. We have to use the names the authorities give us. When a new agent comes along that doesn't have a name, we can certainly suggest neutral names for them, but once something gets a name, we're stuck with it.

The WHO, CDC, and other such organizations have detailed procedures in place for naming such things, and IMO, whether we like a name or not, we're stuck with it. Those organizations will tend to try to find minimially offensive names anyway, in general.

 

[Sally Furniss]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

If a naming convention has been or is being developed then inappropriate naming should be part of the debate

A final point to make about plasmids is to emphasize their biological diversity and the resulting fact that plasmids currently lack a naming convention with real biological meaning. A number of sequenced plasmids lack any name. Plasmids do not share a single phylogenetic history and therefore can not be assigned a classic taxonomy, but they can move through bacterial populations in an independent manner acquiring and losing genes over time. The continued development of the PGD, including the collection of a large amount of meta-data describing each plasmid, should allow the selection and analysis of plasmids based on their phenotypic and genomic characteristics. Therefore, the PGD should improve the effective interrogation of these diverse but important genomic components.
http://mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/149/11/3043

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

We do not want to create a system where many diseases have alternate names in FT than in the world as a whole. Too confusing.

We may not like the names given to certain diseases, but we don't get that choice. We have to use the names the authorities give us. When a new agent comes along that doesn't have a name, we can certainly suggest neutral names for them, but once something gets a name, we're stuck with it.

The WHO, CDC, and other such organizations have detailed procedures in place for naming such things, and IMO, whether we like a name or not, we're stuck with it. Those organizations will tend to try to find minimially offensive names anyway, in general.

We are not stuck with it on FT.

Let's think outside the box.

Who would have thought that a group of diverse volunteers from around the world, who previously have never met, would create the premier non-government disease tracking site in the world? Most of us are not medical doctors or hold degrees in public health, yet we are viewed by individuals from 175+ countries per month and are an information source for many media, public health officials, universities, etc.

We follow our hearts here, not convention.


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[alert]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

We are not stuck with it on FT.

Let's think outside the box.

Who would have thought that a group of diverse volunteers from around the world, who previously have never met, would create the premier non-government disease tracking site in the world? Most of us are not medical doctors or hold degrees in public health, yet we are viewed by individuals from 175+ countries per month and are an information source for many media, public health officials, universities, etc.

We follow our hearts here, not convention.

>

I'm all in favor of thinking outside the box, but we need to be understandable to the outside world. ProMED frequently uses us as a source, and we need to be understandable to the experts. If we rename a disease, they may have difficulty understanding us. One of the advantages of FT is that it provides information instantly all over the world; we risk losing that advantage if we are difficult to understand.

 

[kiwibird]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

NDM-1 is a pretty innocuous name. If you hadn't pointed it out (and I had read the posts about it) I would not have thought of it as being NEW DELHI...

It is not as though anyone minds genetic tracking info with place names in it.

gb|EU887035.1| Influenza A virus (A/South Carolina/01/2008(H1... 2511 0.0
gb|EU779643.1| Influenza A virus (A/New Jersey/10/2008(H1N1))... 2511 0.0
gb|EU624316.1| Influenza A virus (A/England/557/2007(H1N1)) s... 2511 0.0
gb|EU566999.1| Influenza A virus (A/Wisconsin/01/2008(H1N1)) ... 2511 0.0
gb|EU566987.1| Influenza A virus (A/New Jersey/20/2007(H1N1))... 2511 0.0
gb|EU566983.1| Influenza A virus (A/New Jersey/05/2008(H1N1))... 2511 0.0

If it were Canterbury, New Zealand - I would not be offended if it were CNZ-1. Just my opinion.

Perhaps if it were CNZDGTBYMCT-1 (Canterbury,New Zealand Don't Go There Because You Might Catch This -1)

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: FluTrackers Does Not Support Disease Names that are based on Location

Thank you.

12 January 2011 Last updated at 07:39 ET

'New Delhi' superbug named unfairly, says Lancet editor



Naming a drug-resistant superbug after the Indian capital Delhi was an "error of judgement", the editor of the Lancet medical journal has said.

snip

Mr Horton told reporters in Delhi: "It was an error of judgement. We didn't think of its implications, for which I sincerely apologise."


The name "unnecessarily stigmatised a single country and city" and should be changed by researchers, he added.


more...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12172633