Opinion Bugged by names
No conspiracy here but why still name bugs for people or places?
The dangerous anti-antibiotic bug thats making global headlines has evoked a typically pop-patriotic reaction in India. The theory that it originated in India is being contested. So far,so good there is nothing wrong about contesting any theory with solid,sound reasoning. But no sooner does anyone seek to contest them solely on the basis of suspicions of conspiracy than the opposition loses its claim to any credibility. Any conspiracy angle looks credible only if it follows the scientific dismantling of the other sides claims. So,the sooner we get the conspiracy mania off our minds,the better it is for us.
Some,however,ridicule the conspiracy angle by being more irrational even than those sensing conspiracy. Consider this response: Lets not forget,its Lancet which has published this. So what? Do we have to presume that it is the last word? Or that now we neednt question the claim that this particular bug originated in India? Isnt it unjournalistic to presume that anything and everything that comes out in periodicals and journals like Lancet is sacrosanct and must be blindly believed? Balanced inquiries are still necessary.
What,however,can be contested,or even be resented,is the haste with which this bug has been named after New Delhi. The question can be asked: even presuming that it originated in India,who were the people who decided to hastily name it after Indias capital? Is there any nomenclature system in place,any international order,on naming diseases? The International Astronomical Union names celestial bodies and their geographical features after famous personalities or places on earth; committees of the World Meteorological Union select names for tropical cyclones usually alternating in gender from lists submitted by member countries.
But,for diseases,is there some such system acceptable to all? Is the naming business done by consensus,or by inviting objections to proposals before it? Can we,as a knee-jerk reaction,start calling the mad cow disease British mad cow disease from today onwards?
Clicking through Wikipedia leads one to a 1975 conference organised by the Canadian National Institute of Health,which had concluded that the possessive use of an eponym should be discontinued,since the author neither had nor owned the disorder. It refers to some diseases named after the authors of the research papers who publish their findings in journals like Lancet,and even after the patients in the study.
The conclusions of the conference were published,interestingly,in Lancet.
It is true,however,that according again to Wikipedia,medical journals,dictionaries and style guides remain divided on the issue,which means there is no proper,legal nomenclature system in place regarding naming of diseases,which continue to be named after places of origin and,ridiculously,even researchers and patients.
And there is no discrimination here. So,you have what is known as American trypanosomiasis just as you have the African sleeping sickness. And you have Benedict and Benjamin syndrome and Mortimers disease. You can read long,alphabetically arranged lists of eponymous diseases that are testimony to this not only ridiculous,but even perhaps outrageous,practice of naming diseases after persons and places. When named after researchers,it looks
ridiculous; and when named after patients and places of origin,it almost amounts to negative branding they have to carry for ever. And when done in haste,and without taking everyone on board,as in the case in point,it can unwittingly empower conspiracy theoreticians.
vivek.deshpande@expressindia.com
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