Naming diseases: First do no harm

Fukuda, Keiji; Wang, R.; Vallat, Bernard

doi:10.1126/science.348.6235.643

Cited by 40 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The torrid pace of discoveries has forced the hand of viral discoverers to come up with euphonious names for viruses for which there is almost no biological understanding ("International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), " n.d.). Convention previously dictated something like location, host, and number, even if the World Health Organization now recommends against ruining the tourist economy along the Ebola River or in Coxsackie, New York (Fukuda et al, 2015). Since sequence similarities govern our understanding of genomic function, there is a temptation to name based on homology and let past discoveries anchor the novel (e.g., picobirnavirus or dicipivirus/cadicivirus/picodicistrovirus) (Woo et al, 2012).…”

Section: Pity the Ictvmentioning

confidence: 99%

A decade of RNA virus metagenomics is (not) enough

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is hard to overemphasize the role that metagenomics has had on our recent understanding of RNA virus diversity. Metagenomics in the 21st century has brought with it an explosion in the number of RNA virus species, genera, and families far exceeding that following the discovery of the microscope in the 18th century for eukaryotic life or culture media in the 19th century for bacteriology or the 20th century for virology. When the definition of success in organism discovery is measured by sequence diversity and evolutionary distance, RNA viruses win. This review explores the history of RNA virus metagenomics, reasons for the successes so far in RNA virus metagenomics, and methodological concerns. In addition, the review briefly covers clinical metagenomics and environmental metagenomics and highlights some of the critical accomplishments that have defined the fast pace of RNA virus discoveries in recent years. Slightly more than a decade in, the field is exhausted from its discoveries but knows that there is yet even more out there to be found.

show abstract

Section: Pity the Ictvmentioning

confidence: 99%

A decade of RNA virus metagenomics is (not) enough

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Among potential nudges related to communication, inappropriate naming of the newly discovered disease, which associates the disease with specific ethnic and economic groups, is proposed to have a strong priming effect that makes people socially stigmatize these groups. A guideline issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) calls upon scientists, national authorities and the media to follow to minimize unnecessary negative effects on nations, economies, and people (Fukuda et al, 2015). However, it is not empirically clear whether naming the disease by its originating locality will lead to social stigmatization and discrimination against the specific ethnic group.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Cost with No Political Gain: The "Chinese Virus" Effect

Xu¹,

Liu²

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Naming a contagious disease, such as COVID-19, by the geographic locality where the disease originates or starts, for example, Wuhan or China, may stigmatize specific ethnic groups related to that locality, and such stigmatizing behavior will further lead to legitimized discrimination, prejudice, and group conflicts. However, as the construction of social stigma relates closely to group identities, creating xenophobia through stigmatizing out-group members may increase in-group solidarity, which can be taken as a political strategy for the government to avoid the blame from citizens. In this study, we experimentally examine: (1) whether labeling COVID-19 as "Chinese Virus" will result in increased stigmatization and xenophobia against Chinese immigrants; (2) whether the "Chinese Virus" label will reduce people's perceived blameworthiness of the federal government. Our results (N = 1,200) show that about 16% of participants located in the U.S. indicated xenophobia against Chinese immigrants, and perceived blameworthiness of the federal government was polarized as expected. Further, although stigmatization was not significantly triggered by the "Chinese Virus" label in the full sample, we do find statistically significant treatment effects in multiple political and demographic subgroups (21.47% increase in Democrats, 16.73% in Liberals, and 19.93% in whites, no effect in conservatives and Republicans while the stigmatization remains at higher levels than other groups). Meanwhile, our list experiment strategy detected no social desirability bias when measuring xenophobia, suggesting that stigmatizing Chinese immigrants was not suppressed by current social norms. However, increased stigmatization did not lead to the reduce of blameworthiness of the federal government in handling the current pandemic.

show abstract

“…Following the publication of the ‘WHO Best Practices for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases’, this parent disease name should not contain any geographical locations; people’s names; species or class of animal or food; cultural, population, industry or occupational references; or components that incite undue fear 2,3 . Furthermore, the panel almost unanimously discouraged the use of ‘haemorrhagic fever’ for any filovirus-associated disease name because ‘haemorrhagic fever’ is not unambiguously defined, and the majority of filovirus-infected individuals do not develop overt haemorrhage.…”

Section: Results Of Expert Panel Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%