What's In a Name?

So Mexico is in the headlines after all and Canadian reporters are clambering all over the Swine Flu story. More than 240 cases in Canada now although no deaths and only one case considered severe. But how to report on the health hazard? What to call it? Pork producers are livid that their industry is associated with this negative story. They want the disease to be named something else and they may have a case since the virus has been analyzed to be five parts swine, two avian and two human flu. But what do you call the damn thing if not Swine Flu? Pandemic Influenza, Pig Flu, Influenza A Swine Flu, Mexican Flu as several Heads of State are quoted as saying, or Influenza A H1N1 as the World Health Organization have been instructed to say. How about Human Flu, given the fact a whole herd in Alberta has been infected by an employee at a piggery who contracted the disease while in Mexico. Homo sapiens is a scary breed is it not? On the subject of Mexico, hear about the seven policemen assassinated in Tijuana on the same day? Well maybe in a single ambush you say? Nope, in four separate incidents is the answer. Can you imagine the same story in Germany or Israel or the USA being so under reported?