All diseases must be named to maximize national stigma
By The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed “Mexican” influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.
Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and “we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu,” he told a news conference at a hospital in central Israel.
Both Judaism and Islam consider pigs unclean and forbid the eating of pork products.
I hadn’t realized the kosher proscriptions against pigs extended to evoking them by name to describe an illness for which they are in fact the carriers. Moreover, I would think that calling it “swine flu” would tend to reinforce the whole pigs-as-filthy-beast thing. Indeed, since many people continue to have a medieval understanding of disease, I’d not be surprised to learn that sales of pork products had taken a hit this week, or that plushophiles were jerking off less frequently to old Miss Piggy videos. If I were part of a community that had disparaged a particular species of animal for thousands of years, this is probably exactly the sort of taboo reinforcement for which I’d have waited a lifetime. But since I haven’t been driven insane by my religious beliefs, who cares what I think?