The challenge of naming a flu

What to name the flu that is raising alarms across the globe is becoming a complex issue. See, pork producers object to use of the name “swine flu”, particularly in light of the fact that the virus has not been conclusively found in pigs and seems to include DNA of the human and avian flu. But calling the bug “Mexican flu” or “North American influenza” irks others, despite falling in with a long medical tradition of naming bugs after the regions where they were first found. Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, seems determined to call it the “H1N1 virus,” which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. To talk us through the global challenge of naming the flu is Keith Bradsher of the New York Times.