Name That Bug

The labeling of deadly pathogens is more contentious than you might think:

Human disease is littered with examples of fractious, sometimes furious rows over what emerging pathogens are called. Some 30 years ago, when the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, was discovered, it was named “GRID,” or “gay-related immune deficiency,” helping to spread the slur “the gay plague.” It was not until it became clear the sexually transmitted virus was also infecting heterosexuals and haemophiliacs, that GRID was replaced with the more accurate HIV.

More recently, the scientific “H1N1″ was the name that stuck for the pandemic flu strain that swept the world in 2009/2010 after earlier suggestions proved too sensitive. An Israeli health minister objected to “swine flu” on religious grounds and “Mexican flu” caused offense to a nation. When scientists called a “superbug” enzyme that makes bacteria resistant to almost all known antibiotics “New Delhi metallo beta lactamase,” or NDM-1, the Indian health ministry called it “malicious propaganda” to put India in the name.

Update from a reader:

It’s scientifically and historically nonsensical to say that “GRID” was replaced by “HIV”. I recognize, it’s not your error, but the above passage should be more accurately written:

Human disease is littered with examples of fractious, sometimes furious rows over what diseases and pathogens are called. Some 30 years ago, when AIDS was first described, it was initially referred to as “GRID,” or “gay-related immune deficiency,” helping to spread the slur “the gay plague.” It was not until it became clear the sexually transmitted virus was also infecting heterosexuals and hemophiliacs that GRID was replaced with the more accurate AIDS.

As you no doubt remember – I certainly do – both GRID and AIDS were described years before the discovery of the causative organism, and by the time HIV was discovered, GRID had long been relegated to the waste bin of formerly-useful-yet-now-recognized-as-inaccurate terms. And neither AIDS nor GRID can accurately be described as pathogens, let alone emerging pathogens.

Or as another reader puts it:

The article you cite is confused. The name of the bug and the name of the disease are two different things. The virus that causes AIDS, now generally called HIV, has at times been called LAV, and also has been called HTLV III. But it has never been called GRID. GRID would be an early synonym of AIDS, not HIV.