What, Pray Tell, Is a New Novel Flu Case?

One of my readers, Dawn, wrote me last week to complain about swine flu's new name -- and I'm not talking about "H1N1." She writes:

I happen to work at [a] state health department . . . and was puzzled when I received a press release sent to my work email with the title 'New Novel H1N1 Flu Cases Confirmed.' I'm sure you can see the source of my puzzlement - "new novel" - wtf?

As I told Dawn, "new novel" is definitely "wtf"-worthy. It's like saying, "I found an old, ancient turnip in the back of my fridge." I mean, why?

Frankly, I was annoyed enough when the CDC tried to change swine flu to H1N1, because at that point, all anyone had been hearing about was swine flu, swine flu, SWINE FLU for days on end, so it seemed a little late for rebranding. (Plus, swine flu is eight thousand times more memorable than H1N1, which has always sounded like a Star Wars character to me.) I didn't realize people were saying "novel H1N1 flu," though, much less "new novel H1N1 flu."

Dawn goes on to say:

Having been on something of the front lines of this over-hyped event, I know that it didn't take long before the "swine" in swine flu became a detriment to the pork industry. After that, our esteemed government officials began changing the name - Influenza A (oops, already have one of those), North American flu (too wordy), Mexican flu (bad for foreign relations), Spanish flu (already used in 1918) - clearly this is one aspect of the next pandemic for which there was no plan.

So, now they call it the "novel" flu virus. But, seeing as the word "novel" actually means "new," would you agree with me that then announcing to the world "new novel flu cases confirmed" sounds more like an actual new virus? I'm really just curious to get your take on this.

So, the problem may go deeper than (a) redundancy and (b) closing-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-ran-out branding. What we may have on our hands in an ambiguous phrase. "New novel flu cases confirmed" (or "new novel H1N1 flu cases confirmed") could be taken to mean that more people have come down with swine flu, but it could also mean that a new mutation of the swine-flu virus has been discovered.

No matter how you look at it, "new novel flu cases" is sickening.

P.S.: It occurs to me only now that the key may lie in the absence of a comma between "new" and "novel," which indicates that the two words could not have and put between them, and that the word novel is too closely tied to flu to ever be separated. Still, "new novel flu"? That can't be right.

Comments

[Ann L.]

I think "new" modifies "cases." The headline means to state that new cases of a novel strain of swine, er, H1N1 flu have been reported.

[JD (The Engine Room)]

I knew swine could catch flu, but I didn't know novels could too.

(Ooh, rather poetic, that...)

[Claire]

I don't see the problem with this phrasing: clearly, the meaning is that you can catch the flu from reading novels.

[Abby]

"Novel" is a term that modifies "H1N1" since, in fact, there are other strains of H1N1 influenza A that have been in circulation. Thus the name "novel H1N1 influenza" as opposed to simply "H1N1 influenza". Not that this helps the confusion of the headline, but it does explain why a press release from a public health organization might insist on keeping "novel" as part of the name.

[TootsNYC]

Isn't it possible that the epidemiology term is "novel [insert disease here] cases," and someone wanted to change "novel" to the less jargon-y "new," and simply forgot to take out the OLD word, after they'd put in the new?

Is it "novel H1N1," or "novel cases of H1N1"? Ah, I see that "novel" is a type of H1N1, in contrast to "seasonal," "avian," and other adjectives:

"transmission patterns for the novel H1N1 virus were comparable to that of seasonal H1N1 and H3N2 strains. An avian H1N1 virus, however, did not transmit "

Adjective stacks are always horrible things, but people do them when they're "too close"--they need to hold the paper at arm's length and read it.

"New cases of novel H1N1" or something

(Here's another reason to hate H1N1--it's a PITA to type.)