Why we shouldn't use the "F Word": the long read

Officials and reporters ignore the consequences of lack of scientific rigour.

The colloquial “Flu,” the “F Word”, is synonymous with an acute respiratory infection, sometimes merging and overlapping with influenza. It is an ill-defined and sloppy concept which creates confusion about the burden of respiratory illness in the world around us. 

Here are why officialdom and science should never use the “F Word”.

When the first human influenza virus was isolated in 1933 by Smith, Andrewes and Laidlaw, it was dubbed “influenza” as it was associated in ferrets and humans with an acute respiratory affliction that resembled that of great pandemics which still cast a very long shadow on humanity. “Influenza dei pianeti”, or influence of the planets, had been the name for waves of “F Word” cases which periodically and mysteriously appeared and vanished without clear rationale.

The three researchers could not see the virus, but they engineered its transmission to ferrets. They also knew it was not a bacterium as it passed through filters that would not allow a bacterium to pa…