Via his virology blog, Dr. Vincent Racaniello has serious advice: Headline writers: Please take a virology course. Excerpt:
Yesterday Denise Grady wrote in the New York Times about the end of the moratorium on influenza H5N1 virus research. The story headline read:
Research to resume on modified, deadlier bird flu
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reprinted Ms. Grady’s story with the following headline:
Studies will resume on deadly modified flu virus
Where do these headlines come from, outer space? The H5N1 viruses produced by Kawaoka and Fouchier, which transmit by aerosol among ferrets, are far less virulent than the parental H5N1 virus! Furthermore, the moratorium applied to all research on H5N1 virus, not just that related to these transmission experiments.Chances are Ms. Grady is as upset as Dr. Racaniello; journalists rarely write their own headlines, and we all have horror stories about the chairborne commandos in the newsroom who disfigured our stories with such heads. I still gnash my teeth about the headline on a column of mine where "advocate" was transformed into "advocado."
