A long time “pet peeve” of mine has been either reading an article by a journalist, or listening to a news anchor on the TV and hearing the following statement, “the individual had contracted the MRSA virus”. Ugh!!

 Acdx at the wikipedia project
Acdx at the wikipedia project

I expressed my frustration recently on my Facebook page after listening to Fox News Channel’s Brett Baier, who was reporting on the vials found at the NIH, which included smallpox, dengue, influenza and rickettsia.

In his report, Baier said (I’m paraphrasing, since a transcript or video is unavailable), “they found vials containing dengue, flu and ricketts.”  Ricketts! Really?

As I was perusing the news late last week I found an article in which the title really intrigued me so I clicked on it. The article’s title was “Top 10 Deadliest Viruses To Ever Exist”. You’re intrigued too?

It started out okay mentioning other hemorrhagic fevers like Marburg virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) and a couple of other relatively deadly viruses (although not quite like Ebola and strangely rabies was left off the list).

Then the author gets to #5 and it’s malaria (a parasite)??!! Then typhoid, cholera and anthrax, bacterium all. The author did classify them correctly in the article; however, the title was to me, very misleading.

Does this get under your skin?