This proposal has been submitted to the General Assembly Health Board.
NOTE: at 0345 GMT on the 13th of March 2020, this proposal reached quorum with One Small Island's approval, the 73rd all told.
Word count: 283
OOC: Vaguely inspired by WHO/OIE/FAO best practice - which is how COVID-19 got the name it did.
OOC 2: This resolution would create ABCD if passed, but does not create a medical ethics board for EPARC (that honour belongs to GA#389).
Disease Naming Compact
A resolution to modify universal standards of healthcare.Category: HealthArea of Effect: BioethicsProposed by: Tinhampton
Noting that both novel and recurring communicable diseases affect a diverse array of species in many member states, and that names for these diseases (as well as their vectors) can offer consistency and clarity whenever used,
Dismayed that there is no international consensus on the naming of novel communicable diseases, in particular those which could cross borders, and thus no single reference point for them; so imperiling the safety of those infected and the sanity of doctors who have to slug through pages of bureaucracy simply to find out what is to be treated, and
Committing to confidently cut down the currently cumbersome, copious compilations of confusing classifications which can crop up continually in the catalogue of communicable conditions...
The General Assembly hereby:
- creates, within the Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response Center (EPARC) of the World Health Authority, an Agency for the Branding of Communicable Diseases (ABCD),
- tasks ABCD with proposing in short order to EPARC's Medical Ethics Board names for those communicable diseases with no suitable name in common use, which have not previously been detected in sapient species and are likely to lead EPARC to confirm an international outbreak; and publicising those names once speedily confirmed by that Board to be appropriately informative,
- requires member states and healthcare organisations to use ABCD-publicised names for particular diseases when communicating about them to the public (but encourages other entities to use such names as intended); and to refrain from funding internal attempts to name such diseases where ABCD can do so efficiently, speedily, and on an international scale, and
- clarifies that this resolution does not affect the naming or taxonomy (such as binomial nomenclature) of disease vectors.
Drafts of Yore:
Draft 3c: As above, except with EPARC's Medical Ethics Board having to assess names on the additional criterion of being "easily pronouncable." As a result, Articles b and c merged into Article b, with slight rewordings. Remove superfluous "(WHA)" in brackets from Article a.
Draft 3b: As above, except with EPARC's MEB having to assess names on the additional criteria of being "avoid[ing] terms which a reasonable person would deem offensive and omit[ting] the names and taxonomies of any sentient species." Articles d and e have also been merged in Draft 3c into just Article d, with some brevity amendments; also correct "binominal" in the final Article to "binomial."
Draft 3a: As above, except without the final Article.
Draft 1: preserved by SL; CLICK HERE to read it