Yellow Fever: Why Does A Restaurant Have The Name Of This Disease?

Would you eat at the Rabies Restaurant? How about the Diarrhea Diner? Plague Pies? Hepatitis Hotcakes? Or maybe the Tuberculosis Tea House?

Well, if you think that naming a restaurant after a potentially deadly disease would be something that you would avoid like the plague, how about the owners who named their eatery chain "Yellow Fever"? They just opened a location at a Whole Foods in Long Beach, California, which prompted reactions on social media such as the following Tweets:








People are battling over social media about whether the term is racist. A number are saying that they are offended. Others are telling them that they are being too sensitive. (Gee, when has that ever happened before?) The New York Daily News quoted Yellow Fever co-owner Kathy Kim as saying, “To us, ‘Yellow Fever’ means we love all things Asian meaning food, culture, people. I don’t want to spend any time thinking about or refuting any negativity.”

Looks like a little science communications and more attention to what yellow fever really is are needed here. And coincidentally it is World Immunization Week. So away we go.

Last I checked the official scientific definition of yellow fever had nothing to do with "loving all things Asian," whatever that means. (Asia is a very big continent, so how do you love all things?) Is that a bit like saying "to us, the Bubonic plague means we love all things European meaning food, culture, people"? In fact, scientifically and historically real yellow fever has little to do with Asia.

Yellow fever is a disease caused by a virus (a Flavivirus,which does not mean flavorful) that is transmitted to humans via the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the same mosquito that can also transmit Dengue and Zika. Not everyone infected by the virus ends up developing symptoms. And some may suffer only 3 to 4 days of fever, chills, severe headache, back pain, general body aches, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and weakness. However, about 15% of those infected go on to have more severe forms of the disease. This can include having a high fever, jaundice (which can turn your skin yellowish, hence the name), bleeding, and multi-organ failure. Somewhere between 20% and 50% of those with severe disease die. There is a vaccinethat can help protect you against the yellow fever virus but no real treatment for yellow fever once you are infected.

The history of yellow fever is quite extensive and does not really evoke the most positive of images. (Darn viruses and their negativity.) As seen on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Yellow Fever timeline, the virus and disease have been around since 3000 B.C. The same timeline says that "yellow fever was imported into the western hemisphere on slave ships from West Africa." A number of yellow fever outbreaks and epidemics occurred in the United States during the subsequent three Centuries. For example, between the years 1839 and 1860, New Orleans suffered annual outbreaks, resulting in over 26,000 cases of yellow fever. In 1898, yellow fever impaired the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War to the point that "reportedly more soldiers died of the disease than in battle" in Cuba.

During the 1900s, scientists and public health officials battled this disease. The development of two yellow fever vaccines in the first half of the last Century along with intense sanitation and mosquito control efforts helped control the disease in many parts of the Americas. However, yellow fever remains a major concern across large parts of South American and Africa. CDC maps show that yellow fever virus transmission still occurs throughout the majority of Africa, stretching from Senegal down to Angola and up to Ethiopia, and most of South America.

However, things aren't necessarily going in the right direction. For example, anti-vaccine activity in Brazil and other South American countries may have led to a recent surge in yellow fever cases. (Thank you, anti-vaxxers.) Therefore, a coalition of the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and Gavi has developed a strategy for the next decade (2017-2026) to Eliminate Yellow fever Epidemics (EYE). But why think about negativity when people are dying of the disease?

Keep in mind that any mosquito-borne illness in South America could eventually make its way up to the United States. That's what's been happening with Dengue and Zika. So if you really want yellow fever, it could come to you.

Bleeding from the nose, mouth, and eyes may not be the image that you want to conjure up when eating food. Perhaps the owners didn't want you to think about this infectious disease when naming their restaurant? Then, how about the slang use of "yellow fever", describing a fetish for "things" that are Asian, most frequently Asian and Asian American women (for those who consider Asian women to be things)? Well, take a look at a publication by Robin Zheng, PhD, an Assistant Professor at Yale University, in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association entitled "Why Yellow Fever Isn't Flattering: A Case Against Racial Fetishes." As she indicated, the term and the phenomenon suggests to women of Asian descent that they aren't valued as individuals but instead viewed as objects with stereotypes of being submissive. At the same time, as Dr. Zheng explained, the term isn't exactly positive for non Asian or non-Asian American men who are labeled with having "yellow fever" (the slang term and not the mosquito-borne illness), suggesting that they are inferior and only dating women of Asian descent because that's their only option. Can you just feel the positivity?

Oh and by the way, except for those who are engaged in highlighter battles, few people of Asian descent really have yellow skin and instead have skin color that ranges from paler than "White skin" to dark. The term "yellow" actually originated in the latter half of the 1700's and early 1800's when some of European-descent began describing those in Asia as "yellow" and then later describing those immigrating from Asia as posing a “yellow peril” to the United States and Europe, as described by Michael Keevak in the book Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking.

Of course, in general, some business owners focusing on profits may not necessarily think about the public health, mental health, or social health implications of a name. So there can be the temptation for some to use a negatively provocative name as long as the customers and money keep flowing. Or owners may be unaware of the history and science behind a given name. However, using a disease or a negative mental health phenomenon as a name intentionally or unintentionally does have its risks and like a mosquito can come back to bite you. So choose wisely. It pays to do a little scientific and historical research before selecting a name. Even though not everyone may disagree with your selection, do you really want to automatically alienate potential customers? Moreover, if any food-borne illnesses ever occur in the restaurant, do you really want headlines such as "Yellow Fever Outbreak Occurs"?



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