Comirnaty – Go Retire Psychiatrist

This is just an update on the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty vs Comiranty spelling issue at UIHC, which has been resolved today. It took a few emails to get it fixed. I was beginning to think I was losing my mind and that I was the only who could see the mistake. Comirnaty had apparently been misspelled as Comiranty on several web pages for maybe a couple of weeks.

You can just look at the word Comirnaty and see how this could have happened. Looking at it in print makes me think there are two letter “m’s” in it. Transposing the two letters “a” and “n” looks easy to do. There are a few anagrams web sites that are picking up on the word Comirnaty. I kind of like “try anomic.” Can you really get “community,” “immunity,” and “mRNA” out of that agglomeration? Maybe. It’s a name game.

I could chalk this up to just me being a retired guy with too much time on his hands and nitpicking. On the other hand, there is that story about a typo ending World War II. In all fairness, there is some doubt about the accuracy of it. But it’s fascinating to think that the difference in spelling between cryptogamist (someone who studies algae) and cryptogramist (someone who studies codebreaking) might have made all the difference in the war’s outcome.

This afternoon I just notified somebody at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics (UIHC) that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine’s name is misspelled on several of their web pages. The new name for the vaccine is Comirnaty (pronounced koe-mir-na-tee). UIHC misspells it as “Comiranty.” And it has been that way for at least a week, probably since Pfizer publicly announced the name after the vaccine was fully licensed by the FDA. I found three instances of that although there could be more.

I found a news item that explains the name was deliberately chosen in order to remind us of the word “community” and the “mRNA” technology of the vaccine.

It actually reminded me of Foster Brooks whose comedy routine consisted of acting like he was drunk, slurring his speech in a parody of intoxication. The only way “Comirnaty” can make you think of “community” is if you’ve had a few too many.

On the other hand, “Comiranty” makes me think of the one Indiana Hoosier football player who was caught on camera with the word Indiana misspelled as “Indinia” on his jersey yesterday. By the way, Iowa beat Indinia 34-6 in the season opener. In all fairness, Indiana is not the only state that struggles with spelling.