S3-E44.4 - Roger Green and Jeff Lazarus discuss NAFLD Nomenclature Conference and COVID-19

Send us Fan MailRoger Green starts this interview with Jeff Lazarus by asking what Jeff has been focusing on since the Barcelona conference in May. Jeff describes his extensive daily efforts to develop and garner support for a global consensus strategy on COVID-19, similar to his work on a global consensus statement on Fatty Liver disease. (This was the topic of Season 2, Episode 59.) Like the Fatty Liver work, his COVID-19 consensus work included representatives from over 200 countries with an array of public, academic and not-for-profit portfolios. However, he suggests that the high levels of agreement and, sometimes, virtually unanimity evident in the Fatty Liver work was impossible to match on an issue as immediate and terrifying as COVID-19.Roger then asks about the NAFLD Nomenclature Conference. Jeff describes the conference as a midway point for a Delphi process to explore the prospect of assigning a new name(s) in the description of fatty liver diseases. Jeff describes the six principles any name change must achieve:AffirmativeAccurate Adaptable Adoptable Applicable Able.The rest of this conversation covers prospects for success of the Nomenclature effort and the nature of the challenges ahead.