title: The taxonomy of viruses should include viruses.
abstract: Having lost sight of its goal, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses has redoubled its efforts. That goal is to arrive at a consensus regarding virus classification, i.e., proper placement of viruses in a hierarchical taxonomic scheme; not an easy task given the wide variety of recognized viruses. Rather than suggesting a continuation of the bureaucratic machinations of the past, this opinion piece is a call for insertion of common sense in sorting out the avalanche of information already, and soon-to-be, accrued data. In this way information about viruses ideally would be taxonomically correct as well as useful to working virologists and journal editors, rather than being lost, minimized, or ignored.
authors.affiliation: Professor Emeritus, Arthropod-Borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523-1690, USA. calisher@cybersafe.net.
authors.forename: Charles H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Calisher
mesh_terms: D002965:Classification / Q000379:methods; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D014780:Viruses / Q000145:classification*