A source at ISIS Pharmaceuticals (ticker ISIS) has told Bud Fox News that the company was inundated with phone calls last week from men who mistakenly thought that the company was a US-based offshoot of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, aka ISIS. Company spokesman Stuyvesant Gudgeon explained:

We’ve been swamped. I took several calls myself. These men are convinced that we represent ISIS here in the States. Some had looked through our annual report and concluded that the table showing our drug pipeline was actually a list of chemical weapons that caused the conditions addressed by each drug. One guy called and asked how quickly ATL1102 would cause Muliple Sclerosis and could it be put in the water supply. Another guy asked to speak to our chief financial officer because he needed money- he said a guy at his mosque could get an RPG if the caller could produce enough cash. 

Here is the pipeline table from the company’s 2014 10-K:

Would-be jihadis mistook these drugs for chemical weapons. (Image: ISIS 10-K, http://www.sec.gov)

These misguided, US-hating Mujahideen manqués aren’t the only ones who have been fooled. Hous Bin Pharteen, Professor of Islamic Studies at Beaver College and author of the soon-to-be-published Allah vs Challa: Islam and the Defeat of Zionism, appeared equally misled when reached for comment by Bud Fox News: 

I will no longer hold my tongue the way I have for so many years while teaching these beer-swilling infidels. ISIS Pharmaceuticals shows that the caliphate has leapfrogged the Mediterranean and Pacific and landed in the US, home of the great infidel! The End of Days is near!

It is indeed ironic that aspiring Islamic fundamentalists are flocking to a company that was named after one of the most important goddesses of ancient Egypt. Isis was the principal deity in rites connected with the dead, a magic healer who cured the sick and brought the deceased to life, and a role model for all women. A downright weird TV show about the goddess, The Secrets of Isis, part of CBS’s Saturday morning lineup from 1975 to 1977, must infuriate jihadis old enough to remember it because not only was the modern Isis character a fully empowered woman, but she was also sinfully attractive in her goddess outfit, a costume so skimpy that it couldn’t have been refashioned into a decent hijab:

Jihadis wouldn’t be happy with the goddess Isis’s sexy outfit.

In an odd conclusion to our story, ISIS spokesman Gudgeon called Bud Fox News back to tell us that the company had just received a call from a caliphate-seeking gentleman who confided that he was too old to fight jihad but wanted to give ISIS two goats that he had in his backyard.