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I am a scientist, not a climatologist, so I don’t dabble in climatology. My speciality is the epidemiology of mosquito-borne diseases. As the film began, I knew Mr Gore would get to mosquitoes: they’re a favourite with climate-change activists. When he got to them, it was all I feared. In his serious voice, Mr Gore presented a nifty animation, a band of little mosquitoes fluttering their way up the slopes of a snow-capped mountain, and he repeated the old line: Nairobi used to be ‘above the mosquito line, the limit at which mosquitoes can survive, but now…’ Those little mosquitoes...

Nature has recently published an interesting paper which places severe limits on Darwinian evolution...

Malaria kills nearly a million people each year, mostly children under 5 and especially in Africa. Infected mosquitoes inject immature malaria parasites into the skin when they bite; these travel to the liver where they mature and multiply. From there, they enter the bloodstream and attack red blood cells -- the phase that makes people sick. In a daring experiment in Europe, scientists used mosquitoes as flying needles to deliver a "vaccine" of live malaria parasites through their bites. The results were astounding: Everyone in the vaccine group acquired immunity to malaria; everyone in a non-vaccinated comparison group did not,...

Artemisinin-based medicines fail a growing number of patients in Cambodia. The malaria parasite, carried by mosquitoes, is growing resistant to artemisinin-based drugs.James Gathany / CDC Malaria parasites in Cambodia are becoming increasingly resistant to the drug hailed as the world's best chance to eradicate the disease.Artemisinin-based drugs are currently the best weapon against malaria, a disease which kills around a million people every year and is spread by mosquitoes carrying malaria parasites such as Plasmodium falciparum. These parasites have already developed resistance to drugs such as chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, once the front line against the disease, so hopes have been...

Culture/Society Editorial EditorialSource: The Telegraph (U.K.)Published: 07/19/2001 Author: Terence KealeyPosted on 07/18/2001 16:55:32 PDT by Pokey78 THE World Health Organisation, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, the UN environmental programme and its development programme, USAID, and almost all the other international representatives of the great and the good now campaign against DDT. But, perversely, the Third World still uses it. To those who believe that America under George W Bush and his gas-guzzling, permafrost-drilling accomplices is the source of all global pollution, this Third World defection is disappointing. Where are the virtuous blacks when we need them? DDT was introduced...

Yesterday Chris Matthews invited on Salon.com's Editor in Chief Joan Walsh to link the Holocaust Museum shooter to Rush Limbaugh but it was the "Hardball" host himself, on Thursday's show, who connected Sarah Palin to James von Brunn as he wondered if the Alaska Governor was "getting very close to the edge," of the same "attitude" of the "far right," and questioned "Is she talking their language?" After playing a clip of Palin expressing her concern that the federal government could get more involved in the running of the states, something any governor of a state would rightfully be worried...

In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world's poor will suffer as a result. The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. The aim "is to achieve a 30% cut...

For two years the United Nations paid lip service to the truth that the insecticide DDT is a vital component of malaria control, but last week UN abandoned science in favor of superstition. The result is UN promotion of more dangerous and less efficient malaria control techniques. On May 5th, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Environment Program announced plans to reduce DDT use by 30% by 2014 and completely eliminate it by around 2020. In the mean time, the UN will roll out initiatives in 40 countries to test non-chemical methods of malaria control. In particular...

Yeah, it was a big joke when there was a race for the first to have a millions "tweeps" -- twitter friends. But Ashton Kutcher won the crown and he made a silly situation mean a lot more when he promised to make a big donation to help fight malaria.Malaria infects 300-500 million people worldwide annually, according to UNICEF statistics. Nearly 1 million people die each year from the mosquito-borne disease. The majority of deaths are to children in sub-Saharan Africa. You can read more about what Christian organizations are trying to do at this link:http://everydaychristian.com/news/story/1787/and you can make a donation to World Vision's...

This is Bakouma Kpatekatola, a young man from the West African nation of Togo. In 2003, when Bakouma was 9 years old, my family became his sponsor through the Childreach-Plan USA organization. In the years since we became occasional pen pals; a few times a year we'd get a letter from him, in his native French, along with an English translation from his caseworker. Continued

"Climate Change" does. About the only thing that climate change is demonstrably the cause of is a complete abandonment of irony and reason by those who preach it. This is yet another illustration of how rampant climate change envirodorkism beats up on poor people. This sick, twisted movement is full of faux do-good nutcases who couldn't intellectually grasp the obvious if it broke into their closed minds with a crowbar.

To make his point about the deadly and fearsome plague of malaria, Gates released a glass full of mosquitoes on the unsuspecting crowd at the Technology, Entertainment Design Conference in Long Beach, California. Did Gates plan on infecting some rich folks to prove his point? The answer is yes, although Gates quickly pointed out that the pests released were not malarial. Mr. Moneybags only intended to infect his audience with guilt. And guilt-inducement is the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel. It has become the go-to move for so-called progressives when intellectual argument fails and one can't muster the facts...

TED, the annual gathering of the most pretentious people from the fields of technology, entertainment, and design, just got punk'd. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates released a swarm of mosquitos into the crowd. Ending malaria is a particular passion of Gates's, whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent millions fighting the disease. But he apparently didn't feel like TED attendees were taking the threat seriously. "Not only poor people should experience this," Gates said as he let the bugs loose on his audience, according to Facebook manager Dave Morin. (eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and Twitter CEO Ev Williams confirm the...

A team of Monash University researchers led by Professor James Whisstock has made a major breakthrough in the international fight against malaria, which claims the life of a child across the world every 30 seconds. The research, performed in collaboration with Professor John Dalton at the University of Technology, Sydney, provides a new approach to treating and controlling the disease that is contracted by half a billion people and causes around 1 million deaths a year. The team, based at the Monash University ARC Centre of Excellence in Structural and Functional Microbial Genomics, has been able to deactivate the final...

“That spirit of looking out for one another, that core value that says, ‘I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper,’ that spirit is most evident during times of great tragedy. It’s most evident during times of great hardship, it’s most when natural disasters strike. We all understand that we have to come together.” – Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (D-Ill.) on the campaign trail, Sept. 2, 2008 Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) frequently claims on the hustings, as part of his campaign for the presidency, that he would like to usher in a new era of “change” where Americans...

June 10, 2008, 6:00 a.m. Drug Resistance Is DeadlyPharmaceutical knock-offs may threaten our ability to treat malaria. By Roger Bate Thai government officials, led by commerce permanent secretary Siriphol Yodmuangcharoen, will meet with their Washington counterparts on June 10, hoping to persuade the U.S. Trade Representative to remove Thailand from its “Priority Watch List.� Thailand is one of nine countries listed, earning its place because of intellectual property-rights violations by the previous Bangkok government — which broke patents on AIDS and heart drugs, undermining its trade relationship with the U.S., and harming foreign investment. While the U.S. will continue...

While Chinese and Indian government-backed companies continue to produce DDT for their own public health programmes, and for export, no western company has produced DDT for over a decade. Major chemical companies such as Bayer, Dow Chemical, Du Pont and BASF produce alternative products, and have incentives to see DDT phased out. Bayer actually agitated against the use of DDT, abusing its position as private sector delegate to the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, as reported in the Financial Times. AFM was alone among advocacy groups to raise this as a concern. The reality is that DDT is probably the most...

Inconvenient Truths and Global Crises by: Bethany Stotts, May 05, 2008 Many of the world’s tragedies can be traced back to radical environmentalist movements, argued Competitive Enterprise Institute Fellow Iain Murray at a recent book forum. He said, “Rather…the mainstream model, the paradigm if you will, for receiving very desirable environmental ends has an inbuilt capacity for enduring disaster.” In his new book, The Really Inconvenient Truths, Murray argues that most destructive environmentalist movements following Rachel Carson display a similar trajectory: 1. “create a populist moral fervor;” 2. “deride anyone who opposes you as evil;” 3. “get the laws passed;”...

Environmentalists have condemned a trial plan to deploy millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in Malaysia to fight dengue fever, a report said Sunday. A mosquito bloated with blood it inserts its stinger into a human's arm. Environmentalists have condemned a trial plan to deploy millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in Malaysia to fight dengue fever, a report said. Malaysia has expressed concern about the insect-borne scourge after 25 people were killed in the first three months of the year. The New Sunday Times newspaper said the genetically modified (GM) male mosquitoes will be first freed in Ketam island, a fishing...

In a ceremony in the Oval Office this morning, President Bush officially proclaimed April 25, 2008 to be Malaria Awareness Day (Transcript) America is a compassionate country that feeds the hungry and protects the vulnerable because we believe every human life has inherent dignity and matchless value. As the people of Africa continue their struggle against malaria, we offer our support and steadfast commitment. We call on all nations to join us in a great humanitarian effort. The president made a brief statement on the economy (Transcript) before boarding Marine One with First Lady Laura Bush for a day trip...

Today, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on the implications of climate change for human health. Malaria will top the menu, but so will ignorance and disinformation.The lead witness will be Dr. Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has suggested that U.S. energy policy may be "indirectly exporting diseases to other parts of the world." Dr. Patz, the World Health Organization (WHO) and others claim that global warming is now spreading disease and may be the cause of some 160,000 deaths a year.In 2007, for example, WHO pointed to rising temperatures...

SEATTLE  —  Within the next 18 months, medical researchers will be asking people in Seattle to volunteer to be exposed to the deadliest form of malaria to help them test the effectiveness of vaccine candidates.The Seattle Biomedical Research Institute is collaborating with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative to accelerate malaria vaccine research by opening a new vaccine testing center in Seattle's south Lake Union neighborhood.Scientists at the center will use early testing of vaccines to weed out those that don't work so they can speed up research on the ones that are effective. Malaria vaccine testing has already begun...

Last year, challenging global health orthodoxy, Bill and Melinda Gates called for the eradication of malaria. That is, for exterminating the parasite everywhere and forever, except perhaps in laboratory storage, as has thus far happened to just one disease in history, smallpox. Their call, delivered at a malaria conference that they had convened in Seattle, was, in Mrs. Gates’s language, “audacious.” Her husband went further, asking, “Why would anyone want to follow a long line of failures by becoming the umpteenth person to declare the goal of eradicating malaria?” To many public health leaders, that remains a good question. While...

Mr Bush handed out bed nets on his visit to Arusha President George W Bush has said the US will help provide 5.2 million mosquito nets as part of a broader campaign to tackle malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.Mr Bush announced the plan during a visit to a hospital in Arusha, Tanzania, where he is on the second leg of a tour of five African countries. He said it would provide free nets for every Tanzanian child aged one to five. Malaria is the main cause of death for children in Africa, killing a child every 30 seconds, the UN...

As high waters recede, officials rush to ward off onset of disease VILLAHERMOSA, MEXICO — Holding her pale, 18-month-old grandson in her arms in Tabasco's flooded state capital, Marisela Aceituno wondered whether the infant's vomiting and diarrhea was a sign of the dreaded C word. Cholera. "Everything I give him he throws up," Aceituno said as she stroked Christopher's curly brown hair. With animal carcasses rotting in doorways and disease-carrying mosquitoes in the air, Mexican authorities are racing to prevent Tabasco from turning into a hot zone. Cholera, malaria and dengue fever, they say, could pose an even bigger risk...

Tuesday, 30 October 2007, 11:55 GMT Blood findings bring malaria hope Researchers could be a step closer to a cure for malaria after discovering people with blood group O are naturally protected from its most severe forms. Edinburgh University has found blood type O people are significantly less likely to experience the most life-threatening effects of malaria. It is hoped the discovery will help develop drugs which mimic the properties of red cells. Red cells in O group blood prevent malaria worsening. "We may be able to reduce the number of children dying from severe malaria in sub-Saharan Africa"Dr...

Malaria isn’t history. According to the World Health Organization(WHO), malaria kills more than one million people each year. More than 40% of the world’s population is at risk, in areas such as Africa, Central America, Hispaniola, India, the Middle East, Oceania, South America, and Southeast Asia. Children and pregnant women are most at risk. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report that malaria is the fourth leading cause of death for children under five years of age worldwide. A child dies of malaria every 30 seconds.

The world’s most promising malaria vaccine has been shown to work in infants less than a year old, the most vulnerable group, according to a study being published today. The study, being published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, was small, comprising only 214 babies in Mozambique, and intended to show only that the vaccine was safe at such young ages. But it also indicated that the risk of catching malaria was reduced by 65 percent after the full course of three shots. “We’re now a step closer to the realization of a vaccine that can protect African infants,”...

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have developed an experimental vaccine that could, theoretically, eliminate malaria from entire geographic regions, by eradicating the malaria parasite from an area's mosquitoes. The vaccine, so far tested only in mice, would prompt the immune system of a person who receives it to eliminate the parasite from the digestive tract of a malaria-carrying mosquito, after the mosquito has fed upon the blood of the vaccinated individual. The vaccine would not prevent or limit malarial disease in the person who received it. An article describing this work was published on the Web site of...

Ever since the World Health Organization reversed the environmentalist-promoted ban on DDT in 2006, eco-activists have scrambled to devise new ways to malign the life-saving insecticide in order to salvage their badly marred reputation. Their latest effort involves touting a new study supposedly linking DDT exposure in adolescent girls with increased breast cancer risk in later life. The study was authored by researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine — an institution infamous for alarmist research on asbestos and 9-11 rescue workers — and was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal that seems to operate as a refuge...

The discovery of an elaborate counterfeit ring in Kenya dealing with artemesinin-based anti-malarials has raised fears of the emergence of resistance by the malaria parasite against the only category of drugs that is fully effective against the killer fever. Two weeks ago, the Chinese drug-maker Holley-Cotec Pharmaceuticals announced that it was withdrawing at least 20,000 doses of Duo-cotecxin, an artemesinin-based anti-malarial, after it discovered that the Kenyan market had been flooded with counterfeits. Duo-cotecxin is a World Health Organisation (WHO) pre-qualified anti-malarial which contains artemesinin, an ingredient that has been used to treat fevers in China for the past 2,000...

DDT, the miracle insecticide turned environmental bogeyman, is once again playing an important role in public health. In the malaria-plagued regions of Africa, where mosquitoes are becoming resistant to other chemicals, DDT is now being used as an indoor repellent. Research that I and my colleagues recently conducted shows that DDT is the most effective pesticide for spraying on walls, because it can keep mosquitoes from even entering the room. The news may seem surprising, as some mosquitoes worldwide are already resistant to DDT. But we’ve learned that even mosquitoes that have developed an immunity to being directly poisoned by...

Last year, the World Health Organization reversed a 25-year-old policy and recommended using the pesticide DDT to fight malaria in the Third World. A new study published in the public health journal, PLoS ONE, provides more evidence that the decision was long overdue. The U.S. and Europe solved their malaria problem a half-century ago by employing DDT, but the mosquito-borne disease remains endemic to the lowland tropics of South America, Asia and Africa, where each year a half-billion people are infected and more than a million die. Despite those staggering numbers, radical environmental groups like the Pesticide Action Network continue...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mosquitoes that carry malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever avoid homes that have been sprayed with DDT, researchers reported on Wednesday. The chemical not only repels the disease-carrying insects physically, but its irritant and toxic properties helps keep them away, the researchers reported in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE. They estimate that DDT spray reduced the risk of disease transmission by nearly three-quarters. Malaria affects more 40 percent of the world's population, killing more than a million people every year, most of them young children. DDT use has been discontinued in most countries because...

August 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - National Geographic (NG), a leading environmentalist, de-population supporting magazine, has published a major cover story by Michael Finkel on the extraordinarily deadly and complex malaria parasite. The July 2007 NG edition article discusses possible solutions to the disease but also uncharacteristically acknowledges a leading expert's contention that the international ban on DDT was a terrible mistake which may have cost many millions of lives, especially in poor African nations. Environmental ideologues have been quick to slam Finkel's article as being flawed and damaging to the their past success in convincing the world to ban...

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Though Africa's sad experience with colonialism ended in the 1960s, a lethal vestige remains: malaria. It is the biggest killer of Ugandan and all African children. Yet it remains preventable and curable. Last week in Germany, G-8 leaders committed new resources to the fight against the mosquito-borne disease and promised to use every available tool. Now they must honor this promise by supporting African independence in the realm of disease control. We must be able to use Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane -- DDT. The United States and Europe eradicated malaria by 1960, with the use of DDT. At the time,...

Carson's toxic legacy Her book Silent Spring is a case study in the tragedy of good intentions Margaret Wente Toronto Globe and Mail Thursday, May 24, 2007 I was 12 when I read Rachel Carson's newly published book, Silent Spring, in 1962. Although I'd never heard the term "environmentalist," she turned me into one. I didn't understand the complicated science in it. But I was horrified by her evocation of a natural world whose creatures were being wiped out by man-made poisons - the silent spring, where no birds sang. In school, I wrote an essay praising Silent Spring,...

At times it seems that there are more sites honoring Rachel Carson than Josef Stalin at his peak. There's an environmental advocacy institute (at Chatham University, her alma mater), a state office building in Harrisburg, several research institutions, a number of schools (no less than eight, by my count), and here in Pittsburgh, we got this bridge.     The bridge in question, once known as the 9th Street Bridge, was renamed the Rachel Carson Bridge late last year at the request of Esther L. Barazzone, president of Chatham University. It's one of three downtown suspension bridges crossing the Allegheny. Together they're...

Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring--the book that got mosquito-killer DDT banned and launched the modern environmental movement--while struggling with cancer. The disease killed Carson in 1964, two years after Silent Spring came out. Today's Washington Post has a story on Carson--whose 100th birth anniversary occurs later this month--and her noble fight against cancer. A touching piece. But maddening, too! Because in the story's 34 paragraphs, there are only a buried pair, the 26th and 27th, that note the ongoing controversy about DDT's ban. A Maryland Congressman (evil Republican, of course ... wink, wink) is quoted as saying that malaria deaths...

Environmental movement's 'patron saint' was "attitude changer" -- Rachel Carson, whose book "Silent Spring" is credited with saving species of birds and kicking off the environmental movement, would have been 100 years old this year. Now, a two-act play celebrating the life and work of Carson is the highlight of this week's 174-program Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage in Gatlinburg and throughout Great Smoky Mountains National Park. "A Sense of Wonder," written and performed by Kaiulani Lee, has been touring for more than 10 years - proof Carson still has influence 45 years after "Silent Spring." When the book came out in...

Welcome to Sanity Island, where only adults are allowed. President and Mrs. Bush Discussed Malaria Awareness Day in the Rose Garden. Full text of both of their remarks can be found here. President Bush, right, First Lady Laura Bush, second from right, and others, enjoying the Kankouran West African Dance Company. In the afternoon, President Bush Participated in Meeting on Financial Literacy, in Roosevelt Room. Text of his remarks. President Bush, right. accompanied by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, left, participates in a meeting on financial literacy, Wednesday, April 25, 2007, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington....

DDT - Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane – is a chemical pesticide that was banned in the United States in 1972. The movement to ban DDT can be attributed to Silent Spring¸ a book by biologist Rachel Carson. Silent Spring focused on pesticides – particularly DDT – and their effect on the environment, with special consideration to birds (hence the name of the book; a “Silent Spring” because there are no birds to sing.) Due to the banning of DDT in the United States, a movement towards a global ban was swiftly initiated. Today, the use of DDT – with certain exceptions, such as...

On April 25, 2007 we will once again celebrate Africa Malaria Day. Since Africa Malaria Day 2006, more than 400 million Africans – men, women, and children – will have been stricken with the disease. Of those, roughly one million have died. It is a terrible disease. The early symptoms include fever, chills, and vomiting, followed by diarrhea, delirium, and unconsciousness. Of those who don’t succumb during weeks of incapacitating illness, many suffer permanent brain damage. Malaria has been with us for many years. The first mention of it dates back to Chinese medical writings in 2700 B.C. It arrived...

A new, cheap, easy-to-take pill to treat malaria is being introduced today, the first product of an innovative partnership between an international drug company and a medical charity. The medicine, called ASAQ, is a pill combining artemisinin, invented in China using sweet wormwood and hailed as a miracle malaria drug, with amodiaquine, an older drug that still works in many malarial areas. A treatment will cost less than $1 for adults and less than 50 cents for children. Adults with malaria will take only two pills a day for three days, and the pill will come in three smaller once-a-day...

Asia is seeing an “epidemic of counterfeits” of life-saving drugs, experts say, and the problem is spreading. Malaria medicines have been particularly hard hit; in a recent sampling in Southeast Asia, 53 percent of the antimalarials bought were fakes. Bogus antibiotics, tuberculosis drugs, AIDS drugs and even meningitis vaccines have also been found. Estimates of the deaths caused by fakes run from tens of thousands a year to 200,000 or more. The World Health Organization has estimated that a fifth of the one million annual deaths from malaria would be prevented if all medicines for it were genuine and taken...

HIV, Malaria Fuel Each Other's Spread, Study Says Scott Norris for National Geographic News December 7, 2006 A deadly synergy between HIV and malaria appears to be fueling the spread of both diseases in Africa, a new study suggests. The report, in tomorrow's edition of the journal Science, is the first to assess how Africa's increased rates of infection are in part caused by an interaction between the two diseases. HIV makes people more vulnerable to malaria by weakening their immune systems, the researchers say, and contracting malaria may worsen a patient's pre-existing HIV infection, possibly making it more communicable....

November 29, 2006, 7:00 a.m. The Case of the DDT DeniersKenya crazy talk. By John Berlau Poor little Kenya. That’s the message the media have been sending as the United Nations and European nations hold out this African country as the poster child of America’s environmental sins. In the weeks leading up today’s presentation of oral arguments in Massachusetts v. EPA — the Supreme Court case in which northeastern states are suing the Bush administration to regulate carbon dioxide as a “pollutant� under the Clean Air Act — global-warming alarmists and the media have been pointing to malaria epidemics...

A malaria drug rendered useless in most of the world by drug-resistant parasites is once again effective in the African country of Malawi. In a study in tomorrow's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers report that chloroquine cured all but one of the 80 uncomplicated malaria cases it was used to treat in Blantyre, the country's commercial capital. Chloroquine was once one of the miracle drugs against malaria. Cheap, easy to administer, and with few side effects, it played an important role in eradicating the disease in southern Europe and the southern United States. But extensive use...

Sept. 27, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In his August 16, 2006 LifeSiteNews.com Special Report, Green Hands Dipped In Blood: The DDT Genocide, John Jalsevac exposed what may have been the worst crime of the 20th century, exceeding perhaps even the many millions of deaths caused by the Nazi’s or the horrific mass killings of Stalin or Mao Tse Tung. The current cause celebre of AIDS has caused nowhere near the perhaps 80 million deaths that have resulted so far in large part from the 30 year ban on the use of DDT to prevent malaria.Finally, recent news is that, despite...

WASHINGTON - The World Health Organization on Friday called on more developing countries, particularly in Africa, to begin spraying the controversial pesticide DDT to fight malaria The difference: DDT, longed banned in the United States because of environmental damage, is no longer sprayed outdoors. Instead it's used to coat the inside walls of mud huts or other dwellings and kill mosquitoes waiting to bite families as they sleep. A small number of malaria-plagued countries already use DDT, backed by a 2001 United Nations treaty that set out strict rules to prevent environmental contamination. But the influential WHO's long-awaited announcement makes...