Paul Driessen wrote a book, Eco-Imperialism, that in essence blames environmentalists for every case of malaria in Africa since 1962. It is possible, that overreaction to environmental concerns by African governments and by Africans in the path of malaria parasites has indeed caused some delay in decreasing malaria infections. I have not seen any convincing evidence to make that case.
But it is untrue that environmentalists advocate policies intended to hurt Africans. It is untrue that DDT is a silver bullet that meanie environmentalists refuse to let African governments use — environmentalists do not have the power to tell African governments what the governments can or cannot do. Plus, it’s unfair to the point of gross distortion to blame environmentalists for the many problems which still exist that prevented the eradication of malaria 40 years ago and continue to frustrate efforts to reduce the frequency and mortality of the disease.
I assume Driessen is well-intentioned, though I have no first hand information about his motivations.
With that assumption, let me ascribe to simple error the many problems of his recent column for an on-line magazine perhaps aptly named spiked.
Driessen calls for an “all-out war on malaria.” That would be good.
But then he accuses environmentalists of standing in the way of such a war.
False blame calling cures not a single case of malaria, nor kills a single malaria-carrying mosquito. If Driessen wishes to fight malaria, there are a lot of people who would like to help. We can start to fight malaria, any time. [More after the fold.]
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 