I get e-mail from Bob Park, the physicist curmudgeon/philosopher at the University of Maryland (I’ve added links):
Robert L. Park (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“DEADLY CHOICES”: PAUL OFFIT EXPOSES THE ANTI-VACCINE MOVEMENT.
There was never a time before people knew that falling trees and large animals with teeth can kill. Microbes are another matter. They had been killing us for perhaps 200,000 years before Antonie van Leeuwenhoek showed them to us. Paul Offit and two colleagues worked for 25 years to develop a vaccine for the rotavirus, a cause of gastroenteritis that kills as many as 600,000 children a year worldwide, mostly in underdeveloped countries. The vaccine is credited with saving hundreds of lives a day. Offit wrote “Autism’s False Prophets” in 2008 exposing British physician Andrew Wakefield for falsely claiming the MMR vaccineis linked to autism.
H. Fred Clark and Paul Offit, the inventors of RotaTeq. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Vaccination prevents more suffering than any other branch of medicine, but is still opposed by the scientifically ignorant who accept the upside-down logic of the alternative medicine movement. Because vaccination of schoolchildren against virulent childhood infections is ubiquitous, crackpots, scoundrels and gullible reporters get away with linking it to unrelated health problems as they did in the 1980s with the ubiquitous power lines. We still hear echoes of the power-line scare in the cell phone/cancer panic. Paul Offit has just written “Deadly Choices: How The Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All.” We need to do everything we can to stop it.
You don’t subscribe to Bob Park’s “What’s New?” You should.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author’s and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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You’ll be smarter for reading his little missilesmissives missiles.
Here’s a preview of another piece of television that many Republicans hope you will not bother to see, a piece that explains exactly how and why the health care reforms championed by President Obama will help you and millions of others:
Program: U.S. Health Care: The Good News
Episode: The Good News in American Medicine
Journalist T.R. Reid examines communities in America where top-notch medical care is available at reasonable costs and, in some instances, can be accessed by almost all residents. Included: Mesa County, Colo.; Seattle; Everest, Wash.; Hanover, N.H. In Mesa County, for instance, doctors, hospitals and insurers place an emphasis on prevention; and a program that offers pre-natal care to poor women has proved popular.
Short video demonstrating the Indoor Residual Spraying program in Mali, financed by funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Note there is no ban on DDT, note that fighting malaria, even with poisons for mosquitoes, requires more than just spraying poison.
The video is in French.
539 views, September 18, 2011
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
To aid researchers looking for news from Africa on malaria and DDT, I’ll reproduce the entire news story from Uganda’s New Vision here. Stories from this outlet frequently trouble me, in the unquestioning way writers take quotes from people where a more probing reporter might be more skeptical. I am not sure of the status of New Vision among Uganda’s media, but it’s one of the few available to us here on a regular basis.
So, here’s the story, on DDT usage to fight malaria. A couple of points we need to remember: First, it’s clear that DDT is not banned in Uganda, and that DDT usage goes on, despite the crocodile tears of Richard Tren, Roger Bate, and the Africa Fighting Malaria, Astroturf™ group; second, this story relates difficulties in using DDT, including cost. It’s not that the stuff itself is expensive. DDT doesn’t work on all mosquitoes anymore, and it’s dangerous to much other wildlife. Malaria fighters must do serious work in advance to be sure the populations of mosquitoes targeted will be reduced by DDT — that is, that the bugs are not immune to DDT — and care must be taken to control the applications, to be sure it’s applied in great enough concentrations, and only indoors, where it won’t contaminate the wild.
INDOOR residual spraying as a strategy to control malaria in Uganda is too costly and has affected the programme countrywide.
According to Dr. Seraphine Adibaku, the head of the Malaria Control Programme, this is why other malaria control strategies such as use of insecticide-treated nets and Artemisinin-based combination therapy are considered to be ahead of indoor residual spraying.
The Government is implementing the indoor residual spraying using pyrethrum-based and carbon-based insecticides in 10 malaria-endemic districts in the northern and eastern regions.
They include Amolatar, Apac, Kitgum, Kumi and Bukedea.
“About three million people in the 10 districts have been covered. We have reached over 90% of the population,” Adibaku said.
She added that under the Presidential Malaria Initiative, the budget for indoor residual spraying is sh4.5b per district each year.
Adibaku said it would be much cheaper if the ministry distributed insecticide-treated mosquito nets.
She, however, said indoor spraying has an advantage of delivering immediate impact compared to treated nets.
Adibaku disclosed that the health ministry is re-evaluating the effectiveness of using DDT for malaria control.
Dr. Joaquim Saweka, the World Health Organisation (WHO) resident representative in Uganda, said indoor residual spraying is highly effective and has been successful in Zanzibar and Rwanda.
He, however, added that it is capital intensive and needs a lot of money for each application done twice a year.
Saweka cited his previous posting in Ghana during which a town of 300,000 inhabitants required $3m for spraying each year.
He said with the high cost of spraying and low financial resources available, Uganda needs to prioritise usage of insecticide-treated mosquito nets.
Saweka added that Uganda is on the right path to eradicating malaria with efforts in prevention, diagnosis and treatment as well as universal coverage of insecticide-treated nets.
Health minister Dr. Richard Nduhura yesterday kicked off a nationwide programme to distribute 11,000 bicycles to health volunteers who will diagnose and treat malaria in homes. The programme is supported by the Global Fund.
It is part of the Government’s home-based management of malaria, which is part of a larger national strategy to deliver treatment to children within 24 hours after diagnosis.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
“This illustrates how with proper medication, the most lethal condition in Africa can be reduced to bad ten days instead of a death sentence.”
Sometimes it may pay to remember that malaria is disease caused by a parasite who must live part of its life cycle in humans, and part of its life in mosquitoes. Killing mosquitoes only works until the next susceptible mosquito comes along to bite an infected human.
The goal of malaria prevention and eradication campaigns generally is to cure the humans, so regardless how many mosquitoes may be in a given location and regardless how many people they may bite, there is no malaria pool for the mosquitoes to draw from, to spread to other humans.
To beat malaria, we need to prevent the spread of the disease. At some point that requires providing quick and accurate diagnoses of which parasites cause the infection, and a complete and completed regimen of therapeutic pharmaceuticals to actuall cure the human victims. DDT is mostly a bystander in that crucial part of the fight.
Clooney was in Sudan in December to work with Google and the UN on a human rights project that combines satellite imagery analysis and field reports to prevent a new war from occurring in the troubled country.
“We want to let potential perpetrators of genocide and other war crimes know that we’re watching, the world is watching,” he said in a statement at the time. “War criminals thrive in the dark. It’s a lot harder to commit mass atrocities in the glare of the media spotlight.”
Do you consider it odd that Clooney’s contracting malaria might gather more news in western outlets than his actual trip to Sudan, to call attention to the campaign against genocide?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
NBC News’s World Blog carried a series on malaria and fighting it around the world. Here’s part I:
PAILIN, Cambodia – The border crossing between Thailand and Cambodia at Pailin has a rather bleak feel about it at the best of times. In the heavy monsoon rain, the dingy checkpoints are reduced to gray smudges.
Barack Obama continued George W. Bush’s Africa-oriented fight against malaria. The President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI)continues to target malaria for control and, if possible, eradication.
These Malaria Operational Plans have been endorsed by the U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator and reflect collaborative discussions with the national malaria control programs and partners in country. If any further changes are made to these plans, it will be reflected in revised postings.
How long before some wag complains that Obama’s program is anti-Africa because it doesn’t propose enough poisoning of the place? “Not enough DDT!” they will complain, I wager. And, for the record, I make this prediction not having read any of the country operational plans — in nearly complete ignorance of what the plans actually propose. Can you find “enough” DDT in any country’s plan?
Don’t ask me what work she’s done, because I couldn’t tell you. I can tell — based on the headlines of the clipping services — that Mandy Moore is popular.
Ironically, in her brief tour of Africa and — shall we label it? — probably-shallow understanding of the issues, Ms. Moore has a deeper understanding of malaria and how to fight it than the most erudite of the DDT denialists, like Michael Crichton, or Rutledge Taylor. Innocence wins.
For ABC News, the actress talked about charity work in Africa:
It’s a case of a celebrity doing “Do a Good Deed” duty, most likely. In the video, Mandy Moore puts DDT denialists to shame. In writing? Moore doesn’t come off as well. (Did she write that piece herself? Maybe she should write what she talks.)
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Howard Stern may not re-up with Sirius, I hear. That would make it easier to avoid the quackings of one of the latest and greatest cranks on DDT and malaria.
Bedbugs did not develop resistance to DDT as reported in the 1950s and confirmed by recent detailed studies
No one studied bedbugs in the past three decades or so
DDT was banned to kill people, not due to any danger
Mosquito nets are “antiquated”
DDT doesn’t harm birds, doesn’t thin eggshells
Linus Pauling’s vitamin C studies show that DDT works
William Ruckelshaus completely banned DDT use everywhere, by himself, with no science to back the action
Taylor claims to have five file cabinets full of the studies on DDT, but it becomes clear that he hasn’t read any of them. For example, he cites the erroneous claim that DDT saved 500 million lives, from a 1970 study by the National Academy of Sciences — but he’s not got the honor to tell his listeners that NAS then concluded that despite its value, DDT is too dangerous to keep using.
Howard got Dr. Rutledge Taylor on the line to discuss his DDT advocacy: “This is the guy who believes in DDT.” Robin remembered Dr. Rutledge’s infamous YouTube video: “He drank it!” Dr. Rutledge said anti-DDT activists cited faulty–or just plain old–research: “There’s not been a study on DDT and bedbugs in 30 years…it’s the safest pesticide on the planet.” Howard asked about the common claim that DDT thins bird eggs, so Dr. Rutledge said he’d never seen proof: “Total bullshit. I’ve got every study going back to 1940.”
Howard asked if Dr. Rutledge was really dating 80s pop star Debbie Gibson, and the doc confirmed it: “She’s right here. Right now.” Debbie grabbed the phone: “I’m the crazy-supportive girlfriend up in the middle of the night making this phone call with him. Look, he’s saving the world and I wrote ‘Shake Your Love.’ It’s a match made in heaven.” Howard joked: “Does Dr. Rutledge ever bring DDT into the bedroom? Rub it on you?” The doc laughed: “It’s better than chocolate.”
Back in the olden days, broadcasters had to demonstrate that they broadcast in the public interest. Sirius needs to make no such demonstration. Otherwise, Stern’s Know-Nothing rants on DDT, alone, would put their license into question.
Instead of urging people to donate $10 to Nothing But Nets to save a kid from malaria, Taylor insists that people should go see his movie, “3 Billion and Counting,” instead.
Fortunately, the movie is no longer in release. So, Dear Reader, make Howard Stern apoplectic, and save a kid’s life, by sending $10 to Nothing But Nets, and ignore Stern completely.
The facts? You can’t get them from Stern or Taylor:
Since EPA banned use of DDT on agricultural crops annual malaria deaths have fallen by more than half; in 1972 about 2 million people died from malaria worldwide — today, fewer than 900,000 people die from malaria worldwide; it appears that the “ban” on DDT caused a drop in malaria deaths, exactly contrary to Taylor’s claims
Recovery of the bald eagle, osprey, brown pelican and peregrine falcon is attributed directly to the reduction of DDT residues in the tissues of adult birds; DDT hampers the ability of birds to form competent eggs, plus it hampers the ability of chicks to survive to fledging
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Map from The Lancet, accompanying article: "Malaria is caused by five species of a parasite that can be carried from human to human by mosquitoes. Over the last 150 years, the portion of the world where malaria is still endemic has shrunk, but the disease is still endemic in 99 countries. However 32 of these countries, most of them on the edges of the endemic zone, are attempting to eradicate the disease, while the rest are trying to reduce infections and deaths though control measures."
ACSH can’t resist the spin. Implicit the debunking may be, but the study thoroughly debunks ACSH’s claim that more DDT will help defeat malaria. India is the world’s greatest user of DDT, using more than all the rest of the world together. Clearly a surplus usage of DDT has not created the miracle end to malaria that ACSH and other hoaxsters claim it would.
Still, ACSH sticks to their views, even when those views are grossly wrong. ACSH said, “ACSH has called for resumed use of indoor residual spraying of small amounts of DDT to prevent mosquito bites, repel mosquitoes, and reduce malaria deaths.”
No word from India on whether it will dramatically reduce DDT use to meet ACSH’s call for “small amounts.”
ACSH’s press release calls attention to a Wall Street Journal Blog article describing WHO’s response to the Lancet-published study of India malaria deaths — WHO questions the “verbal autopsy” methodology, and says it stands by its estimates of malaria deaths in the nation:
“The new study uses verbal autopsy method which is suitable only for diseases with distinctive symptoms and not for malaria,” WHO’s India representative Nata Menabde said in an email statement Thursday.
The WHO says it takes into account only confirmed cases of malaria and surveys those using healthcare facilities.
Malaria symptoms include fever, flu-like illness and muscle aches. Malaria is endemic to parts of India, where many people live in mosquito-infested areas. Confirming the presence of malaria requires tests like the “Peripheral Smear for Malarial Parasite” and “Rapid Malaria Antigen”.
Lancet said the determinations made by its field researchers were reviewed by two of 130 trained doctors for all the 6,671 districts who determined whether or not the person had died from malaria.
The data concluded that 205,000 deaths before the age of 70, mainly in rural areas, were caused by malaria each year – 55,000 in early childhood, 30,000 among children ages five to 14 and 120,000 people 15 and older.
The WHO called for further review of the study.
“Malaria has symptoms common with many other diseases and cannot be correctly identified by the local population,” Dr. Menabde said, adding: “The findings of the study cannot be accepted without further validation.”
Malaria hotspots in India. Image from Nature magazine, 2010. News report on Lancet study that suggests mortality from malaria in India may be significantly higher than WHO reports indicate.
Good news from the war on malaria has been that annual deaths are calculated to be fewer than 1 million annually, as low as 880,000 a year — the lowest human death toll from malaria in human history.
Researchers in India suggest that deaths there are grossly underreported, however — not the 15,000 estimated by the World Health Organization, but closer to 200,000 deaths a year, nearly 15 times as great.
Reading that news, DDT partisans might get a little race of the pulse thinking that this might improve the urgency for the case for using more DDT, as advocated in several hoax health campaigns and media, such as the recent film “3 Billion and Counting.”
The problem, though, is that India is one of the few places where DDT manufacturing continues today, and India is one of the nations where DDT use is relatively unregulated and heavy. In short, if DDT were the miracle powder it’s claimed to be, any finding that malaria deaths are 15 times greater than reported by WHO is nails in the coffin of DDT advocacy.
Researchers based their estimate on interviews with family members of more than 122,000 people who died between 2001 and 2003. The numbers “greatly exceed” the WHO estimates of 15,000 malaria deaths in India each year, the researchers wrote in the study, published today in the journal The Lancet.
“It shows that malaria kills far more people than previously supposed,” said one of the study authors, Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto, in a statement. “This is the first nationwide study that has collected information on causes of death directly from communities.”
Remote regions may have an undocumented malaria burden, because conventional methods of tracking the disease are flawed, according to the authors. In India, the government malaria data, which is used by the Geneva-based WHO, only counts patients who had tested positive for the disease at a hospital or clinic. Others who died of symptoms closely resembling the malady but didn’t get a blood test aren’t included, co-author Vinod Sharma of the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi said in an interview today.
The lack of accurate data may hinder efforts by governments and aid organizations to provide diagnosis and treatment to the population at risk, the authors said.
Watch. Advocates of poisoning Africa and Asia will claim scientists and environmental activists are somehow to blame for any underreporting, and they will call for more DDT use, claiming a ban has made India a refuge for malaria. Those reports will fail to mention India’s heavy DDT use already, nor will they suggest an ineffectiveness of the nearly-sacred powder.
The article in the Lancet became available on-line on October 21 — it’s a 4.5 megabyte .pdf document: “Adult and child malaria mortality in India: a nationally representative mortality survey.” A team of researchers is listed as authors of the study: Neeraj Dhingra, Prabhat Jha, Vinod P Sharma, Alan A Cohen, Raju M Jotkar, Peter S Rodriguez, Diego G Bassani, Wilson Suraweera,Ramanan Laxminarayan, Richard Peto, for the Million Death Study Collaborators.
Accurate counts of infections and deaths provide essential information for effective programming of the fight against the disease. Researchers point no particular fingers, but make the case in the article that better methods of counting and estimating malaria deaths must be found.
There are about 1·3 million deaths from infectious diseases before age 70 in rural areas in which fever is the main symptom. If there are large numbers of deaths from undiagnosed and untreated malaria in some parts of rural India then any method of estimating overall malaria deaths must rely, directly or indirectly, on evidence of uncertain reliability from non-medical informants and, although our method of estimating malaria mortality has weaknesses, indirect methods may be even less reliable. The major source of uncertainty in our estimates arises from the possible misclassifi cation of malaria deaths as deaths from other diseases, and vice versa. There is no wholly satisfactory method to quantify the inherent uncertainty in this, and indeed the use of statistical methods to quantify uncertainty can convey a false precision. However, even if we restrict our analyses to deaths immediately classifi ed by both physician coders as malaria, WHO estimates (15 000 deaths per year at all ages)1 are only one-eighth of our lower bound of malaria deaths in India (125 000 deaths below the age of 70 years; of which about 18 000 would have been in health-care facilities).
Our study suggests that the low WHO estimate of malaria deaths in India (and only 100 000 adult malaria deaths per year worldwide) should be reconsidered. If WHO estimates of malaria deaths in India or among adults worldwide are likely to be serious underestimates, this could substantially change disease control strategies, particularly in the rural parts of states with high malaria burden. Better estimates of malaria incidence and of malaria mortality in India, Africa, and elsewhere will provide a more rational foundation for the current debates about funding for preventive measures, about the need for more rapid access to malaria diagnosis, and about affordable access in the community to effective antimalarial drugs for children and adults.
I don’t have a full copy of the report yet. Here is what is publicly available for free:
Individuals who are exposed early in life to organophosphatesor organochlorine compounds, widely used as pesticides or forindustrial applications, are at greater risk of developing attention-deficit/hyperactivitydisorder (ADHD), according to recent studies.Previous studies had linked ADHD with very high levels of childhoodexposure to organophosphate pesticides, such as levels experiencedby children living in farming communities that used these chemicals.But a recent study using data from the National Health and NutritionExamination Survey (NHANES) found that even children who experiencemore typical levels of pesticide exposure, such as from eatingpesticide-treated fruits and vegetables, have a higher riskof developing the disorder.
Many of the chief junk science promoters will ignore this study, as they ignore almost all others — Steven Milloy, Roger Bate, Richard Tren, CEI, etc., etc. How often does the junk science apple have to hit people before they figure out these people are malificent actors, when they claim DDT is harmless and we need more?
Tren is unlikely to respond here; I gather he does not want to answer questions.
I will comment more completely later — I’m still not sure just what AFM does to fight malaria. It’s humorous that he calls my question an “ad hominem” attack; I ask the questions because Tren has led the fight in the unholy smear campaign against Rachel Carson, against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, against dozens of other scientists and science itself, against saving the bald eagle, against wise use of pesticides, against bed nets, against fighting malaria other than poisoning Africa. Most recently, as Tren mentions, he published a book that repeats much of the inaccurate claims and hoaxes he has relied on before. But he’s concerned about attacks on him personally, and not the substance.
Why am I concerned at all? The AFM-led assault on the World Health Organization, Rachel Carson, malaria fighters in public health, scientists and environmentalists has come at an extremely high cost in human life. It is impossible to know how many people have died needlessly from malaria, yellow fever, leishmaniasis, dengue fever and other insect-borne diseases in the absence of medical care or prevention programs in lieu of DDT, but it must be millions — many of them could have been saved but for policy-makers’ beliefs that an increase in DDT could poison these people to health quickly and cheaply. The campaign in favor of DDT has hampered serious efforts to fight malaria especially, such as Nothing But Nets and USAID’s support for prophylactic measures to beat the disease.
Does Tren answer the question well, what does AFM actually do to fight malaria?
Help me find some substance here in Tren’s letter (unedited by me in any way):
Paul,
It’s hard to know whether or not to respond to this. To say that we are ‘under fire’ because of the sniping and ad-hominem attacks from a blogger who has, for some or other reason, decided to take issue with my organization is an exaggeration to say the least. However even though your post has so far received zero comments I’d like to make a few things clear for the record.
AFM was founded in South Africa in 2000 and we opened an office in the United States in 2003. We maintain an office and a presence in South Africa as well as an office in the Washington DC. You say that we have focused most of our attention on one issue – the desirability of using DDT in mosquito control programs. Actually we focus on malaria control programs, not mosquito control programs; but to an extent you are correct. We have focused on this issue because DDT continues to play an important role in malaria control in many southern African programs (and in some other countries) and over the years other countries, such as Uganda have attempted to use DDT but have been harshly criticized and domestic and international groups forcing DDT spraying programs to close down. AFM defends DDT because of its outstanding record in saving lives and because it is under attack. The scare stories and smear campaigns against this insecticide are so pervasive and the misunderstanding about it so widespread that it is vital for some group or individual to provide a counterbalance, based on sound science.
AFM was a critical voice in securing an exemption for the use of DDT in the Stockholm Convention, and our research and advocacy work helped to usher in far-reaching reforms to US support for malaria control. We recently published a major book on DDT and its role in malaria control – The Excellent Powder – see http://www.excellentpowder.org. Additionally, we have responded to several recent publications that seek to limit the use of DDT (and interestingly other insecticides such as pyrethroids), with letters in Environmental Health Perspectives, British Journal of Urology International and working papers published on our own website. We have publicly exposed and criticized the way in which anti-insecticide advocacy groups, like Pesticide Action Network, have lobbied against indoor residual spraying programs that are funded and maintained by the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). All of these letters and papers can be accessed from our website – if any of your readers have any difficulty in accessing them, I’d be happy to forward them.
A word on our critical review of a paper published in British Journal of Urology International. Several researchers from the University of Pretoria published a paper in late 2009 claiming that DDT use in IRS would increase the chance that a boy would be born with a urogenital birth defect by around 33%. This paper was widely covered in the media and caused considerable problems for the malaria control programs in southern Africa. One scientist in particular even claimed on a public TV program that DDT was linked to the case of intersex South African athlete, Caster Semenya; this was further promoted in the print media causing great concern among people living in malaria areas. As we documented in our review, the research paper was very deeply flawed and the conclusions of the authors were premature to say the least. Although it required a considerable investment of time and effort, we respond with a formal review of both the paper and the outrageous claims made in the media for which there was no scientific evidence. Our letter to the journal, which was co-authored by some senior malaria scientists from South Africa, was published in the journal. Although the authors of the paper were given ample opportunity to respond to our criticisms, they declined – which is telling.
You make the point that we have focused on DDT – true, we have done so because there is a need for someone to respond to the never-ending claims of harm. Someone has to stand up and defend the malaria control programs that are using DDT and implementing effective malaria control measures – perhaps if some of the other advocacy groups or individuals stepped up and helped to defend IRS and the use of public health insecticides, we wouldn’t have to spend so much of our time and energy doing it.
In addition to defending the use of public health insecticides, we strongly advocate for investments in new insecticides and against regulations and policies that may hamper access to insecticides or investment in new insecticides. For instance in 2008/9 we coordinated a response to proposed EU regulation of insecticides that could limit access to insecticides. (The various documents that I describe are available on our website) As an example of our work in this regard, we recently held a successful policy briefing on Capitol Hill (in Washington, D.C.) involving stakeholders from advocacy groups, donor agencies and the private sector. Again details of this are available on our website.
Aside from our advocacy and defense of public health insecticides, we have been successful in exposing the ongoing use of sub-standard malaria medicines as well as fake medicines in Africa. Our research studies have been published in Malaria Journal, PLoS One, and other journals. In order to maintain this project and to get safe and effective malaria medicines out to communities we have raised funds for malaria treatments and have focused on increasing access in Uganda. Again, details are available on our website.
Lastly AFM is involved in a research and advocacy program to remove import tariffs and non-tariff barriers from malaria commodities. As malaria programs are scaled up, it is increasingly important to ensure that barriers to access are removed – import tariffs and non-tariff barriers can be significant and AFM is very excited to be involved in this important area of research and advocacy. See http://www.m-tap.org for more details.
So, I hope that this helps to answer the questions about what we do. We are a policy and research group, we have never pretended to be anything else and our track record stands for itself.
Paul, if you want to have a discussion about our work, I’d be happy to correspond with you and your colleagues on a basis of cordiality and respect. I would be delighted to debate our work on DDT, public health insecticides, drug quality and import tariffs and non-tariff barriers, but let’s leave the sniping bloggers and their misleading and biased comments out of this.
Richard Tren
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Evidence of mosquito resistance to the drug has been recently reported.
Shah is skeptical of a surge of private charity that emphasizes the use of mosquito nets following the decline of government-led anti-malaria programs in the 1990s. Acknowledging the contributions of Bill Gates and former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, she lists Veto the ‘Squito, a youth-led charity; Nothing but Nets, an anti-malarial basketball charity; and World Swim Against Malaria. She quotes The New York Times as decrying “hip ways to show you care.”
Her own comment: “Just because something is simple doesn’t necessarily mean that people will do it.”
“(T)he schools, roads, clinics, secure housing and good governance that enable regular prevention and prompt treatment must be built,” she concludes. “Otherwise the cycle of depression and resurgence will begin anew; malaria will win, as it always has.”
Anti-environmentalists, anti-scientists, and other conservatives won’t like the book: It says we can’t beat malaria cheaply by just spreading a lot of poison on Africa and Africans.
Especially if you’re doing the noble thing and vacationing in the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama, or Mississippi, or Louisiana, you may want to read this. If you’re vacationing in the Hamptons, Martha’s Vinyard, or Cannes, buy several copies to pass out at dinner with your friends.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
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Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 