In The News
Global Warming and Outbreaks or Increases in Disease
Monday October 20, 2003
FACT: There is no connection between global warming and outbreaks or increases in disease, tropical or otherwise. Dr. Paul Reiter, who worked for 22 years as a medical entomologist for the Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Disease of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and now head of the new unit of Insects and Infectious Disease at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, recently complained that those making such a connections (including the U.N.’s IPCC) are “exploiting common misconceptions: mosquito-borne diseases are ‘tropical,’ hot weather and heavy rainfall mean more mosquitoes, mosquitoes die if the weather is cold, and more mosquitoes mean more infections.” As he put it, “It is immoral for the political activists to mislead the public by attributing the recent resurgence of these diseases to climate change, particularly in Africa. The true reasons are far more complex, and the principal determinants are politics, economics, and human activities. A creative and organized application of resources to change the situation is urgently needed, regardless of future climate.”