Adam Smith Institute

View Original

An epidemic of WHO spin

1218
an-epidemic-of-who-spin

One major aspect of climate change scare mongering is epidemics. For example, the WHO and other scientists with a strong green bias claim that US energy policy is "indirectly exporting disease to other parts of the world" - causing probably 160,000 deaths per year.
 
However, infectious disease specialists from the Paris-based Pasteur Institute are defending the US against such claims. They demonstrate that Tiger mosquito-borne outbreaks, for which the WHO blames global warming, are actually caused by simple transportation. Malaria is not a tropical disease at all but simply one that affects the poor most .

The thing is that the WHO counts on ignorance and loss of memory to drive public opinion into climate scare scenarios. Malaria is one example of this. Most people have forgotten that Malaria was once quite common in Northern Europe – including Germany, Holland, and Britain – and was only completely eradicated there as late as the 1970s. The Pasteur doctors argue:

The globalization of vectors and pathogens is a serious problem. But it is not new. The Yellow Fever mosquito and virus were imported into North America from Africa during the slave trade. The dengue virus is distributed throughout the tropics and regularly jumps continents inside air passengers. West Nile virus likely arrived in the U.S. in shipments of wild birds. These diseases are spread by mosquitoes and therefore difficult to quarantine.

In the same way, that Malaria was probably slightly less active in Shakespeare’s England during the ‘Little Ice Age’ - although he mentions the disease in eight of his plays – it might well be slightly more active in our times due to mild warming. But this is by no means a decisive factor and people will always find ways to adapt to these new conditions.