date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 15:33:49 -0400
from: Paul Reiter <preiter@hsph.harvard.edu>
subject: Climate change and mosquitoborne disease
to: m.hulme@uea.ac.uk

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Dear Mike,

Enjoyed meeting you last week.

Attached are a couple of papers I mentioned.  The review in 
Environmental Health Perspectives is the most comprehensive.

As an example of the sort of thing I tried to explain to you, try the 
paper by Harvell in Science, June 21.  I have never heard of any of 
the authors, yet they write with authority on dengue and malaria.

I ran the bit on bird malaria past my Director, Duane Gubler. He 
worked on bird malaria in Hawaii in the 1960s.  Even then it was a 
major cause of death in wild birds.  He agreed: there is no reason to 
believe that climate change has been relevant in recent years.

Then there is the bit in the Conclusions: The most detectable effects 
of directional climate warming on disease relate to geographic range 
expansion of pathogens such as Rift Valley fever, dengue ...

I assure you, there is absolutely no evidence for either.  RVF shows 
no change in range.  Pandemics of dengue (and yellow fever) were once 
common in the USA and Europe.  The first epidemic of dengue ever 
described was in Pennsylvania in 1780 (it was colder then!) and the 
disease occurred as far north as Boston.  YF has been transmitted in 
Dublin and Swansea.  Dengue has expanded in range since the 
1950s-60s, when there was a major effort to eliminate the vector by 
DDT treatments.  As the vector has returned, so has the virus.

So, as I tried to explain, in my field there is a lamentable 
dissemination of unsubstantiated statements that are not supported by 
any observations.

In answer to your questions re the IPCC: I dont make comments on the 
climatology, but if the statements are in any way of the same ilk as 
those in my field, then I think the situation is lamentable.

Hope we get a chance to discuss some more.

Best wishes

Paul
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Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\Reiter_clim_chge_mos_dis.PDF"

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-- 
_________________________________
Paul Reiter
CDC West Nile Project
Harvard School of Public Health
Building 1, Room 107
665 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
USA

Tel:	1 617 432 4228
Fax:	1 617 432 1796
Cell:	1 617 515 1494
_________________________________
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