"Greenhouse" Industry Promotes False Disease Scare

By Jay Reynolds
Veritas News Service
August 7, 1998


A study by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health used computer climate models to show how dengue fever, a sometimes fatal mosquito-borne disease, could spread into temperate regions. The headline of the press release read: "Global Warming Would Foster Spread of Dengue Fever into Some Temperate Regions".

Dengue fever is transmitted by the aedes aegypti mosquito, which was largely eradicated in the Americas in an effort to stop yellow fever beginning around 1900. In 1970, efforts to maintain these mosquito control efforts were suspended, and dengue fever began a resurgence, leading to it's current status as "the most widespread viral infection transmitted in man by insects".

The authors assert that: "The geographic range of Ae. aegypti is limited by freezing temperatures that kill overwintering larvae and eggs, so that dengue virus transmission is limited to tropical and subtropical regions".

Historical records of yellow fever epidemics, however, show that the aedes aegypti mosquito was responsible for yellow fever epidemics in New York in 1690 during the "little ice age" when temperatures were much cooler than the present.

Obviously, mosquito control, window screening, and public health measures have more influence on aedes aegypti prevalence than temperature alone, and to their credit, the Johns Hopkins folks do say: ""Our study makes no claim that climate factors are the most important determinants of dengue fever."

Funding for the story was partly provided by the "Greenhouse Industry" via the Climate Policy and Assessment Division of the EPA, so despite the disclaimer buried within the article, the authors had to supply a suitably hysteric "global warming" headline.

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