Paul Reiter
Encyclopedia
Paul Reiter is a professor of medical entomology at the Pasteur Institute
in the city of Paris
, France
. He is a member of the World Health Organization
Expert Advisory Committee on Vector Biology and Control . He was an employee of the Center for Disease Control (Dengue Branch) for 22 years . He is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society . He is a specialist in the natural history, epidemiology and control of mosquito
-borne diseases such as dengue fever
, West Nile Virus
, and malaria
.
Working Group II (Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) report, but resigned because he "found [himself] at loggerheads with persons who insisted on making authoritative pronouncements, although they had little or no knowledge of [his] speciality". After ceasing to contribute he says he struggled to get his name removed from the Third report
Reiter is sceptical about the IPCC process, as seen in his April 25, 2006 testimony to the United States Senate
:
Paul Reiter presented Malaria in the debate on climate change and mosquito-borne disease on April 25, 2006. The four primary points of his presentation here were:
The UK government has said that Reiter "does not accurately represent the current scientific debate on the potential impacts of climate change on health in general, or malaria in particular. He appears to have been quite selective in the references and reports that he has criticised, focusing on those that are neither very recent nor reflective of the current state of knowledge, now or when they were published" http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/71/71.pdf.
In The Great Global Warming Swindle
, Reiter says "this claim that the IPCC
is the world's top 1500 or 2500 scientists, you look at the bibliographies of the people and its simply not true. There are quite a number of non-scientists."
Pasteur Institute
The Pasteur Institute is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who made some of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine at the time, including pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax...
in the city of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He is a member of the World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
Expert Advisory Committee on Vector Biology and Control . He was an employee of the Center for Disease Control (Dengue Branch) for 22 years . He is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society . He is a specialist in the natural history, epidemiology and control of mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
-borne diseases such as dengue fever
Dengue fever
Dengue fever , also known as breakbone fever, is an infectious tropical disease caused by the dengue virus. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin rash that is similar to measles...
, West Nile Virus
West Nile virus
West Nile virus is a virus of the family Flaviviridae. Part of the Japanese encephalitis antigenic complex of viruses, it is found in both tropical and temperate regions. It mainly infects birds, but is known to infect humans, horses, dogs, cats, bats, chipmunks, skunks, squirrels, domestic...
, and malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
.
Criticism of the IPCC
Reiter says he was a contributor to the third IPCCIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
Working Group II (Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) report, but resigned because he "found [himself] at loggerheads with persons who insisted on making authoritative pronouncements, although they had little or no knowledge of [his] speciality". After ceasing to contribute he says he struggled to get his name removed from the Third report
- "After much effort and many fruitless discussions, I decided to concentrate on the USGCCRP and resigned from the IPCC project. My resignation was accepted, but in a first draft I found that my name was still listed. I requested its removal, but was told it would remain because "I had contributed". It was only after strong insistence that I succeeded in having it removed."
Reiter is sceptical about the IPCC process, as seen in his April 25, 2006 testimony to the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
:
- "A galling aspect of the debate is that this spurious 'science' is endorsed in the public forum by influential panels of 'experts.' I refer particularly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCCIntergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
). Every five years, this UN-based organization publishes a 'consensus of the world's top scientists' on all aspects of climate change. Quite apart from the dubious process by which these scientists are selected, such consensus is the stuff of politics, not of science. Science proceeds by observation, hypothesis and experiment. The complexity of this process, and the uncertainties involved, are a major obstacle to a meaningful understanding of scientific issues by non-scientists. In reality, a genuine concern for mankind and the environment demands the inquiry, accuracy and scepticism that are intrinsic to authentic science. A public that is unaware of this is vulnerable to abuse."
Paul Reiter presented Malaria in the debate on climate change and mosquito-borne disease on April 25, 2006. The four primary points of his presentation here were:
- Malaria is not an exclusively tropical disease
- The transmission dynamics of the disease are complex; the interplay of climate, ecology, mosquito biology, mosquito behavior and many other factors defies simplistic analysis.
- It is facile to attribute current resurgence of the disease to climate change, or to use models based on temperature to “predict” future prevalence.
- Environmental activists use the ‘big talk’ of science to create a simple but false paradigm. Malaria specialists who protest this are generally ignored, or labelled as ‘sceptics’.
The UK government has said that Reiter "does not accurately represent the current scientific debate on the potential impacts of climate change on health in general, or malaria in particular. He appears to have been quite selective in the references and reports that he has criticised, focusing on those that are neither very recent nor reflective of the current state of knowledge, now or when they were published" http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/71/71.pdf.
In The Great Global Warming Swindle
The Great Global Warming Swindle
The Great Global Warming Swindle is a polemical documentary film that suggests that the scientific opinion on climate change is influenced by funding and political factors, and questions whether scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming exists....
, Reiter says "this claim that the IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
is the world's top 1500 or 2500 scientists, you look at the bibliographies of the people and its simply not true. There are quite a number of non-scientists."
External links
- Articles indexed by Google Scholar
- Global warming and malaria: knowing the horse before hitching the cart , Malaria Journal, 2008, 7(Suppl 1):S3
- From Shakespeare to Defoe: malaria in England in the Little Ice Age, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 6, No. 1 Jan–Feb 2000
- Texas lifestyle limits transmission of dengue virus Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 9, No. 1 January 2003
- Field Investigations of an Outbreak of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, Kikwit, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1995: Arthropod Studies The Journal of Infectious Diseases, February 1999 Supplement
- First recorded outbreai of yellow fever in Kenya, 1992-1993. I. Epidemiological investigations The American Journal of the Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 59(4), 1998, pp. 644–649