A case of malaria reported in Virginia last week prompted us to review our malaria research file and put in a call to Dr. Paul Reiter, tropical disease expert with the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The news article said no cases of malaria had been reported in the United States since 1996, and that this was the first case in Virginia in 50 years. It also noted that health officials were investigating the case to see if the victim had come into contact with migrant workers from Latin America.

It seems now that the news story requires some clarification. Science writer Ellen Ruppel Shell, in a lengthy article on malaria in the August 1997 Atlantic Monthly ("Resurgence of a Deadly Disease"), reported that 1000-1200 cases of malaria turn up in the U.S. each year, and that, according to the CDC, these represent only about half the actual incidence. Overwhelmingly, these are either foreign visitors to the U.S. or Americans (including military personnel) returning from countries where malaria is endemic. But a handful of cases are transmitted locally.. Shell says that since 1988, such cases have been reported in California, Michigan, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and New York. Reiter says two years ago there was a case of yellow fever reported in Tennessee.

These U S. cases are not evidence of any warming of the climate. Dr. Reiter says mosquitoes capable of spreading malaria. are now common throughout the U.S.(and the world), having hitchhiked a ride on shipping containers and, ironically, in old automobile tires slated for recycling. Rainwater gets into the tires and creates a perfect breeding ground for the mosquitos, says Reiter. Japan, to cite one example, ships old tires to 43 countries, including the United States, and Asian mosquitoes capable of transmitting diseases, such as malaria, come in with each load. Fortunately, window screens, air conditioning, and effective public health measures keep the number of cases of local malaria few in number. The question is, would they remain few in number if energy use--and air conditioning use--were reduced, exposing more Americans to open windows and mosquito bites?

Dr. Reiter was one of the scientists sent in to Africa to study the ebola outbreak a few years ago. Last month, he spoke at a Congressional staff briefing in here in Washington, D.C. News coverage of his talk follows:

Copyright 1998 THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Disease expert hits global-warming link;
Sees no rise in mosquito-borne illnesses
By Ruth Larson
July 29, 1998

An infectious-disease specialist said yesterday that global warming, even if true, would not likely cause deadly mosquito-borne illnesses to spread to the United States as some environmentalists and scientists have predicted.

Paul Reiter, chief of entomology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has spent his career traveling the world investigating outbreaks of diseases such as malaria and yellow fever, which are spread by mosquitoes.

In a briefing to congressional staffers, Mr. Reiter concluded, "Global warming is unlikely to give rise to major epidemics of mosquito-borne diseases in the United States unless conditions deteriorate drastically."

He said predictions of such epidemics are simply misguided and alarmist because, short of a total collapse of society, modern living conditions limit the spread of these illnesses.

Mr. Reiter pointed out that normal summer temperatures in this country are often hotter than those in tropical regions, where these diseases are common. He said the mere presence of such mosquitoes, many of which are native to the United States, does not mean that the maladies will be transmitted.

Innovations such as insect screens, air conditioning, and well-constructed homes and office buildings now keep mosquitoes away from people. Anti-malarial drugs and vaccinations against yellow fever have further reduced the spread of these diseases.

Thus, even if the climate were to heat up, the factors necessary for an epidemic are no longer present, he said.

Mr. Reiter's presentation was organized by the Cooler Heads Coalition, a group of 23 nonprofit and pro-market organizations concerned that global warming policies could harm consumers far more than global warming itself.

Mr. Reiter said he was "quite appalled" that individuals with no qualifications in the field of infectious diseases are predicting that global warming will cause the mosquitoes and the diseases they carry to spread to the United States.

"I'm not a rocket scientist, and I'm not a brain surgeon," Mr. Reiter said. "But it's been quite astonishing how many rocket scientists and brain surgeons are involved in statements about mosquito-borne diseases."

For example, the Environmental Protection Agency's global warming Web site says, "The geographic range and life-cycles of pathogens and vectors (e.g., mosquitoes) which transmit disease are affected by climate. Climate change would, in aggregate, increase the potential transmission of many vector-borne diseases."

Mr. Reiter said he was concerned that attention was being diverted from the important tasks of controlling and preventing the diseases, and instead focused on "blaming it on the weather."

He said another fallacy is that these "tropical" diseases never have affected northern regions. Chaucer and Shakespeare wrote about malaria, then known as ague, in England and Scotland. Malaria has been known as far north as the Soviet Union and Scandinavia.

The United States has seen dozens of epidemics, most in the 1700s and 1800s. A yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, Tenn., in 1878 infected 19,000 people and almost destroyed the city. An estimated 20,000 people died of yellow fever nationwide that year.