HACKADEMIC SPIN

That whirring noise in the distance is the sound of Australian Research Council Federation fellow John "Maytag" Quiggin trying to spin his way out of the corner he's bullshitted himself into. Maytag reckons Roger Bate, aside from a few quibbles, pretty much substantively agrees with Quiggin and Lambert's Prospect article beatifying Rachel Carson. As if.

Bate devotes over 1,200 words of his 1,500 word response to Quiggin and Lambert errors. Amongst which:

• John Quiggin and Tim Lambert purport to restore Rachel Carson’s reputation, trashing me and an organisation I helped found, Africa Fighting Malaria, in the process. Their article amounts to a half-baked conspiracy theory that breaks down with a cursory review of the facts. The authors’ hope is that by branding me a tobacco lobbyist and claiming the tobacco industry is bankrolling the campaign for DDT, they will convince others to dismiss DDT advocates as industry stooges. They are sadly mistaken.

• First, the tobacco industry never established the European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF).

• Second, I was never a tobacco lobbyist.

• Quiggin and Lambert claim that I have managed to pull the wool over the eyes of mainstream journalists, a backhanded compliment. In fact, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Nature have all reported correctly on DDT, based on credible and available scientific evidence.

• The reality is that DDT is probably the most useful insecticide ever used for public health. Despite what Quiggin and Lambert say, the public health provisions of the 1972 US delisting of DDT have been used several times after 1972 in the US to combat plague-carrying fleas, in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

• Quiggin and Lambert are wrong to dismiss WHO’s 2006 support as a restatement of old policy. While DDT has been a WHO-approved insecticide for decades, for many years WHO officials did not promote its use, instead tending to push for insecticide-treated nets. Following WHO statements supporting DDT, some developing-country governments, such as Uganda, have been emboldened to say they want to spray the chemical, even in the face of opposition from local business lobbies.

• The environmental movement is not entirely to blame for preventing sensible uses of DDT, but it’s not surprising that it is trying to cleanse history. Its reputation has been dented because of its apparent callousness against the use of a life-saving chemical. Its line, repeated by Quiggin and Lambert, is that environmental groups dropped total opposition to DDT during the Stockholm negotiations. This is misleading. To their credit, some groups, such as the Sierra Club, have come forward with guarded support for DDT. Other groups, such as the South Africa-based Endangered Wildlife Trust, have provided admirable practical assistance to malaria control programs using DDT so that environmental contamination is minimised.

• While I regret that Quiggin and Lambert continue to parrot these anti-DDT sentiments, there are many ill-informed arguments for the use of DDT to be found, especially online. I may not have done enough in the early years of this decade to respond to those excesses, and may even occasionally indulged in them myself, but for many years I have tried to be logical. I even gave a partial defence of Rachel Carson in the Washington Post last year, absolving her of responsibility for the irrational things her followers have done.

• DDT remains underused. It is no panacea, but it is still the most cost-effective method of malaria prevention in most locations. I wish the tobacco industry had funded the campaign I proposed back in 1998, but they didn’t. Quiggin and Lambert’s attempt to rewrite history will not change it. DDT has saved innumerable lives. Stifling Africa’s efforts to use it against malaria has likely cost many more.

Gee, who would have thought a person can have no research skills whatever and still be an Australian Research Council Federation fellow?


For background see HACKADEMICS and HACKADEMICS PART TWO.

Update: Rather than discuss the bullshit he tries to pass off as knowledgeable commentary Quiggin has deleted my comment at his blog. Funny how he and Lambert are scared to discuss the issues.

Here's the disappeared comment:

So Bate wrote a 1,500 word response agreeing with you and Lambert, did he? Maybe you should take another look.

“John Quiggin and Tim Lambert purport to restore Rachel Carson’s reputation, trashing me and an organisation I helped found, Africa Fighting Malaria, in the process. Their article amounts to a half-baked conspiracy theory that breaks down with a cursory review of the facts. The authors’ hope is that by branding me a tobacco lobbyist and claiming the tobacco industry is bankrolling the campaign for DDT, they will convince others to dismiss DDT advocates as industry stooges. They are sadly mistaken.”

Yep, he’s with you [and] Lambert almost 100%.


Insignificant hobby blogger with a BA in politics 1, high powered PhD 0.