Well done Paul - no silly references to global warming (because it isn't) stuck to the script as "Climate Change" (Can someone tell me when the climate stopped changing?).
However no marks for not agreeing with that nice rich Mr. Gore and his mates and adding more scares.
If you continue down your present path you will be ridiculed and face a barrage of disgusting abuse from people making lots of money from? Now what is it again?

The real surprise in this business about climate change supposedly helping spread certain diseases is that, as we all saw in OLO yesterday, senior executives at WHO are seriously still pushing this line - years after it has been thoroughly debunked by articles such as this one. People seem to love a good disaster story and never mind the facts.

As I understand it, Prof Reiters main point of contention is that simplistic disease epidemiological models based solely or majorly on temperature are inadequate and likely unpredictive. In other publications he has pointed out that this is because the transmission dynamics of the disease are complex; the interplay of climate, ecology, mosquito biology, mosquito behavior and many other factors defies simplistic analysis. He has also been quite vocal in saying that it is facile in attributing the current resurgence of the disease to climate change without actually having more facts about what the major drivers are in the affected areas. I would certainly have to agree with this viewpoint, climate change policy should be based on good science, not simplistic and likely false messages. This applies to all sides.

It is unfortunate that though, that politics does not run on subtle and complex messages, it runs on simple messages with loud sloganeering and nasty mudslinging matches. Science should be kept away from this sort politics, but when it has been recognised that broad political support is needed for large scale action, this is sadly impossible.

Given that DDT has had its day (except in very limited structural treatments), and insecticide resistance is a general problem in mosquitoes, I wonder what his hopes for the future are in terms of limiting disease transmission?

“Given that DDT has had its day (except in very limited structural treatments), and insecticide resistance is a general problem in mosquitoes, I wonder what his hopes for the future are in terms of limiting disease transmission?” That’s a note of sense in conclusion of good comment by Bugsby.

One of the aspects skipped in this debate is that there is more than one type of Malaria. That which cursed the Netherlands until half a century or so ago, and even Norway in earlier years, is not the most virulent strain.
The nastiest of all, Plasmodium falciparum, is transmitted by mosquitoes less tolerant of the conditions accepted by the mosquito vectors which brought the scourge to those cooler climates.

It is false and simplistic to infer (if inference is being made) that anticipated climate change will not have the capacity to bring worse malarial problems than existed historically in cooler climates

*Entomology*

" ... the branch of zoology dealing with insects. ... "

I seem to recall viewing a documentary that stated it is not just any old mosquito that can transmit the malaria virus. From memory, it is the female of a particular species.

The issue of significance, and again from memory, is whether or not the virus can survive in the gut of the mosquito, which apparently it cannot in all species, and in most it rapidly dies internally upon being ingested.

..

*Ecology*

" ... the branch of biology dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and their environment, including other organisms. ... "

Global Warming -> Climate Change

According to some prediction models, the climate, as a consequence of g.w. and other factors will continue to change. Noting the other variables already mentioned in the article and by comments above, some areas of the globe are likely to become less habitable or even uninhabitable to the malaria transmitters, and other areas are likely to become more habitable.

I suspect, without having cross referenced known infestation zones with climate change prediction models, that there is potential for global warming to be both a blessing and a curse, depending on where one is domiciled.

On balance, will there be a heightened incidence overall?

Don't know. Don't have access to enough information to make a determination. Perhaps someone here can enlighten us further or posit some probabilities by model perhaps.

The “myth” originators (“less than a dozen authors dominate this practice in the field of public health…nearly all are non-scientists, yet they have been the main authors of the relevant chapters in the Assessment Reports published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”) should be named and shamed. The article should be mandatory reading for all the academic scientists ( or should we say ‘illegitimate scientists’ by Reiter’s definition) who assert that climate change is man-caused.