Last month, we reported on a study by Drs. Donald Roberts and Richard Tren of Africa Fighting Malaria on the life-saving anti-malaria benefits of DDT spraying. Predictably, the study received harsh but misguided criticism from frequent anti-DDT blogger Tim Lambert. Below is an excerpt from Dr. Roberts’ published counter-argument to Lambert’s “outrageous commentary [attempting] to claim our data were wrong:”
Lambert recently posted a commentary on our peer-reviewed scientific paper investigating false claims made by UNEP and GEF about insecticide-free malaria control interventions in Mexico and Central America, accessible here. Articles On This Issue
[His] opening comment misstates our argument entirely ... From his comments, it seems as though Lambert never took the time to actually read the paper; rather it appears he has just tried to discredit data we included in one of the tables.
… Lambert's claim about decreasing numbers of malaria cases invalidating our conclusions is total nonsense ... We will not dignify further his meaningless commentary.
Some of Lambert's devoted readers have encouraged him to write a rebuttal to the journal [Research and Reports in Tropical Medicine]. We hope he follows this advice, as we would greatly appreciate the opportunity of writing a formal response ... His campaign against DDT harms malaria control and feeds into an agenda that has imposed great harm on the world's poor.
[His] opening comment misstates our argument entirely ... From his comments, it seems as though Lambert never took the time to actually read the paper; rather it appears he has just tried to discredit data we included in one of the tables.
… Lambert's claim about decreasing numbers of malaria cases invalidating our conclusions is total nonsense ... We will not dignify further his meaningless commentary.
Some of Lambert's devoted readers have encouraged him to write a rebuttal to the journal [Research and Reports in Tropical Medicine]. We hope he follows this advice, as we would greatly appreciate the opportunity of writing a formal response ... His campaign against DDT harms malaria control and feeds into an agenda that has imposed great harm on the world's poor.