Attaran Update

The Mark has picked up my story, which I am most proud of, on the connections among Iggy, Amir Attaran, a fierce critic of the government's Afghan policy, tobacco scientist Roger Bate, and the tobacco industry front group Africa Fighting Malaria.

A few things have happened since that piece written. For one thing, Attaran has denied receiving tobacco industry funding at the Carr Center (although not, clearly, from AFM). For another thing, I have been in touch with Adam Sarvana, whose work I quoted from extensively in the previous post, and he has expressed the opinion that Attaran is "principled" but was unfortunately taken in by Roger Bate's and the AFM's "Rachel Carson/Environmentalists have murdered millions of third-worlders" line.

So the working assumption must be that Attaran is unaware of the AFM, and Bate's, dubious pedigree. Nevertheless, the AFM is what it is: an tobacco industry front group. And it is certainly interesting that this letter from Attaran on the dangers of phasing out DDT use too quickly should wind up in the files of British American Tobacco.

Finally, this is the full-text of Roger Bate's letter to Philip Morris in which he outlines the aims and purpose of his anti-malaria "operation", which eventually became the AFM.