Roger Bate

From SourceWatch

Roger Bate (rbate@iea.org.uk) has been called "the European version of Steve Milloy".

• Institute of Economic Affairs, Director of Environmental Unit, 1993-2000; fellow, 2000-
• European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF), Founder and Executive Director, 1995-2001
• Africa Fighting Malaria, Co-director
• International Policy Network, Director, 2001-2003, Fellow 2003-
• Sustainable Development Network, "Member"
• Competitive Enterprise Institute, Adjunct Fellow
• Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, Advisory Board
• American Enterprise Institute, Visiting Fellow
• Warburg Securities and Charles Stanley & Co. (stockbrokers), Research Analyst, 1986-1989
• Presenter of the BBC2 program Organic Food: The Modern Myth

In 1996, Roger Bate approached R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for a grant of £50,000 to fund a book on risk, containing a chapter on passive smoking [1] (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/cgi/getdoc?tid=wov90d00&fmt=gif&ref=results&title=ENVIRONMENTAL%20RISK.&bates=515952606/2609). That same year he wrote the article "Is Nothing Worse Than Tobacco?," for Wall Street Journal and in 1997, the ESEF published What Risk? Science, Politics and Public Health, edited by Roger Bate which included a chapter on passive smoking.

Bate is joint author, with Julian Morris of Fearing Food: Risk, Health and Environment. The IEA website describes the book in the following way : "In the latest ESEF book, Fearing Food, new agricultural and food technologies, including genetic engineering, are shown to be generally beneficial both to health and to the environment." (Fearing Food was published by Butterworth-Heinemann in September 1999).

While the World Health Organisation estimates that 10 million a year are projected to die from tobacco related illness a year by 2025 - with 70% of those deaths occurring in developing countries - Bate questions the necessity for the development of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. "The tobacco convention is in place, but one wonders why. Rather than going after infectious diseases (like cholera or dengue) in poor countries, or at least "involuntary" disease in rich countries (like cancer or hypertension), the WHO decided to go after "voluntary" smokers," he argued. [2] (http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bate200404190820.asp)

"It's debatable whether smoking-related diseases should be classified as a public health issue at all — surely, it's a private matter if you decide to smoke. While there is merit in heading off a future problem, the main effect of the anti-tobacco convention has been to introduce a far-reaching power base from which WHO has launched other initiatives that encroach deep into private life," he wrote.

In January 2001 the Earhart Foundation contributed $25,000 to the Competitive Enterprise Institute for "the period November 2000 through July 2001 to prepare a monograph When Politics Kills - The Political Economy of Malaria Control, Roger Bate, Research Principal". [3] (http://www.mediatransparency.org/search_results/info_on_any_recipient.php?81)

Bate also appears to have been deliberately deceptive about the resurgence of Malaria in Sri Lanka, starting a myth that environmentalists forced the country to stop spraying DDT, leading to "half a million" cases of malaria. In reality, the source Bate himself cites explains that DDT spraying was stopped because they thought the disease had been irradicated and immediately restarted when they realized it hadn't. It was later stopped again when the mosquitos developed resistance, but Bate ignored this fact and started demanding further DDT spraying. [4] (http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/2005/02#ddt3) [5] (http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/2005/02#ddt2)

Links

• CEI Expert Profile: Roger Bate (http://www.cei.org/dyn/view_expert.cfm?expert=105)
• AEI Profile: Roger Bate (http://www.aei.org/scholars/scholarID.76,filter./scholar.asp)
• Roger Bate, "Is Nothing Worse Than Tobacco? (http://web.archive.org/web/19991008164924/esef.org/wsjtobac.htm)," Wall Street Journal Europe, July 24, 1996
• Roger Bate, "Eco-imperialism: Green Power; Black Death (http://www.techcentralstation.com/012104C.html)", Tech Central Station, January 21, 2004.
• Roger Bate, "Moore Wisdom Needed (http://www.techcentralstation.com/021004C.html)", Tech Central Station, February 10, 2004 .
• Roger Bate, "WHO’s on Last?: A politicized and irrelevant global agency (http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bate200404190820.asp)", National Review, April 19, 2004.

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