Learn to listen carefully young bunnies

Aaron Swartz has a strong article on the manipulation of misinformation about DDT by, among other friends of Rabett Run, Roger Bate. It has also appeared at FAIR. Now as many know Roger is the fellow who pitched fighting malaria to various tobacco companies as a way of discrediting the World Health Organization and distracting it from a soon to be launched anti smoking campaign. Among the gems that Aaron dug out were

In an interview, Bate said that his motivation had changed after years of working on the issue of malaria. "I think my position has mellowed, perhaps with age," he told Extra!. "[I have] gone from being probably historically anti-environmental to being very much pro-combating malaria now." He pointed to the work he'd done making sure money to fight malaria was spent properly, including a study he co-authored in the respected medical journal the Lancet (7/15/06) on dishonest accounting at the World Bank. He insisted that he wasn't simply pro-DDT, but instead was willing to support whatever the evidence showed worked. And he flatly denied that AFM had ever received money from tobacco, pharmaceutical or chemical companies.

Emphasis added. Eli's original post pointed to a damning letter from Bate to Dan Greenberg of Phillip Morris in which he made the pitch, but just as important to what we are talking about here are the marginal notations by Greenberg which have not previously been remarked on (maybe because the handwriting is so bad).

The lab bunnies have put this under microscope. The one on the right says

Malaria out of ESEF ~ only recently {unclear} donation and only for ESEF in malaria Earmarked funds or CCSI - Cambridge Center for Study of Institutions

Africa Fighting Malaria may not have gotten the money, but it sure looks like Bate did through ESEF or CCSI (ESEF folded about that time) and whether they passed it on and used it to found AFM is the real question.

With the like of Bate, one has to be precise.