One of the most profound statements I know is by Science Fiction writer, Philip K Dick, best known for Bladerunner. In his 1978 essay ‘How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall  Apart Two Days Later’ Dick said “One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.“

What is of most interest to me is its converse – An unreality is that which, when you stop believing in it, goes away. Several major topics come to mind which I will discuss later.

I have always been interested in research and invention. I completed degrees – Bachelors, Masters and PhD in Chemical Engineering. But at the end of my PhD I realised that scientific research for its own sake did not seem possible to me at that time. Modern scientific research is no longer the realm, as it was up to the 19^th century, of gentleman scientists with independent means studying topics of interest to them. Most R&D is funded by private businesses or government research programmes and these funders want results that will benefit their financial or policy interests. The researcher is no longer independent. Junior professors at research universities spend most of their time writing grant proposals to try and interest these funders.

I preferred to work in industry, where at least the motivation was to improve production process to make a profit. Now as I get older and more financially secure, I find myself drawn to topics that interest me. And what interests me most are topics where establishment interests are promoting scientific hypotheses that don’t ring true.

The first topic to attract my interest in early 2000s was global warming. At first, I had no reason to disbelieve the catastrophe narrative. But my scientific interest, and knowledge of the core subjects of chemical engineering, heat and mass transfer, encouraged me to investigate the science behind the catastrophe theory. I soon found that doubling the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would cause no more than 1°C of warming based on heat and mass transfer principles. This small temperature increase was generally agreed to be beneficial rather than harmful. I immediately started to tell everyone not to worry. But I got strange reactions, like that of a former engineering class colleague who questioned my religion! Wasn’t this a scientific topic?

In 2007 the UK Channel 4 TV documentary ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ debunked the global warming hypothesis and the Gore film from the previous year. After that, the ruling oligarchs through their control of governments and mainstream media made sure that from then on ‘The Science’ was never again allowed to be questioned in mainstream media. I watched on in disbelief as governments ruined their countries’ economies by implementing costly green energy policies based on a big lie. Sceptics were systematically ignored. Only the oligarchs’ current desire for cheap energy to power AI is likely to end these costly policies.

And in March 2020, COVID19 struck. At first my disbelief was that governments all over the worlds enacted excessive lockdown policies for a cold virus with cruel police state enthusiasm. This hadn’t happened for more serious influenza epidemics in 1950s and 60s. But as the scamdemic continued into 2021, I researched deeper and deeper. Reading the revised edition of ‘Virus Mania’ by Engelbrecht et al was my ‘red pill’. Not only was COVID19 unreal, but also all other viral illnesses. AIDS is not sexually transmitted. Polio probably caused by poison, etc, etc.

This new understanding of the frailties of germ theory made me question other illnesses. In 2022 I travelled to sub-Saharan Africa and my travelling companion asked me to get malaria tablets. I investigated the various options and found the efficacy of all questionable. I did not get the tablets and did not contract malaria.

This sent me on my new research quest. I found that very little had been written questioning the mosquito plasmodium transmission story. If you think about this logically, it seems very unlikely that a mosquito feeding on blood could transmit the sufficient number of plasmodia back to its salivary glands and into a new victim to transmit disease.

So, I researched and wrote the book ‘Malaria is spread by mosquitos?’. This included translating from Italian into English for the first time Battista Grassi’s 1901 ‘studi di uno zoologo sulla malaria’ (Studies of a Zoologist about malaria). Why hadn’t this work, so often cited as proof that malaria is spread by mosquitos, been translated before? It is far from convincing as Grassi clearly suffered from confirmation bias in his research on this topic.

Each week I write a blog article on malaria research in the blog at usmalaria dot com website and in the Understanding Malaria LinkedIn group. And I peruse whatever else comes up in my LinkedIn feed. And most people seem to believe in catastrophic climate change and the Vs of germ theory, viruses and vaccines. I posted a response to a post boasting about a teenage boy getting the HPV vaccine which is supposed to prevent cervical cancer. Boys don’t have a cervix. The discussion continued for a while and based on the responses and the likes they received from others it was clear that no evidence I presented was going to the minds of these people.

Many people have strong religious beliefs, and curiously, unquestioning faith in the religion’s dogma is praised by many. I recently came across a video that told me that there is scant evidence that the central figure of my religion even existed. But I know better than to get into a discussion with a religious person on this topic.

But the same kind of faith seems to apply to many supposedly scientific theories. The mantra ‘Believe the science’ highlights this. The scientific method is supposed to be sceptical. Whether it is germ theory or global warming, many want to believe. And they use language typically used for religious heretics to attack sceptics.

To come back to Mr Dick’s profound words, it seems strange to me that so many people accept realities that objective examination would cause to go away. I now realise that I have to accept the reality that the majority of people want to believe easily falsifiable untrue hypotheses about science, politics and religion. The majority wants to support evil policies and regimes if told they are good by the ruling classes. If I chose to believe that all people are openminded and not afraid of examining their beliefs, that would not change this reality. We red pillers will always be a small minority and unfortunately we need to accept this reality.

The lead news story in MalariaWorld this week is that gut bacteria are associated with life-threatening complications in African children with severe malaria. The referenced article ‘Gut bacterial dysbiosis in pediatric severe malaria associates with post-discharge mortality’ by Bednarski et al was published in Nature Communications. In the study analysis of gut bacteria in stool samples from two separate African studies, in Malawi and Uganda, found that children with severe malaria have gut bacteria dysbiosis.

Dysbiosis (also called dysbacteriosis) is characterized by a disruption to the microbiome resulting in an imbalance in the microbiota, changes in their functional composition and metabolic activities, or a shift in their local distribution. AI search assist on Duckduckgo browser states that in the developing world bacterial dysbiosis can be caused by factors such as poor sanitation, malnutrition, and the overuse of antibiotics, which disrupt the natural balance of gut microbiota.

The dietary factors are nutritional deficiencies – limited access to diverse and nutritious foods and diets rich in sugars and refined carbohydrates that can promote harmful bacteria over beneficial ones. Medical factors include overuse of anti-biotics and infections. Inadequate sanitation and hygiene practices can increase exposure to pathogens affecting gut health. Chronic diseases and environmental toxins can negatively affect the gut microbiome.

In is no surprise that many severely ill children in the study had dysbiosis. And the authors suggest that the increased abundance of Enterobacteriaceae are associated with multiple clinical complications of severe malaria.

This suggests that the causes of severe malaria and gut bacterial dysbiosis are the same or associated. This adds more evidence to link malaria, especially sever malaria, with malnutrition, environmental toxins and poor sanitation.

(image from ecosh website).

An article on LinkedIn from Trevor Mundel, President of Global Health at Gates Foundation announced phase III trial for ganaplacide-lumefantrine (GanLum), a new non-artemisinin malaria treatment being developed by Swiss Pharma Giant, Novartis. The posting linked to web post from NPR. ‘New malaria drug could be a life-saver as the standard drug shows signs of weakness’ by Jonathon Lambert has preliminary results of a study which  enrolled over 16,000 adults and children over 2 years old with malaria across a dozen countries in Africa. Half took GanLum over the course of three days and half got the current artemisinin-based standard of care.

The team found both drugs were about equally effective, with GanLum coming out slightly on top. Both drugs had similar levels of side effects, including nausea and diarrhoea. But the GanLum group did experience more vomiting.

Hardly, a game changer. The reason given for its development is that there are fears that artemisinin based drugs might lose their effectiveness. Lumefantrine features in the treatment as it does in one of the most commonly used treatments today, the artemisinin based artemether-lumefantrine.

I sought more information and found the Phase II trial on clinicaltrials website, ID NCT04546633. ‘Ganaplacide (KAF156) plus lumefantrine solid dispersion formulation combination for uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria: an open-label, multicentre, parallel-group, randomised, controlled, phase 2 trial’ by Ogotu et al was published in the Lancet in 2023. The study for which 1220 patients were screened funded by Novartis and Medicines for Malaria Venture found little difference between it and control, also artemether-lumefantrine.

The article does state that GanLum won’t replace artemisinin remedies any time soon.

I suspect the real motivation for its development is to have a product upon which the patent royalties have not expired. Wikipedia informs that Ganaplacide is protected by the granted United States Patent 9,469,645. This is now owned by Novartis International Pharmaceutical Ltd., Bermuda.

Why else would Novartis be motivated to fund studies?

In MalariaWorld this week a study from Madagascar examines early bio-efficacy loss of ITNs. In ‘Early Bio-Efficacy Loss of Nets Mass Distributed for Malaria Vector Control in Madagascar in 2018: Implications for Malaria Prevention’, Nepomichene et al assess the bio-efficacy of DawaPlus® 2.0 and PermaNet® 2.0 ITNs upon arrival and at 12, 24, and 36 months after distribution.

On arrival, mosquito mortality rates observed when exposed to DawaPlus 2.0 (86.4%) and PermaNet 2.0 nets (83.6%) exceeded the WHO’s threshold of 80.0%. However, at 12, 24, and 36 months after distribution, mosquito mortality rates were <56% for all districts. With the exception new DawaPlus 2.0, the deltamethrin residue on ITNs was also lower than the expected ranges of 80 mg/m² ± 25% for DawaPlus 2.0 and 55 mg/m² ± 25% for PermaNet 2.0. Regardless of ITN age, the concentration of deltamethrin was <66 mg/m² for DawaPlus 2.0 and <36 mg/m² for PermaNet 2.0 ITNs. According to the manufacturers (Tana Netting, Bangkok, Thailand and Vestergaard–Frandsen, Lausanne, Switzerland), ITNs are effective for 36 months. Therefore, mass distribution campaigns are organized every 3 years. However, the DawaPlus 2.0 and PermaNet 2.0 ITNs exhibited a loss of bio-efficacy within 1 year of distribution.

The logic behind the use of insecticide treated nets is that a mosquito that lands on the net will die and not be able to bite another person. This is assumed to improve the effectiveness of nets at preventing malaria. However, this has never been effectively shown. It is not even clear that net programs are effective at reducing the occurrence of malaria. In their discussion the authors state that Madagascar, reported malaria cases increased from 965,000 in 2018 and 992,000 in 2019, shortly after mass ITN distribution, and to 1,950,000 in 2020 and then to 2,344,000 in 2021. This does not suggest that they are effective at preventing malaria.

I sleep inside a mosquito net because I don’t like the discomfort of mosquito bites. It is not insecticide treated. From a health perspective I am concerned about the exposure to insecticides from such nets. It is clear from this study that the insecticide does not stay on the nets so could easily be absorbed by people using them.

And, of course, nets can only prevent malaria if it is indeed spread by mosquitos. I do not believe that this hypothesis has been proven.

A case-control study in MalariaWorld this week found association between malaria and undernutrition. ‘Associations between undernutrition and malaria infection: a case–control study from Rwanda’ by Uwimana et al found significant association between malaria and vitamin E and iron deficiency. There was a significant association in the occurrence of malaria with sub-optimal lipid consumption.

The case study with a total of 1025 participants in Western, Southern, Northern, Eastern provinces and Kigali of Rwanda, which are classified as malaria-endemic with stable transmission was carried out from November 2021 until December 2023. 658 were included in the analysis. Children under 3 years old were excluded due to underrepresentation. After analysis of reported dietary habits to detect under reporters and over reporters using the Goldberg index, 337 participants were excluded. 34% of the 658 tested positive for malaria.

The diet of the study population was predominantly composed of starchy foods, 56.7% of total intake. Fats contributed a moderate 16%, while vegetables and legumes made up 9.4% and 9.3%, respectively. Animal-source proteins were consumed at notably low levels: dairy products at 2.5%, and meat, poultry, fish, and eggs collectively at just 1.1%. 58.2% of participants reported caloric intake below 90% of the daily recommended intake.

There was an association between overall nutrition and malaria (measured with rapid diagnostic tests, RDT) but not statistically significant. Low intake of fats was associated with increased malaria. In general, the diet of the participants was sub-optimum with 58.2% consuming less than 90% of recommended calories, and low consumption of animal proteins.

There were some anomalies in the micronutrient consumption studies. In particular, the consumption of selenium was positively associated with malaria. Also, recall bias related to nutrition intake cannot be excluded and could lead to potential risk of error from participants in reporting their dietary habits.

The authors conclude that addressing micronutrient deficiencies may be a valuable strategy in malaria control efforts. Improving nutrition status, with an emphasis on food composition and a balanced diet, could further strengthen immunity for the control of infectious diseases including malaria. Therefore, integration or close collaboration between national programmes for nutrition and infectious diseases control are highly recommended.

A study listed in MalariaWorld this week found that adherence to a ‘fat and vitamin A’ dietary pattern was inversely associated with the chance of clinical malaria. ‘Associations Between Climate- Sensitive Nutrients, Clinical Malaria, and Anaemia Among Young Children in Rural Burkina Faso: An Analysis of Baseline Data From a Cluster- Randomised Controlled Trial’ by Kurniawan et al in Tropical Medicine & International Health, examined the effect of  ‘fat and vitamin A’ and  ‘fibre and micronutrient’ dietary patterns on the incidence of malaria and anaemia in children aged 6–23 months in Nouna, Burkina Faso.

No significant effects were found on the occurrence of anaemia or of the ‘fibre and micronutrient’ dietary pattern. While the diets of all children in the study relied on carbohydrate based foods for the majority of calories, those on the ‘vitamin A and fat’ pattern were more frequent consumers of yellow and orange fleshed fruits and vegetables and animal-based foods, such as red meat and eggs.

There is evidence that the occurrence of malaria disappears as the wealth and diet of a country improves. This study of a high-risk population in Burkina Faso gives some statistical evidence of how this could be so.

The lead article in MalariaWorld this week is ‘Rapid diagnostics test can detect asymptomatic malaria cases’ by Patel and Duncan of Imperial College, London. The article claims that the new test called Dragonfly is so sensitive it can detect 95% of cases where the numbers of parasites were too low to be detected by looking at blood under a microscope. It is well accepted that microscopy by an expert technician is the ‘gold standard’ for malaria plasmodium detection. However, this article says that PCR testing is the gold standard!

Kary Mullis, the discoverer of PCR (Polymerase chain reaction) said: “Anyone can test positive for practically anything with a PCR test, if you run it long enough with PCR if you do it well, you can find almost anything in anybody. It doesn’t tell you that you’re sick.” We all remember how PCR tests run for very long cycles detected many COVID-19 cases during the pandemic. Clearly PCR and Dragonfly are supposedly detecting plasmodia that are not detectable by the gold standard, microscopy.

The article title claims that asymptomatic cases (i.e. people who are not ill) can be detected. Presumable they can then be put on a dose of artesunate or another treatment generating more revenue. The benefit of detecting asymptomatic cases is supposed to be that by treating asymptomatic cases before they have symptoms, there will be less opportunity for a mosquito to become infected by biting them. However, if plasmodia levels are so low they can only be detected with super-sensitive methods, it seems unlikely a mosquito sucking a tiny aliquot of blood will be infected by such a person, even if the mosquito transmission hypothesis were true.

The other benefit of Dragonfly is that it will be even cheaper to run tests on many people even those without symptoms. Dr Jesus Rodriguez-Manzano of the Department of Infectious Disease stated “The technology delivered through this work represents a game changer for malaria control efforts.” If malaria were indeed a parasitic illness caused by plasmodia being spread by mosquito bites, this might be true. However, the evidence supporting this hypothesis is very flimsy. Seeking the truth is very difficult for researchers such as Rodriguez-Manzano. To again quote Upton Sinclair, ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.’

This is a ‘bleeding obvious’ statement. It is well acknowledged that malaria is a disease of poverty addressed in this column on June 13,  May 9, April 18, February 1, October 6 2024 and June 29 2024.  Malaria disappeared from Europe, North America and much of Asia as living standards improved.

And, of course, money is the fuel that keeps the malaria research and treatment business going, which is probably the motivation behind some articles in MalariaWorld this week. One article from PAHO, Pan American Health Organization, which is WHO in Americas region is ‘Best Buys to accelerate disease elimination in the Americas’.

PAHO has developed Best Buys, evidence-based technical briefs that summarize, in a single page, the most cost-effective and high-impact interventions recommended for each disease or condition. The attractive website has a wheel and you can click for any individual disease or all.

What does it say about malaria? The ‘Best Buys’ just seem to be business as usual. Is this approach solving malaria?

1. Expand access to early diagnosis and treatment:
   1. Ensure universal access to diagnosis for suspected cases using rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) or microscopy
   1. Provide timely, barrier-free diagnosis and treatment in all endemic-area health services 
   1. Engage communities in testing with RDTs for early diagnosis and treatment
   1. Adopt strategies to improve radical cure efficacy or effectiveness for Plasmodium vivax uncomplicated cases
2. Prevent transmission:
   1. Distribute long-lasting insecticidal nets free of charge in endemic areas
3. Consolidate malaria-free micro-territories:
   1. Use microplanning to expand access to services and consolidate malaria-free areas
   1. Innovate in supervision and logistics using information and communication technologies 
   1. Accelerate elimination at the subnational level and pursue subnational verification of elimination
4. Strengthen surveillance to eliminate and prevent re-establishment:
   1. Maintain strong surveillance systems to detect and treat imported cases in all malaria-free countries
   1. Use data and information to guide local-level decision making and action

 The second MalariaWorld article is a blog post by Duma Gideon Boko, President of Botswana and Chair of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA), titled ‘Why ending malaria depends on bold financing and global leadership’ in Health Policy Watch. The core principle of the article is that more international funding is needed to pay for mosquito nets, treatments and diagnostic tests. Somehow economists calculate that each dollar ‘invested’ in malaria yields four in economic activity.

Africa will solve malaria the same way the rest of the world did, by lifting everyone out of poverty. Malaria disappears when nutrition, water and sanitation improve. However, this is unlikely to happen as long as African leaders such as Boko continue to emphasise appeals for money from the former colonial powers to pay for nets, drugs and tests. As for African leaders, for every Traore there are at least 10 Bokos.

The lead article in MalariaWorld this week begins “An act of health justice”: Guinea’s children receive the malaria vaccine”. The article links to a posting by the Bill and Melinda Gates vaccine promoter GAVI that describes the national launch of Guinea’s malaria vaccination programme with Prime Minister Amadou Oury Bah and National Transition Council president Dansa Kourouma and Minister for the Promotion of Women, Children and Vulnerable People Charlotte Daffé. To warm applause, the Prime Minister and Kourouma each administer one of the very first doses (see picture).

The article contains the usual discussion items about the scourge of malaria – “In 2023 alone, Guinea recorded nearly 4.43 million cases of malaria, according to WHO’s 2024 World Malaria Report”. It describes the roll-out and promotion but contains no information about the safety or efficacy of the vaccines. Indeed, the article does not even say which vaccine is being administered in Guinea.

I found this information in an August 2025 posting on the GAVI website “Guinea introduces malaria vaccine into routine immunization”. This article has more details about the program. The RTS, S malaria vaccine is being administered. The recommended vaccination schedule in Guinea is 1st dose from 5 months; 2nd dose at 6 months (or a minimum of 4 weeks after the first dose); 3rd dose at 7 months (or a minimum of 4 weeks after the second dose); 4th dose at least 6 months after the third dose for children who come late.

RTS,S/AS01 (Mosquirix by GlaxoSmithKline) was first introduced in 2019 in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi. In common with the more recently introduced R21/Matrix-M (developed by Oxford University and the Serum Institute of India) it is being rolled out by GAVI in different African nations. Neither were tested against a true placebo. Both were tested for safety and efficacy against a rabies vaccine (Rabipur manufactured by GSK, Marburg, Germany and owned by Bavarian Nordic, Hellerup, Denmark was used in RTS,S study). Nonetheless, these dubious medications are being rolled out in many African nations by GAVI with the support and even participation of the governments of these countries.

Clearly, GAVI have no interest in testing vaccines against true placebos, as is now required for vaccines by US Health Secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. I wonder why? And to describe the roll-out as ‘justice’ is at least a little disingenuous.

What type of illness is malaria? What are the symptoms? We hear catastrophic tales about this illness and usually about the worst, possibly fatal, examples.

However, soon after arriving in Kenya I encountered a real life example and wrote about it in February. This week another case in the same family reinforced my idea that malaria in countries where it is considered endemic is very similar to COVID19 in much of the world 2020-2022. A label for generic illness if there is a positive result in a potentially dubious test.

In western countries during COVID ‘pandemic’ if anyone had illness symptoms, cough, fever, stomach upset etc., they were encouraged to get tested either with PCR (polymerase chain reaction) or a Lateral Flow Test. If the test were positive they were considered a case and were usually required to quarantine to prevent spread. If symptoms were more serious they might be treated with an anti-viral drug such as remdesivir or a generic medication sold for another condition. Now most people no longer believe and recognise the pointlessness of all that.

In the recent ‘malaria’ case a young girl had a fever and upset stomach the day after her birthday party in which she ate much children’s party food. I was travelling on business in the far east so was not there. But I did suggest that she be given fluids and monitored at home while her body purged the junk she had eaten.

However, her mother first gave her paracetamol (acetaminophen. So toxic sale is often restricted to make suicide more difficult) to treat the fever and her condition worsened. She was worried and brought her to the same private hospital featured in my February tale. I expect the girl was tested with the same sensitive RDT (rapid diagnostic test) for malaria plasmodia and tested positive. Then she was given the first of three 12-hourly artesunate injections as well as dispersible Artefan tablets (Artemether-Lumefantrine). She went home but her condition worsened and she ended up back in hospital for two nights.

I suspect that she was mildly poisoned by the many artificial ingredients of the party food. Fever is one of the body’s means of purging. But then she was given more mild poisons, paracetamol, and then artesunate and artemether-lumefantrine which lengthened her period of illness.

But it will be recorded as another case of malaria. The test and drug treatment would not occur in a country in which malaria is not present. But if the same circumstances had occurred in 2020 and COVID test were positive, it would have been a COVID case. The belief in malaria is strong in endemic countries as was the belief in COVID worldwide in 2020. Cases will continue as long as people believe and the hospitals continue to make money providing treatments such as this.