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Thu, 20 Jan 2011 14:19:16 -0500 |
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[log in to unmask] (mailto:[log in to unmask]) writes:
so why are caged studies such a large part of the research being
done...including your own recent (and excelent) work? why should we be skeptical of
a neonic study that (probably) was on caged bees, but not of a study of
nosema/virus infected bees in cages?
We state clearly in our article that the nosema/virus trials were
preliminary, that we need to confirm with full colonies after we isolate and
sequence the actual virus that we found.
All of this is driven by money. We had very little funding. USDA
consistently rejects our proposals - says we will never find anything, that we lack
experience. Robb had a bit of Ag experiment station funds for the lab
trials. Army contributed all of the analysis by proteomics. The bits and
pieces of funding we got went to collecting samples, etc.
We currently have some funds from Project Apis m to inoculate whole
colonies. We have to do these initial tests in confinement - there are issues
that in our experimenting, we might add to dispersion of the pathogen (which
we have yet to fully isolate) - so the work is being done in a shed. Not
the best way, but it is the safest way for the industry for us to proceed
until we can fully sequence the virus.
We submitted a proposal to USDA to isolate, purify, sequence, and do the
field inoculation trials - but so far, nothing. I and all of my crew are
funded by external grants and contracts - we get no money from the University
other than a very small percent return of the Indirect Costs. It cost me
about $800k per year to keep everything running. All of the bee disease
and pest work is a financial loss item - we spend more than we recover. If
we did not have funding for our DoD work, we'd vanish.
Jerry
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