Randy said:
<Higes saw actual IIV-like virions under electron
microscopy in one of his samples. (in Spain)>
Randy, don't forget, Scott Camazine found IIV virions in varroa mites in
the USA in his investigation of a big bee crash in the NE in the 90s, and he
published his finding of IIV.
Camazine was well familiar with IIV, he found, extracted, and sequenced
Kashmir in a sample of IIV. So IIV has been verified in varroa mites in the
US, so no reason to think it wouldn't show up in analysis of bees.
We also received several reports of iridescent brood in honey bee colonies
in the USA, but everyone thought about seeing this or about getting a
report (some other researchers) before our paper appeared, so no one thought it
was more than a curiousity and didn't take or keep any samples. Then
they'd call and apologize to us for not sending or reporting. So, we're still
interested - watch for bluish, greenish, purplish larvae/pupae. If you get
any, freeze as soon as possible and send me an e-mail.
Our rebuttal addresses the failure of others to find IIV, not that hard to
understand if you understand the short-comings in their own methods. None
of these methods is perfect, they're all subject to shortcomings, and the
equipment is expensive and both software and instruments improve with time.
Army just happened to have better tools.
Our proteins and peptides are a matter of record. It took me 8 hrs to
upload to Trance. Anyone analyzing bees and seeing something similar can go
back and look, maybe some day we'll get a full sequence courtesy of someone
else, and a name on it. (Army did the work for free)
Frankly, its a matter of Nosema plus viruses that's important to
beekeepers. The is it, is it not IIV, detracts from the core finding.
Our paper clearly states we found Nosema and vrisues, with lots of proteins
from an IIV-like virus - but not that we had identified presence of a
known IIV - our best fit was ~ 65% IIV-6 proteins.
Also, 71,000 downloads, and a hand-full of people have argued against our
paper.
Enough prattling, time will tell. Jerry
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