> I have spoke directly with both Steve Tabor  & 
> Gary Reynolds on the subject as both were at the 
> lab at the time. They told me quite a different tale.  

Yes, there are many people who would rather not
admit to have participated in an effort that caused 
such a ruckus.

The essential point glossed over by Bob has to do with 
the wide distribution of the queens for "trials", and the 
resulting cases of "Disappearing Disease" in those 
operations.  I don't know of anyone who were worried about 
the "AHB" factor, except for the higher-ups at USDA who 
wanted to deep-six the whole deal when Bill Wilson started
asking some pointed questions about the specific "African"
genetics that seemed to be the root cause of that specific
outbreak of "Disappearing Disease".

As Bob implied, the use of very specific genetic techniques
and the importation of semen rather than live AHB queens
made the effort "mostly harmless" to everyone at the time,
except, it seemed, the USDA "suits".

But note that no one at Baton Rouge suffered any
career impact at all as a result of the incident. 

Only Bill Wilson paid for his scientific curiosity 
with his career path, no matter if the science was
right, wrong, or indeterminate.

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