Dan,
You have MISINTERPRETED what I wrote, so I will attempt to explain.

Of vital importance is the FACT that their is NO known cure for AFB!  Because
most Americans DON'T READ DIRECTIONS or smallprint, but pay great attention
to homeo-
pathic use of "medicines",  year after year, both in 1946 or 1999, multitudes
of
beginning beekeepers BELIEVED that TM cured AFB, used it time and time again
and hence prolonged the existence of AFB in their apiary as well as spreading
the disease to neighboring clean apiaries when the clean bees tried to rob
out a dying
or dead diseased colony.

TM only keeps the diseased bees alive as long as they are treated year after
year, but it does not eradicate the disease, but rather just "HIDES" it.

It should be OBVIOUS to most people that there was great beekeeper resistance
to hive burning when inspection laws came about in 1922.  Many beekeepers hid
their
hives from inspectors and THAT was the very reason that the inspectors had
the legal authority to get the local county sheriff to arrest a beekeeper who
tried to
prevent an inspector from inspecting hives and burning if necessary.  The
lowering
of the percentage of diseased colonies from 1922 to 1946 was primarily due to
the
burning of diseased colonies removed sources of infection from clean apiaries
and removal of unskilled beekeepers who no longer "taught" newbies how to
keep bees.

The use of TM or sulfa (I have NEVER USED EITHER OF THEM) did absolutely
NOTHING
to lower the percentage of diseased colonies in the U.S., because these drugs
do NOT KILL the spores of AFB.  It was the inspection laws and the removal of
diseased
woodenware (and bees and honey) by burning that lowered the infection rate of
AFB.
At meetings of state and government officials that I have attended during
reason years indicate that the % of colonies infected with AFB is INCREASING
in every state where infection has been discontinued or minimized.

I am reminded of having pimples and/or sores on my face.  I was not
interested in
hiding them with cosmetics, but rather removing them.  The use of TM falls in
the same category, it just "masks" or hides the presence of a fatal
infectious disease of bees; and bees and beekeepers would be far better off
if the use was banned by law.

This is my position, and I don't care to discuss it further.  Nothing is
accomplished
in arguing religion or politics, and now the use of TM.

George Imirie