| Nisai
Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 124
| Update on VHS discussion
This is a continuation of a heated discussion on another site with Koiabovetheair and myself. The challenge: to disprove a negative on Koi and the VHS virus Alright, where to start. First, instead of trying to impress you, the general readership of this board, with beating on my chest, bragging how bright, witty and charming I am, and what processes I am using to quash those that argue with me, I spent a few days doing research. Actually quite a few days. Simple stuff really, things that a real reporter coulda/shoulda done in the course of working on a story well before shooting off his mouth. Not posting how I am going to force them into giving me information that does not exist. I am also not one to beat around the bush, those of you that know me, know I try and get as close to the story as I can so I will know the truth, for better or worse. So I did a lot of reading, emailing, and phoning. What better way to cut through all the red tape John is throwing out, than to talk first hand with the people that are actually involved. Now on to the facts of the matter. When you google VHS, you will find a bunch of links to many different institutions of higher learning, the fore front of the understanding of things link the VHS virus. One that caught my eye was the 17th one down, seagrant.wisc.edu/fisheries. I noticed this one on Saturday morning. I had my heart in my throat, not because of any personal pissing matches but because of this statement. This is a quote from that link.
 |  |  |  Quote: “In the Great Lakes, VHS has been found in smallmouth bass, yellow perch, crappie, muskellunge, northern pike, bluegill, walleye, round gobies, carp, sheepshead, and some sucker species. Scientists are concerned; however, that VHS could also strike native salmonids such as trout, salmon and whitefish in the wild, and salmonids in hatcheries and net pen operations.” |  | |  | Now, notice that it does mention carp. I knew right away that John had no idea this article existed, otherwise he would have posted it right away in his arguments. Now, this is the only site that mentioned Carp in any way, all the other sites had the information verbatim with the exception of the carp. Now, in science, if several scientists get one result, and only one gets another, you take a closer look at the whole thing, but especially the study that showed the odd information. So I called and emailed U of Wisc, and Aphis. At both places I was treated with utmost respect by professionals that are actively involved with VHS and the current research being done. I brought the information to the attention of Dr Moy at the U of Wisc and after several more emails this is a portion of what I got back | | | Quote: Daniel: Dave Mac Neill reported back this morning that, per his discussion with Paul Bowser VHS has NOT been confirmed in common carp. Daniel, thank you for bringing this to our attention; we will change the fact sheets accordingly. Phil Philip B. Moy, Ph.D. Fisheries and Nonindigenous Species Specialist University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute | | | | Alrighty then, there was a typo, carp were not found as being confirmed as being affected by VHS. That information literally brought tears to my eyes. Sorry, there are too many things already to deal with already. So, if you now go to the website, the information on that site now is corrected, and carp does not appear on the list anywhere. Now, that was the first step, I now had to go further to get information on why refractory tests were not being done on carp with the VHS strain 4 as had been discussed. How do you disprove a negative, remember? So while waiting for several other responses from the other PHDed researchers that are actually doing research on VHS, I contacted Dr Andy Goodwin at the University of AR, Pine Bluff. Interestingly he was working. Say it ain’t so John, a public servant working past 4 PM? But he was. And he took the time to talk to me about VHS. First off, Dr Goodwin spends 6-10 hours each day dealing with the VHS virus alone. I would guess the other time is spent on many of the other virus’s that abound in aquaculture, and not watching TV or spending time posting worthless dribble on chat sites. I gave him what information I had gathered and asked if I could get some other answers from him. These are statements he made. Aphis is more interested in naturally occurring infections instead of induced infections in a lab...To quote him “you can infect a fruit fly with the KHV virus in a lab setting if the dosage is high enough, so laboratory induced infection data is somewhat unreliable in the real world” And you also have to deal with a large number of false positives. Further, he stated that among those on the list currently, there will most likely be several if not many that fall off the Aphis list, because they will not show that they can be infected in a natural setting, but only in a lab. The testing that was done on this new Virus Genome 4 is a PCR-DNA test. When the final results are given, they will have used the culture tests, which are more reliable and a truer indicator of actual infection. So many of the fish listed above will fall off that list when this testing is done. While it “could always happen, carp are not on the list and have a fairly low probability to end up on that list.” When they(Aphis) do move to restrict the movement of fish, it will be the movement of fish leaving the Greater Great Lakes area. Should the virus show to spread into other areas, then steps will be taken to restrict movements of fish out of those areas. Respectfully submitted by d . |
01-04-2007
)you were refuting. I learned a lot. 
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