Perhaps the difference we have is due to my faith in fish immunoability. Your analogies make referneces to diseases that most people can't just "fight off"- ie HIV and Ebola (which I do not have, thank you). With those diseases, the chance of your immune system fighting them off without supportive therapy is very very low. Ick, on the other hand, I think fish can, and frequently do fight off. I think the smarter, safer, and more ethical way to deal with it is to treat (with whatever method), but it is very possible (and I might add very recuurant), that fish can beat off ick themselves- with good diet, clean water quality, and minimized stress. This has been done and reported by many hobbyists. So while I confess that most fish at the stores have likely been exposed to ick, and could possibly been infected, I dont think that is an automatic that they will contract the fatal symptoms and die without treatment. Should the fish start to show more severe symptoms of the disease, maybe my attitude will change.
In regards to the references, the majority were actually written by Fenner, who said whe would subject his fish to hyposalinity for ick due to the stress involved. I know, from my communications with you, that Fenner doesn't think hypo is a good treatrment for ick for certain reasons. I also had one from Shimek saying how it adversaly effects kidney function over prolonged periods.
As we have determined, I think we will have to agree to disagree on this matter. One of the core strongholds of my beliefs has to due with natural histories of these fish. There are some marine fish which will come to estuarine enviroments in their life cycle (ie- batfish, monos, etc), but most reef fish do not. If hyposaline environmnets were so dramatically beneficial, why over the past 200 million years has nature not selected for these fish to do so? Why aren't Fish only tanks suggested to run at 1.013? Why do we bring the salinity back up after treatment? These are the questions I would like answers to.
