Viruses and unconfirmed facts

[nikkik]

Last month, my orchid society had a guest speaker come in to talk about pests and diseases. He hit on the subject of orchid viruses and I have been thinking about some of the things he stated for the last month. Here are some of those things: he told us never to test for viruses, that throwing out virused plants is equivalent to killing a child with a cold (as a mother I found this statement extreme and unnecessary), a virused plant with appropriate culture will not show the effects of the virus, the only people who should be concerned about viruses are big commercial growers, and 90% of the plants that come out of Hawaii will test positive for viruses.

Most of these statements are the opposite of what I have always heard and read. I was wondering if anyone has heard these statements or knows of literature that would help me research some of the statements that I stated above(I know some are opinions). I would really like to see the facts about plants coming out of Hawaii because I know a lot of us purchase beautiful plants that come from there and I find this statement hard to believe.