Thanks all. I guess it wasn't that short after all.
I believe the IBD research is going on at a university in Florida, but can't remember which one. From the sound of things they were terribly underfunded, at least at the time I read about it they were.
Sounds like an awful disease for boa's and pythons. Again I can't remember exactly where I read it, but there was some talk of pythons possibly developing a defense against it. I'll search.
Anyhow the mite was pointed as a transmitter of the disease.