Rustum Roy in his Commentary (“ ‘Soft Cheating’ Is More Harmful To Science Than Cases Of Outright Fraud,” The Scientist, Sept. 18, 1989, page 14) is confused in his allegation that the “funding process [of peer review] Is... tainted by a built-in conflict of interest.” Though it is true that the scientists most likely to review a proposal are the very ones whose pool of available money will be depleted if they give a proposal a top grade, this fact nearly en

The article depicting the improving lot of laboratory animals is a good example of how rhetoric and reality are running at opposite directions in this controversy. The author’s contention that the ACUC (animal care and use committee), with their lay members, have “in effect opened the laboratory door” is nonsense. Anyone doing animal studies for longer than the last few years knows perfectly well that the number of locked doors has increased dramatically between the animals an