'Consumer Information'

I have just read an article by Sherry Leonard in your Aug. 31, 1992, issue (page 11) entitled "Researchers Would Benefit Immensely From A Scientific `Consumer Reports.' " I would like to point out that there is such a publication for part of the scientific community.

Analytical Consumer, a monthly newsletter devoted to instrumentation for the analytical chemistry lab, provides information on a measuring technology each month. Our subscribers report that our unbiased information is a valuable influence on instrument purchases.

We don't evaluate products ourselves. Since the publication depends solely on subscriptions for its funding, we could hardly afford the multimillion-dollar budget needed to maintain labs equipped with several examples of each current model of every instrument we reviewed. We couldn't afford to equip labs and hire a staff qualified to evaluate many different technologies. Accordingly, we follow a path also suggested by Leonard: We depend on reports from...