Letters

In the spirit of glasnost, I would like to correct the statement attributed to me in the article “Perestroika Comes None Too Soon” (The Scientist, June 27, 1988, page 6), implying a universal lack of pyrogen testing (other than human) in the Soviet Union. This is definitely not the case. The story appearing in your article was related to me by a clinician from one Moscow hospital. Because research animals and test reagents were unavailable to this hospital, intravenous solution prepared in-house were tried first, after being diluted with known pyrogen-free solutions, in a limited number of elderly patients prior to being released by the pharmacy for general use. This scientifically valid approach shows a high degree of sophistication on the part of a hospital staff faced with limited resources. For all my additional contacts in the Soviet Union, I found no evidence for lack of pyrogen testing. Most manufacturers ...