A collaborative study has been carried out to establish the precision and accuracy of five test systems for the assessment of the toxicity of whole cell pertussis vaccine. To this end, six vaccines, including both "normal" and "abnormal" products with respect to arbitrary levels of Pertussis toxin and/or potency were tested. The study included in vivo test systems as the Mouse Weight Gain (MWG)...

Attempts were made to establish an authentic method for assay of the antilethal potency of Habu antivenine. In spite of its wide use the expression of the antivenine potency in •ganimal nimal unit•h is not reasonable. The expression of the antivenine potency as the relative potency is not valid either so far as a crude venom is used as test toxin, since the neutralization curves of various anti...

Overseas investigations have shown that many healthcare institutions are understocked of antidotes to treat these patients. 1–4 Despite a recent study to the contrary, 5 the paper by Fountain and colleagues, published in this issue of the New Zealand Medical Journal, suggests similar problems in New Zealand hospitals with shortcomings in hospital pharmacy stocks and resupply. 6 The paper raises...

The tuberculin skin test is the method of choice for tuberculosis surveillance in livestock ruminants. The exact definition of the biological activity of bovine tuberculin purified protein derivatives (bovine tuberculin PPDs) is essential for the reliability of a test system. PPDs consist of heterogeneous mixtures of mycobacterial antigens, making it difficult to determine their potency in vitr...