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Albert L. Meric
Metairie, La

JAMA. 1987;257(3):315-316.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

I read with great interest the article entitled "The Safety of the Hepatitis B Vaccine."¹ The authors convincingly demonstrated the inactivation of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) virus infectivity and the loss of sedimentable reverse transcriptase activity as a result of two different processes to which Heptavax-B is routinely subjected. They also correctly asserted that the best evidence for the safety of the vaccine is that no recipient has developed AIDS in the absence of other risk factors. These data are sound; hence, my wariness of Heptavax-B does not stem from a fear of acquiring AIDS.

I must disagree, however, with the suggestion that physical removal of the AIDS virus from the vaccine has been confirmed. The hybridization procedure used by the authors was sensitive to a level of 1 pg of viral nucleic acid per adult dose of Heptavax-B. Using the nick-translated 9.0-kilobase pair SacI fragment . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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