Kaposi's Sarcoma, Vascular Permeability, and Scientific Integrity

To the Editor. —The Brief Report by Dr Witte and colleagues¹ states that using the method described by Nakamura et al² the authors were not able to reproduce the data on KS cell-induced vascular permeability. While I have not personally used the method of EB dye injection,²I found several flaws in the report of Witte et al that make me think they are more interested in raising a turmoil than in obtaining useful scientific data.

The fact that KS cell products induce neovascularization with leaky, hemorrhagic vessels has been recently confirmed by us, independently from Dr Nakamura's and Dr Gallo's laboratories, using a different approach.³ Since in a previous article Salahuddin et al⁴ showed that a KS-like lesion rich in endothelial cells was induced by subcutaneous injection of KS "spindle" cells, with an apparent nonendothelial phenotype, the hypothesis of endothelial cell recruitment by KS