Medicine: Premature Applause

Press association teleprinters chattered last week with seemingly momentous news from Boston: "Discovery of a mold extract which seeks and destroys fresh blood clots in minutes ... can be used safely on the sickest patient . . . credited with furnishing quick relief for sufferers of heart attacks." Editors front-paged the claims, which had been announced by the Massachusetts Heart Association.

No one was more dismayed by the sensational stories than Dr. Mario Stefanini of Boston's St. Elizabeth's Hospital, who had worked for two years to get the extract (an enzyme) from common molds. He has found that it dissolves the fibrous part of clots in animals and has tested its safety in 25 humans. But it will be two years, he estimates, before its value in relieving the symptoms of heart attacks and strokes can be shown. In any case it cannot reverse the original damage done by the clot. There is no assurance that the extract can be produced commercially.

By no coincidence, the heart association was having a fund drive when it announced Dr. Stefanini's work.