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Dr. Laszlo's editorial on "Automated 'Chemistries'" (Arch Intern Med 133:1068-1069, 1974) is a mixture of truth, half-truth, and fiction. He is correct to question the cost-effectiveness of automatic ordering of automated laboratory screening, and he is correct when he doubts the rationality of performing tests simply because they can be done automatically. But little else in his editorial is correct.
Dr. Laszlo, for example, is misinformed regarding many technical matters. A nonuricase method for uric acid is not necessarily a poor method. Lum and Gambino (Clin Chem 19:1184-1186,1973) studied four methods for uric acid and found the SMA 12/60 colorimetric method to more precise than a manual uricase method and to be almost as accurate as an automated kinetic uricase method. Ultraviolet enzyme assays are not automatically superior to colorimetric assays. Furthermore, he is unaware that levels of serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT) and lactic acid dehydrogenase (LDH) are now