Publisher's Synopsis
Despite the fact that biologicals have since early times been involved in many adverse reactions, the common efforts of producers, regulatory agencies and scientists have succeeded in recent decades in significantly reducing the number of clinical accidents induced by these products. However, the infection of patients with HIV after administration of blood derivatives and an increasing number of cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease after treatment with human pituitary growth hormone clearly shows that safety is still the main issue in using biologicals. This volume focuses on virological aspects of the safety of biological products. Sections cover regulatory policy, virus inactivation as well as viral contamination and detection. Other sections address the special problems posed by retroviruses and BSE and related agents.;As it is very probable that the number of biologicals used in humans will increase to parallel the rapid progress in biomedical research, this update contains important information from virologists and those concerned with the development, production and regulation of these products.
