Lasker Award: Priority Claim-Reply

To the Editor:—  Priority claims to scientific discoveries are often made only after the waters have been so muddied that it is difficult to ascertain the true facts. Fortunately, most of the evidence is still available in the present case.Dr. Saunders' statement at the American Psychiatric Association Regional Research Conference¹ in Galveston, Tex, in February 1955, made no reference to the use of MAO inhibitors in depression and is actually quite irrelevant to the present issue, since Smith² and Kamman et al³ had not only suggested but had also tried iproniazid (Marsilid) in psychiatric patients and published their results in 1953.The accusation, of lack of interest on my part in iproniazid until after Saunders and Loomer had "prepared a report" for the APA Regional Research Conference at Syracuse, is contradicted by the fact that investigation of iproniazid at Rockland State Hospital was undertaken at my