Letter: Letters : Orders ignored

From Greg Forbes, International Potato Center (CIP)

Quito, Ecuador

A couple of months ago, you ran an article about how researchers in
developing countries face prejudice when trying to get their work published
(This Week, 1 November 1997, p 22).
This is only one of the many handicaps.

The list includes trouble getting equipment through customs and other
administrative problems, often tied up with personalities in authority and/or
government instability, electricity cuts, lack of backup services for equipment
maintenance, and so on.

Another major hindrance to work is that many reagents have to be imported and
this is my gripe and the reason for this letter. We try to estimate our needs
and order from international chemicals companies in good time, but some
companies seem to disregard our orders completely.

For instance, we are still waiting for orders sent off to an American company
six months ago. Despite two telephone calls to the US and countless e-mail
messages, nothing has arrived, not even an apology or an explanation. This is an
extreme case, but this company is not alone in its nonchalant attitude.

This is unfortunate, because the major companies have full catalogues and it
would be convenient for us to order more from them. As it is, we spend a lot of
time, mostly unfruitfully, searching for other suppliers. Is it just because we
are in a small country, or is it because our orders aren’t big enough? Whatever
the answer, those companies which do not deliver promptly regularly hold up our
work.

So, if any readers, Net surfers or otherwise, know of reliable suppliers of
standard reagents (for electrophoresis, buffers, staining enzymes) who honour
small orders to foreign labs, please let us know.