Treatment of Intestinal Parasites in Immigrants

To the Editor: The conclusion by Muennig et al. (March 11 issue) 1 that empirical treatment of all U.S. immigrants at risk for parasitosis would result in a net health benefit is driven by the assumption in their decision-analysis model that albendazole has no serious side effects. The authors base this assumption on the seven field trials of albendazole that found no serious side effects requiring medical attention. However, these trials studied the use of albendazole in a total of fewer than 3000 patients. Most of the trials monitored patients for three weeks or less and relied principally on the patients' . . .