Allergy Testing of Multiple Patients Should No Longer Be Performed with a Common Syringe

Occasionally, medical practices are inadvertently found to pose the risk of serious harm to the patients they are designed to help. Often, these are established practices that have simply not been reexamined in the light of new knowledge, and they may be found in both medical centers and private offices. We believe that the use of single syringes with multiple needles for the intradermal skin testing of more than one patient is such a practice, and that patients who receive such injections are at risk of acquiring hepatitis B, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS),¹ and other diseases that may be transmitted.