Deb King in Sacramento CA asks:

>>Does anyone know where to get Fite's control tissue, or premade slides? Two 
vendors have put our company on a waiting list with no known time frame of 
getting some. Is there a different organism that can be used for control 
tissue that would be easier to get at this point?<<

I suppose that paraffin blocks of tissue containing Mycobacterium leprae (the 
etiologic agent of Hansen's disease, or leprosy) are wanted for the 
Fite-Faraco modification of the traditional light microscopic acid-fast stain.

Myco. leprae does not have exactly the same staining characteristics as Myco. 
tuberculosis and other pathogenic mycobacteria, and a separate control is 
preferable. 

Experimentally, armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus) can be infected with this 
organism, and their livers contain vast numbers of acid-fast bacilli. Given 
that one armadillo with such tzuriss could supply the world's histologists 
till kingdom come, I would suppose that this would be the way to go to get 
control tissue. Anybody on Histonet know?

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
(with tzuriss - waiting out Hurricanes Iris and Jerry in Cayman)