Comment on "Quantum state transfer between matter and light"

Matsukevich and Kuzmich (Reports, 22 October 2004, p. 663) claim to have produced several types of nearly maximally entangled states involving photons and atomic ensembles. We show that their experimental evidence is insufficient to support these claims, that their comparisons to a previous experiment are misleading, and that their sweeping assertions related to quantum networks are unjustified.