THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO o WYLER CHILDREN'S H.OSPI?AL

Department of Pediatrics _        (312) 962-6205
950 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637

March 16, 1983

Margaret Heckler
Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201

Dear Secr'etary Heckler:

   The implementation of  the interim final rule on Section 504
of the Rehabilitation Act, known generally as the Baby Doe rule
is extremely disturbing to me as Director of a Children's
Hospital and as a physician who has  cared for handicapped and
critically ill infants for 25 years now.

   I am disturbed by being mandated to place a sign in my
hospital which carries the implication that I or anyone in my
hospital would starve a handicapped child or fail to give optimal
care.  We have never practiced such an act  and would never permit
such to occur.  The placing of a sign as required by the
regulation will only serve to increase the anxiety of parents
that such action might be occurring and will lead to distrust of
our hospital and its personnel.  It is a sign which is, in fact,
destructive to our attempts to provide the best medical care
available anywhere and to assure the families that this is the
case.  The sign will also encourage  the meddlesome and uninformed
who are present in every hospital to use this as a device to
interfere with the daily activities of the hospital, costing the
hospital much time, effort and money.  We have no excess of any
of these to spare,  especially these days.  There are many
existing mechanisms in the law to protect against such activities
and to provide assurance that any illegal or unethical act will
be brought to the attention of the appropriate authorities,
especially in a teaching hospital such as ours*


   I am certain that your intentions in this regulation are
most laudable, but I am fearful that the results will be exactly
the reverse.  Extension of time before implementation would
permit adequate reflection on the usefulness of this regulation
and might well lead to the development of more effective means to
achieve the same goal of better care for the handicapped infant
and child.

Thank you very much for considering this request.

Sincerely,
&Iv&-CL %?.A+-

Lawrence M. Cartner, M.D.
Professor and Chairman
Director
Wyler Children's Hospital

cc: J.E.  Strain, M.D.
   Elizabeth J. Noyes