From: LeRoy W. Haynes [haynes@acs.wooster.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 5:23 PM
To: EXECSEC
Subject: antibiotics in agriculture

Jane E. Henney, M.D.
Commissioner
U. S. Food and Drug Administration
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville MD 20857-0001

Dear Commissioner Henney,

An alert from the Union of Concerned Scientists concerning the use of 
antibiotics in agriculture and my own readings in the area prompt me 
to send this message.

I urge you to take whatever steps are necessary to evaluate the use 
of antibiotics in agriculture.  That could include, but not be 
limited to, monitoring how much and what antibiotics are used, with 
what animals, how the animal wastes are handled so that the residual 
antibiotics and their metabolites don't make their way into ground or 
surface water, and the levels of antibiotics and their metabolites in 
food products.

The use of anything that can reduce the potency of antibiotics used 
to treat human diseases should be minimized.  Just recently I learned 
that the wife of my cousin, who has battled cancer of the lymph 
glands for a couple of decades, has a very serious diarrhea problem 
caused by an intestinal bacterial infection.  She is currently taking 
what her doctor describes as the "antibiotic of last resort".  I 
realize that her situation is on the dramatic side since she's been 
subjected to the side effects of chemotherapy.  However, I would not 
want to see people with less serious infections restricted to the 
number of effective antibiotics available to their physicians.

Sincerely,


-- 
LeRoy W. Haynes
Professor of Chemistry Emeritus
The College of Wooster
Wooster, OH  44691

330-263-2012

haynes@acs.wooster.edu

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it."  Margaret Thatcher