From: annfonfa@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 11:46 AM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Don't appeal the Baytril Decision (Docket # 00N -1571)



Mr. Attila Molnar, President and CEO Bayer Corporation
100 Bayer Rd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15205

Dear Mr. Molnar, President and CEO Bayer Corporation,

As the president of The Annie Appleseed Project, I urge you to
stop fighting the proposed ban by the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) on the use of Baytril in treating chickens
and turkeys, and immediately withdraw it from the market with no
further delaying tactics. 

As you know, Baytril is a fluoroquinolone antibiotic, a class of
drugs that also includes Cipro. Fluoroquinolones are considered
one of the most valuable classes of antibiotic drugs available
to physicians because of their effectiveness against a broad
range of disease-causing bacteria and relative lack of side
effects. Cipro is the antibiotic most often used to treat severe
cases of food poisoning caused by bacteria. 

FDA showed that use of Baytril in poultry reduces the
effectiveness of Cipro in treating Campylobacter, the most
common cause of severe bacterial food poisoning. Data from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that resistance
to Cipro in Campylobacter in humans has recently risen to 19
percent; when Cipro-like drugs were first approved for use in
poultry in 1995, such resistance was negligible. Although you
claim that Baytril is critical for poultry production, that
argument is undercut by the fact that six top poultry producers
have announced that they no longer use these drugs in chickens
produced for human consumption. Moreover, major chicken
purchasers, including McDonald's, have instructed their
suppliers to stop using fluoroquinolones. 

Today, nearly four years after the FDA first proposed to ban use
of Cipro-like drugs in poultry, rates of Cipro resistance in
bacteria that cause severe food poisoning are disturbingly high,
and the science linking use of Baytril in poultry to such
disease is stronger than ever.

Please show your concern for public health by immediately
withdrawing Baytril from the market for use in poultry.




Sincerely,

Ann Fonfa
The Annie Appleseed Project
245 Canterbury Circl
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida 33418-8220

cc:
FDA Baytril Decision  (Docket # 00N -1571)