June 2 1983
Dear Howard:
I feel guilty for not having responded to your letter of late March earlier than this.  Because of litigation I am prohibited from communicating on the subject of Infant Doe Regulations and, in addition to that, my four nights  out of ten away from Washington, including a lot of foreign travel, make it difficult to keep up with correspondence.
I am not going to go into any explanation of Infant Doe at this time; I would
like to do that with you in person. I was not happy about the way certain things were carried out although, as you know, I am thoroughly in favor of the intent of the Regulation which is to prevent the starving to death of children with handicaps.
I have succeeded in bringing together the various groups that sued HHS and
acted as interpreter for them to HHS and vice versa.  Subsequent meetings I
think have been fruitful and I am in hopes that when the new Regs are published as a Notice of Proposed Rule Making with a sixty-day response period, that we can come to a meeting of the minds and achieve the ends of the Government and keep those who care for children happy.
It's a long saga and I intend to commit it to writing someday. My love to Nancy.
Sincerely yours,
C. Everett Koop, M.D.
Surgeon General