Professional associations fearful of rule on 'handicapped' infants.

WASHINGTON-A new government regulation requiring a warning notice to be posted in hospital nursery wards is being decried by various medical associations as a danger to the practice of medicine-and to all infants. The controversial rule mandates that a sign be posted %onspicously " in all nurseries, intensive care units and pedi-atric and maternity wards stating that " discriminatory failure to feed and care for handicapped infants in this facility is prohibited by federal law. " ' A national hotline for calling in complaints and violations has been established , and violations could result in a denial of federal funds to the hospital in question. HHS has identified an investigator for each of the department's regions to respond to the 'hotline calls. In some cases, however, the state social service agency may investigate charges made in a call. While the HHS investigators are not medically trained, a neonatologist will be available in each region for consultation. The regulation, which was proposed by 'the Department of Health and Human Services and became effective on March 22, was spumd by the highly publicized " Baby Doe " case, in which a Bloomington, Ind., infant with Down's syndrome was allowed to starve to death. The infant died after his parents and physicians decided not to operate on his blocked esophagus and to withhold all nutrition and treatment. A lower court upheld the parents' right to make that decision. While Public Health Service surgeon general C. Everett Koop insisted that the rule was designed to prevent what he called widespread 'Tnfanticide, " ~medi-cal groups adamantly have .disa# with it.