Clindamycin Therapy for Moderately Severe Acne-Reply

In Reply.—  In reply to the letters from Dr John M. Siegel and Dr Richard A. Finley, we submit that our paper, "Clindamycin vs Placebo As Adjunctive Therapy in Moderately Severe Acne," draws two major conclusions as follows: (1) Objective evidence is submitted that clindamycin can be an alternative drug of value in the treatment of moderately severe acne. (2) There are serious and important side effects associated with its use, and careful and judicious use is indicated.Since our paper was submitted, there have been additional reports of a more severe complication, namely, pseudomembranous colitis, associated with the use of this drug. As is always true in clinical medicine, the physician needs to weigh all evidence he has at hand in selecting from the different therapeutic regimens available for the treatment of acne. Unfortunately, many "infectious disease" specialists do not appreciate the severity of acne, eg, acute febrile ulcerative