Yes, I heard the story, probably on the same station in Boston.
I think the issue is quite complicated and the news story was very 
brief, leaving me with more questions than answers.

1. According the the report, this new company, whose name escapes me at 
the moment, will be purchasing milk from hospitals and then processing 
it and selling it for use by VLBW babies. This is a for profit company. 
Are the mothers to be compensated for their milk? In this country, 
people are not paid for giving milk, blood or other body parts and 
fluids. There are sound ethical reasons for this. However, if this 
company is a for profit company, perhaps the issue of payment of milk 
donors should be revisited.

2. In general, it is, of course, a good thing that VLBW babies, and all 
other babies get the mother's milk they need. I worry though about the 
commodification of breast milk that this company represents. How does 
this jive with efforts to help the mothers of these VVLBW babies to 
build up their own milk supply? Throughout history, when a baby could 
not get milk from his or her mother, for whatever reason, members of 
the community made sure the baby was fed, by whatever means (and those 
means varied by culture and community.) What does it say about our 
society that human milk is provided by a company in California, whose 
primary purpose is to make a profit. They are doing good work, to be 
sure, but somehow this trend concerns me.

3. Will they be selling some of their milk to researchers who will be 
working to improve artificial breast milk by adding a few more 
ingredients that come from mother's milk? Are there any guidelines for 
how to do this appropriately?

OK I'll stop now. This is a topic I have thought a lot about, but I'll 
stop before I bore you all with my meandering musings.

Naomi Bar-Yam


On Aug 5, 2005, at 12:04 AM, LACTNET automatic digest system wrote:

> Date:    Thu, 4 Aug 2005 20:20:14 -0400
> From:    Elaine Mazgelis <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: banked milk to be sold for use by VLBW infants?
>
> Did anyone else hear the little blurb this morning on the radio news
> headlines?
> It was about how human milk banking will be purchased by some big 
> company
> and the milk will be pasteurized and sold to hospitals for use by VLBW
> infants! I was amazed and very happy - I think.
> It was a classical music station, so it did not give a lot of detail.
> I think it's a good thing, right?
>
> Elaine Mazgelis, RD, IBCLC
> Cambridge-Somerville WIC
> Massachusetts, USA
>
--------------------------------
Naomi Bar-Yam Ph.D.
[log in to unmask]

Researcher, Writer, Educator
in Maternal and Child Health
--------------------------------

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html