Anne, I must respectfully disagree with your characterization of the letter
from a milk banking official.  I do not think that you are being "muscled
out by the big business milk bank interests."  In fact, knowing the sort of
budgets that milk banks operate on, the concept of them as "big business"
almost made me laugh.  This is not about business.  This is about safety.  I
thought that Carol Brussel expressed the concerns about your enterprise very
well.  It is well-intentioned but does not have any way of guaranteeing the
safeguards that simply must be in place for mothers, babies, families, and
those who facilitate the exchange of human milk among all interested
parties.

Please don't disparage the hard work of milk bankers in your disappointment,
or think that their concerns about safety are somehow business-related.  As
the letter notes, milk banks virtually disappeared from the landscape in the
wake of worries about HIV, and they are only just beginning to crawl back
into consideration among many health professionals.  To have an informal
system that could, however inadvertently or undeservedly, reawaken the fears
and doubts of the 1980s would be a tremendous disservice to the mothers and
babies you'd like to help.

Sincerely,

Mary Riley Renard, RN, BSN, IBCLC
Vienna Virginia  USA

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