Thanks, Darlene.   Your description of allocation is pretty much what I was
getting at.

Cathy B optimistically writes:

<< demand that will bring a sufficient supply of
 donor milk for any baby not getting its mother's own into being. And it's a
 catch-22, because as long as that's the perception (as it is now, for the
 most part), that will remain in some ways the truth - it's simpler and
 cheaper to pick up artificial milk and load it into the bottle than it is to
 obtain donor breastmilk. Imagine if the reverse were true: >>

That's how I used to think about it.  But what prompted my question was the
sense from Mary Rose's letter that the costs of donor milk do not go down
very significantly with increased supply.   Unlike formula manufacturers,
milk banks cannot depend on captive herds of milkers; they require
cooperation and Fed Ex and doctor screening forms, all of which get done on
an individual basis.   Economies of scale may exist in the
sterilization/safety stage, but not, I think, in the production stage, of
*donor* milk, meaning, shipped and pooled and processed milk --
notwithstanding the ease of production of the raw materials, so to speak.

If that's correct, then that difficulty, and its corollary cost, is a bar to
the actualization of that "plentiful supply."   That might explain why folks
committed to HMBANA standards talk about it as treatment, rather than
nutrition.   My question, basically, is:   Am I right, or am I reading too
much into this?

Elisheva

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