I, a retired Milk Bank Donor Mother (in Denver), would also like to express my support for human milk banks, for several reasons. First, and most importantly, the primary mission of every mothers milk bank is to help the lives of critically ill babies. To boycott such work would, effectively, punish those babies directly. We're not dealing directly with a large formula corporation in these cases. We are dealing directly with sick babies and their families. Indirectly, I think there is another effect of such action. When dealing with the general public, I have been shocked to learn that most people (and many doctors) do not know that human milk banks exist, and when I tell them about such places, I get the same question over and over- "why don't they just give the babies 'special' formula?" Truly, there is a lingering perception that formula is almost as good as mothers milk. Every time I have this exchange, I take that opportunity to do some education about the value of mothers milk over formula, and the result is always the same- folks reply "wow, I didn't know it was that valuable." The existance of such banks reinforces in the mind of the general public that mothers milk is vastly superior, and in that single moment I can do more promotion for breastfeeding than the formula companies can do with millions of dollars in advertisements. Both directly and indirectly, milk banks help babies and offer opportunities to educate the public about the value of breastmilk. Thank you- Rachel Simpson *********************************************** 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