Judy, You shared the following:

"The Thoughts of A Patented Man
by the Berkeley Ecology Center
How does it feel to be patented? To learn, all of a sudden, I was just a
piece of material?... There was a sense of betrayal.... I mean they
owned a part of me that
I could never recover."
--John Moore

Yes, there is John Moore.  But somehow I don't think you'all get it--there
are some 600-700 patents out there involving human milk.  Some are out-right
patenting of the real thing--such as Human Milk Fat Globule (HMFG) by John
Hopkins or human lactoferrin by Baylor College of Medicine and the Snow Brand
Milk Products of Japan (now Nestle Japan) human lactoferrin to treat hiv/aids
(this patent should raise some interesting questions but hasn't)and leptin by
Nemours Foundation (Dupont--which is very involved in genetic engineering).
Most patents involve the genetic engineering of human milk components.  Now
let's see.  Wouldn't these researchers have to have access to the real thing
in order to genetically engineer it? Women have donated their milk to
"some"milk banks involved in patenting and to the research community.  Were
they informed that patents might be issued and money made off the knowledge
obtained by their milk samples?  Maybe some women would say, yes this is a
great thing.  But some women might feel like John Moore and have a sense of
betrayal.  Women who donated to a milk bank (such as the case with the leptin
patent and the HMFG patent) might feel quite a bit betrayed since I would
think that women who donate to a milk bank think the milk will be going to a
baby in need.  Do women understand that in the research community purified
human lactoferrin derived from human milk is worth $3600 per gram?

In my mind, the patenting of human milk components is a massive betrayal
because of the SILENCE about the intent of the donations.  Who owns the
patents?  Institutions of medicine, the US Government (partial interest in
some patents) and infant formula & drug companies.  And it is the
institutions of medicine that make it all so difficult for women to
breastfeed and we don't have to explain the irony of the infant formula
companies owning patents on human milk components.  What are these patents
being used for?  Not promotion of breastfeeding.  These patents are for use
in infant formula and for pharmaceuticals.  The necessities when an infant is
not breastfeed.  So women are donating their milk to help two major
industries make money.  These major industries have influenced major
governmental bodies (who have an interest in these patents, too) in regard to
infant feeding, making breastfeeding less likely.  Irony of
ironies...breastfeeding women who donate their milk are in actuality aiding
the very industries who seek to destroy the breastfeeding community.  Valerie
W. McClain, IBCLC








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