I would like to add my thoughts to those of Kristen Panzer:  If our
government were to impose severe restrictions on, or eliminate, infant
"formula," while supporting donor milk banks, then donor milk banks
would flourish, as they should.  Government is intimately involved
already with regulating the distribution of food and
medicine--breastmilk is both.  With the rare exception of true
"formula," which is to say specially-modified infant foods for infants
with metabolic disorders or other rare medical conditions, infant
"formula" does not save babies who are not receiving their own mother's
milk.  By the very nature of its widespread availability, it just makes
it less likely that we will make the effort to provide the more
reasonable substitute of donor milk.

Standard infant "formula" is just modified cow's milk (or stranger
still, modified bean pressings).  In the immediate absence of both
standard infant "formula" and human milk, a baby would be offered
canned evaporated milk.  After all, getting rid of "formula" would not
get rid of cows. However, and this is the important point, in the
absence of standard "formula," the pressure to make the provision of
human milk available would increase.  Ordinary canned milk is no longer
seen as good enough for our infants.   With government support, the
shift to a system of providing human donor milk would happen.

Even the misnamed "Human Milk Fortifiers" for premature infants would
be replaced with a better nutritional supplement if we as a community
insisted on a higher quality product for this vulnerable population.
The infant formula companies need to be made answerable for the risks
of using animal milk products, instead of flying under our collective
radars with their cute baby pictures and their self-aggrandizing claims
of "saving" babies when a mother's milk "is not enough."  When we allow
a for-profit corporation to set its own standards for our health, we
can expect those standards to be as low as the public will accept.

The modifications currently made to cow's milk do decrease the risk
somewhat over the slightly modified (by canning) evaporated milk that
my generation was fed as standard fare.  That is why I do recommend
infant "formula" (albeit with reservations) for mothers who deny or who
have been denied (by culture, medical mismanagement, or physical
conditions) the provision of their own milk to their own infants.  Why
default to a faulty substitute?  Because my preference, banked human
milk, is not readily available.

The decrease in risk we gain in switching from regular evaporated milk
to modified evaporated milk ("formula") is negligible compared to the
enormous increase in risk we incur by offering these substitutes for
the real thing--human milk.  In this sense, the comparison between
infant "formula" and canned milk is actually artificial.  It redirects
the public's attention away from the real issue, and serves as a
smokescreen behind which the formula corporations successfully operate,
to enormous profits, and to the detriment of global and national
health.  As a nation and as a global community, we are voluntarily
giving up both health and economic resources, only so that a relatively
few men can enjoy unmerited and disproportionate wealth.  We are paying
a high price to beggar our future.

Arly Helm, MS, Nutrition and Food Sciences; IBCLC

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