Arly,
Thank you for the news items.  I am humored that David Newburg is one of the
inventors and that this is going public.  In 2000, a documentary reporter who
had read some of the things I had written regarding patents, told me that she
would be going to Boston and would try and interview David Newburg.  Newburg's
patents were the first ones I saw and at the time I assumed that they were
the only human milk component patents in existence.   I  believe she asked him
about the patents and he absolutely denied that they existed.  So I guess times
have changed and he is now willing to go public about human milk component
patenting.  Those particular patents were in regard to HMFG (human milk fat
globule) for use in treating rotavirus/diarrhea in immunodeficient individuals
particularly hiv/aids patients.  Those patents were assigned in part to John
Hopkins School of Medicine.  And I believe that they were filed in 1995 or around
that time.

The Cincinnati Milk Bank has stated that its main purpose is
research.  Research is a major part of human milk banking.  Some of the
patents state the name of the milk bank where they got their human milk.  The more
recent ones do not.  Our IBCLC code of ethics requires that we respect and
acknowledge intellectual property rights.  Thus our profession seems to be
aligned with the needs of our system to reward men and women of corporations and
institutions that have staked claims on various human milk components.  I find
this ethically troubling.
Valerie W. McClain, breastfeeding advocate

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