Hi all,
I haven't made up my mind yet, about this issue.
Can anyone explain to me who would (have to) pay for all the research if the
endproduct would not be sold for a certain price...?
Something else: would there be risks in paying mothers for their milk (risks
for the milk and/or their own child(ren))?
Would paying their costs (for pump or lost work time or whatever) be a
viable option?
Is there a way to find out whether it is really seriously ill patients
(preemies and/or adults) that benefit from the endproduct?
Just a few questions; there will definitely be more that could be asked and
ought to be answered.
I did not get paid for collecting my urine in the first months and had no
problem with that at all.
It wasn't always pleasant: I was sick the first period and the conservative
fluid in the large collecting bottles smelled bad.
The thought, though, that I was flushing hormones through the toilet that
might help other moms to become what I was (pregnant), made the difference
for me.
We should not kill altruism; not everything in life can be expressed in
dollars or euroes.
This seems to be a thought especially important in America, where, in my
impression, liability and money sometimes/often play a ridiculously
important role.
I don't mean to offend anyone; I just wanna say that the risks of
individualism that culturally played such a bad trick on breastfeeding,
should not be forgotten.
And on the other end of the spectrum: the willingnes of mothers to help out
should neither be neglected nor abused.
I look forward to the rest of this discussion! :-)
Warmly,
Marianne Vanderveen IBCLC, Netherlands
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lara" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 9:29 AM
Subject: Re: [LACTNET] Prolacta
> Nikki Lee <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> It bothers me that folks are down on this important company. Nobody
>> knocks
>> blood banks for charging so much for their essential products; what is
>> the
>> difference? Blood donors aren't paid either, at least not in the USA.
>
> This is untrue. There is substantive, reasoned critique, and has been
> for a long time, of the questionable ties between blood banks and
> commercial organisations. There has also been plenty of discussion about
> the issue of informed consent when unpaid donors are solicited by
> "non-profit/public-benefit" organisations which hand over donations to
> profit-making enterprises.
>
> The relationship between the Australian Red Cross and Commonwealth Serum
> Laboratories (CSL; privatised in 1994) is one example. The critique got
> some press, but not a lot; this is unsurprising, given who controls
> Australian mass media.
>
> The Prolacta/IMDB case has quite a few striking parallels. And the
> general population has a short memory. Remember that Prolacta/National
> Milk Bank originally opened its webpage as a ".org" and claimed openly
> to be a "non-profit organisation". Their goal in life is to be seen as
> altruistic, when they are in fact nothing other than yet another
> venture-capitalist-funded pharmaceutical profit enterprise.
>
> Remember that the director of the Californian branch of the IBMP (as of
> mid 2007) was the daughter of the CEO and founder of Prolacta. Pretenses
> of distance are unconvincing at best. But the "partnership" with the
> IMDB is pure gold for Prolacta's PR.
>
> Lara Hopkins
>
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