Allyson said:
I like the way you said that Pam. It certainly has given me some thought.
I have always wondered how anyone could have a patent on  what essentially is
a body part.
I, too, appreciated Pam's words on the meaning of words.  Thanks, Pam. That
helped.

I may be wrong and Valerie might clarify, but I'm assuming the patents aren't
on the final product itself, but on the process that produces it?  Many of
these human milk ingredients are being manufactured by altering genes in another
animal or some other method. So although that particular milk component is
not able to be patented, the way of making if is.

Hmmm, in the early 1990s when I was a preparing a lecture on the
anti-infective factors in human milk and the mucosal immune system, I came across an
article describing how some cows had been altered to produce a human milk component
in their milk and therefore make it more like human milk.  The article pretty
much concluded that the process was prohibitively expensive and therefore not
worth pursuing.

Obviously they've discovered less costly ways.  Valarie mentioned goats, I
believe.  Or some other more bizarre methods.

Mardrey Swenson, LLLL, IBCLC

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