Pamela,  I enjoyed reading your post and want to focus on the following:

"With the tincture of time, it seems not outside the bounds of possibility
that research results were diverted--not so that breastmilk could be promoted
for the protective effects it would confer on the babies of HIV-infected
mothers, but so that the components of breastmilk could be isolated, synthesized and
replicated as formula-additives and/or pharmaceutical products, for commercial
gain--while breastfeeding itself was demonised as a "significant" transmitter
of the virus."

Patents confere the right to sell, the right to use, and the right to
exclude.  Who will be excluded in human milk component patenting?  Quite obviously,
it will be the individual women who produce human milk who will not be allowed
to profit from it.  In general it will mean that the promotion of
breastfeeding will have to be discouraged in some fashion because it will be the economic
competitor to all these wonderful inventions. Thus the hiv-positive woman is
discouraged from breastfeeding. Premies will have to be supplemented (the milk
made for premies is very valuable in research).   Breastmilk will be
considered toxic--while researchers use the component bile salt lipase to detoxify
certain drugs, pesticides, and chemicals.   And just think how wonderful it will
be for researchers when breastfeeding mothers feel that their milk must be
tested for toxins.  We will have labs around the country devoted to letting
mothers know about the toxins in their milk but we can't come up with funding for
human milk banks devoted to only feeding infants.   A research paper on hiv and
breastfeeding stated they threw the fatty portion of their human milk samples
away.  There were sending it from Africa to John Hopkins to be tested.  John
Hopkins School of Medicine is one of the institutions who is the assignee to
patents on HMFG (human milk fat globule).  I would be rather astounded that they
really threw it out.  Human milk component patenting will not further
breastfeeding promotion because the very essence of patenting is exclusive rights.

If you have found a gold mine, are you going to tell the people who own the
property that they have a gold mine?  No, you tell them that their property is
worthless, of little value.  Then you tell them that out of the kindness of
your heart, you will buy it from them because no one else will buy such
worthless property.  You buy the property for far less than it is worth, and then you
make your fortune.  All is fair in love and war and our free market economy.

The company, Glycosyn, founded by human milk researcher (member of the
International Society of Research on Human Milk and Lactation--ISRHML) David Newburg
has a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Development.  The
National Institute of Child Health and Development is part of the US National
Institutes of Health run by the US Secretary of Health and Human Resources,
Tommy Thompson.

The patenting of human milk components has been going on since 1987.  I have
estimated that there are some 1000 patents and patent applications.
I believe that the breastfeeding community has to question the validity of
the view that this kind of patenting is beneficial to breastfeeding promotion.
Although I assume that we can't question this too seriously, since our own
profession is supportive of intellectual property rights. (IBLCE Code of
Ethics-tenet # 25)
Valerie W. McClain, breastfeeding advocate

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