All milk banks are labors of love.  After  being driven nearly to extinction
by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the US milk banks are just coming back.  The
Mothers Milk Bank at Austin is a community based bank -- the only one with
this structure in the US. This non-affiliated structure was chosen
deliberately, and it was built with community money by community activists.
With two ethicists on our board at all times, we are a 501(c) (3) non-profit
entity.  We sell milk to hospitals and provide it to individuals at a cost
that is approx $4 less than what it costs us to process it.  This means that
every volunteer board member is a fund raising activist for the program, and
that we seek donations and write grants to fund our operations.  We have
explicit rules prohibiting accepting donations from companies that violate
the WHO code.  Thanks to the generosity of our local community, we hope this
year to provide over 120,000 oz of safe, screened, pasteurized donor milk to
over 20 hospitals (some as far away as Ohio) to ensure that premature and
fragile infants can be milk fed when their mothers are unable to meet their
needs.  Two years ago, we formed a coalition to successfully lobby for and
managed to get the Texas legislature to agree to provide Medicaid funding so
we can give donor milk (on an outpatient basis) to children in foster care
who were failure to thrive on formula.  We are beginning work on publishing
studies about the reduction in the rates of NEC since our local hospitals
switched to the policy of providing only human milk to the babies under
3lb5oz (1500g).  The Austin Milk Bank is a model of what coordinated action
of dedicated volunteers can achieve, and my association with this community
is the proudest of my life.  What possible reason could someone have for
seeking, though innuendo, to harm such a project?

We have milk that is designated as research milk that cannot (for a variety
of reasons) be fed to infants once it is tested.  Some of this milk is given
to people who foster orphan animals, and some is given to researchers, a lot
is thrown away -- though we hate that!  This is public knowledge and our
donors know this.  We do research on milk to try to understand it and we
support more research that would expand the population of sick people who
might profit from receiving it.   Our confidence in the benefits of human
milk is such that we have as one of our stated goals to help other
communities all around the country establish human milk banks so that each
city will have both a blood and a milk bank.  We send our staff out and
invite delegations in to further this effort.  We are currently in dialog
with a group in India about establishing a community based milk bank there.

We have sought feedback from researchers who say, year after year, that
there are no reports of infants having been harmed by increased levels of
toxins in human milk.  Yet the presence of toxins in human milk is worrisome
just as it is when toxic levels are found at increased levels in hair and
blood or amniotic fluid.  We need a cleaner environment and I personally do
not view the environmentalists as our enemies but as our natural allies.  We
must work together to make sure that mothers get the message to keep
breastfeeding, AND the environment must surely be improved for us all.  The
model of what happened in Europe is compelling.  We can hopefully achieve
reductions here in these toxic levels and I think monitoring all body fluids
is a reasonable way to track those reductions.

I grappled this morning with dignifying with my response the implicite
accusation in Valerie's current post that I have challenged her about her
on-going snipes at "bfg advocates"  because the Austin milk bank provides
milk to researchers.  As I am associated with the Austin Milk Bank as a
board member, the post appears to be timed to discredit me personally and to
impune the milk bank's reputation.

 My loyalty to the milk banking community (which is selfless beyond belief!)
makes me cautious about speaking for them since I have no official authority
to do so.  That said, to imply that "breastfeeding advocates" are not
picking up her cause because we are in bed with industry is insulting and
inflammatory, and in my case, un-true.  I sign disclosure statements every
time I give a presentation that acknowledge that I occasionally do technical
editing for Medela. This isa matter of public record. As a consultant, I am
at liberty to sell my expertise.  I chose to do it very selectively and
never to violate the WHO code. When I attend conferences I ask specifically
who is paying my fee and I won't speak if the money is not clean.  I won't
allow the names of formula companies or of companies in violation of the WHO
code to be placed on fliers advertising conf. that I speak at.   My husband
is disabled and I am currently the sole support of my family.  I am and
always have been a working LC.  My volunteer activism is funded by my
willingness to work 7 days a week on behalf of breastfeeding.

  I am coming to despise the tone recently so common on Lactnet.  It is very
holier-than-thou and suspicious of the motives of perfectly well-meaning
people who have always worked hard for good causes. This tone does exactly
what I think our formula company monitors here on this list most enjoy.
These remarks divide a community of very hard working activists.

 I continue to be interested in Valerie's posts and to hope to understand
more about what the implications of this patent business are to my work as
an bfg advocate.  I hope she can move beyond documentation, which by now I
think we all get, and draw some conclusions that might help  focus the
discussion in terms of next steps.  But I refuse to let go unchallenged
these innuendoes that my genuine lack of understanding of the implications
of the new problem she describes makes me a traitor to a cause I have been
championing for close to 30 years. And again, I ask her to consider how much
more effective a collegial tone would be in terms of moving forward into an
action phase. Finally, in the strongest most possible terms, I protest the
attempt to smear the milk bank I am associated with as unspeakably
destructive.

It is my hope that this discussion can be moved back into the realm of
issues as the list mothers have requested.  I apologize to the listmothers
for confronting Valerie directly.  If it had just been an attack on me, I
would have ignored it.  I do feel I must confront the implications that the
MMBA has done anything improper in making milk samples available to
researchers.

 To facilitate a discontinution of what appears to have descended to a
personality clash, I am withdrawing from active participation in Lactnet.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates
LactNews Press
www.lactnews.com
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