Janice Reynolds wrote: What if the formula companies were owned by gov't - not private for-profit corporations? Take the profit out of it - the formula would still be available for those who absolutely needed it, but at a low price because there would be no markup for advertising, donations to hospitals, sales reps, etc. but no incentives to increase the market share for formula. And perhaps the gov't should be supplying formula for free - wouldn't that be incentive to increase breastfeeding and milk banks? (But I guess the existence of WIC negates that arguement). Janice, I love your idea of by-passing the profit motive. And I love the way your post wound its way to look at the economic incentives for different actors: the government, which would be paying to make and distribute the formula, vs. the parents who would pay or not pay to get some, and then led to the question whether having to pay the cost of distributing free formula would be an incentive for the government to promote breastfeeding. I don't know if I believe in any of these scenarios, but it's intriguing to think about them. I'm going "no mail" now to take off for ILCA tomorrow. Will continue the discussion behind the purple badges. Chris Chris Mulford, RN, IBCLC LLL Leader Reserve working for WIC in South Jersey (Eastern USA) Co-coordinator, Women & Work Task Force, WABA *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html