Rhonda Feder put some questions to the list which I will try to answer.

Does the medical community really view milk from a woman other than one's
biological mother an "ongoing tissue transplant"?
Comment: The medical community as a whole probably has never thought about it, but fresh breast milk contains living cells, immunoproteins and nutrients and resembles blood more closely than any other bodily fluid with the possible exception of lymph.  Milk is a tissue.  It contains immune support which helps whoever drinks it, and it also seems to contain natural immunosuppressants which prevent the recipient from reacting to it as a foreign substance.  Each mother makes milk which is specifically tailored to her own offspring.  This is most clearly seen in mothers of preemies, whose milk has a higher protein content than that of mothers of 40 weekers.

Should babies fed ABM (as well as any cow's milk drinker) be treated as if they were receiving cross species tissue transplants?  
Comment: Probably so.  At least if they are drinking fresh milk, which has been neither boiled nor frozen, both of which alter the properties of milk.  ABM and cow's milk are tolerated by many of us without specific pharmacological therapy to suppress our natural reaction.  Exceptions are those who prove to be allergic to it.  At a course for physicians last week (I snuck in as press), I had the pleasure of hearing professor Per Brandtzæg review the function of mucous membrane immunity and how human milk fortifies the mucous membrane system in humans.

Am I missing something in my complete lack of medical
background?

No, most people with medical background have less knowledge than you have about infant nutrition.  This is not meant to disparage, it is just the truth.

Rachel Myr
In grateful appreciation of mucous membranes in Kristiansand, Norway

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