Karen says,
<< Still, wouldn't bio-engineered
 human milk be better than the stuff out there now for the percentage of
 babies whose mothers are not going to breastfeed (for a variety of reasons)
 no matter what is discovered? >>

I must be missing something here, but I thought regardless of what Herman and
others of his ilk  is engineered to do, he can only produce offspring that
can produce modified and bio-engineered COW'S milk.  And I thought Herman was
only producing cow's that were producing milk that had lactoferrin in it.
Did I read everything incorrectly?  Which, of course, is quite possible in
that I was skimming it.  Modified it might be; having lactoferrin and other
goodies in it to make it closer to human milk, but doesn't it take a human to
make human milk?  I do agree, however, that improving formula --doing
whatever it takes -- will help babies in the long run.  But I also wonder, as
the formula gurus are adding a pinch of this and a dab of that to the formula
to "humanize" it (think the Witches of McBeth here -- eye of newt and wart of
frog), if they will also be able to add all the other carrier proteins that
are in human milk that make it bioavailable and usable for the baby.  Just
'cuz it's in there doesn't make it useful.

Of course, I do remember an article in one of the journals in the late 70's
or early 80's that promised that it wouldn't be too long before cows were
gestating humans, and women wouldn't need to be bothered with pregnancy at
all.   Nothing would surprise me any more.  Why even bother with an epidural?
 You wouldn't even need to be present for the birth.  In fact, just think
about it.  You could probably even go to "Babies R Us" and pick out the one
you want.

Proactive marketing sounds like a good idea, Karen!

Jan

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