"If I had to make a choice between putting my child at risk of HIV from
contaminated banked milk (yes, yes, I know that's not likely) or at risk of
BSE from genetically engineered cow's milk formula -- I don't see an easy
answer as to which one is worse.  That was my original point.  The solution
of course, is to breastfeed."

But you see hiv is a very fragile retrovirus and does not survive the
processing a human milk bank uses.  In fact in vitro studies show that hiv is
inactivated by human milk (lysozyme is believed to be responsible).  Human
milk banks give the recipient more protection than blood banks or sperm
banks(as Nikki pointed out).

I happen to believe that the impact of our words about disease effects the
prognosis of the patient/client.  The media had me convinced years ago that a
diagnosis of AIDS meant death.  But then I started to hear about the people
who were living with that diagnosis.  Do they do studies on these people?
No, and mostly those people stay away from the medical community because its
not good to be around people who give you no sense of hope or faith in life.
Life and death are ultimately not controllable.  But our "new" science
believes that humans can control and know all.  The Greeks had a word for
that, "hubris."  It always leads to the downfall of civilizations.  Valerie
W. McClain, IBCLC

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