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Subject:
From:
"Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 27 Jan 2003 06:17:12 EST
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My previous post in regard to the patent on leptin from human milk fat
globule asked a rhetorical question at the end of the post--whether there was
a milk bank in Wilmington, Delaware.  I already knew the answer.  I assumed
everyone knew that the oldest milk bank in the nation is in Christiana
Hospital in Wilmington Delaware founded by Dr. Margaret Handy in the forties.
 I believe it is still functioning but no longer is listed as part of HMBANA.
 Although it was listed as part of HMBANA in 1999 (Breastfeeding and Human
Lactation by Riordan & Auerbach, 1999).  The patent on leptin was dated 1999.
 Christiana Hospital and Alfred I.duPont Hospital (part of Nemours)
collaborate.  Thus one might assume that donated human milk was used to claim
this invention that is assigned to the Nemours Foundation.

Currently at the US Patent Office there is an application for a patent
called, "Method of producing nutritional products from human milk tissue and
compostions thereof."  The inventor is Elena Medo and it was filed in June of
2002.  Elena Medo owns a company called Prolacta Bioscience that plans to
provide a more efficient human milk banking system.  This is an application
for a patent that has not been approved... yet.  There are statements in this
patent that greatly disturb me.  The center of the invention is to resolve
the world-wide shortage of gamma globulin (besides providing human milk for
premies/infants)  Certainly a beneficial thing, yet the text states the
following:

"Manipulation of the levels of immunoglobulins and their subclasses will
result in formulations that are targeted at specific diseases or organ
systems, making it possible to attack disease using nature's pharmaceutical
laboratory, the mammary gland. Furthermore, milk donors who have weaned their
babies or have initiated lactation without pregnancy could feasibly become
human labs, becoming exposed through any method to mild strains of disease
and producing the appropriate antibody in their milk. Since the breast is
reactive to new exposures of pathogens, an array of new immunities can be
produced to combat such diseases. Whether these types of donors could produce
enough milk to become a primary source remains to be seen, but at least these
donors could provide a human lab for biosynthesizing disease specific
antibodies that could be replicated later using other methods."

While I am absolutely supportive of human milk banking, I believe that the
state of patenting human milk components is so unregulated that I am quite
frightened by the implications.  One might assume that rationally, we will
never get to the point of using women as human labs but I am not sure anymore
that there is a level of rationality in regard to harvesting human tissues
for use in the pharmaceutical industry.  Where are the regulations on such
things?  The door seems wide open.  I do not understand the silence on this
issue in the breastfeeding community.  Silence in my book means approval.  If
it doesn't mean approval, then why aren't we speaking out?
Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC








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