Ann you wrote, How does a drug company obtain blood to analyze and do they ever use the knowledge from components of human blood to genetically make a patent? I can make some assumptions but I don't "know" how a drug company obtains blood. I would assume that they have doctors that work for them doing research and those docs would have access to blood. The Human Genome Diversity Project collects cells and cell lines from indigenous peoples around the world. I assume that it would be easy to collect blood (particularly if you wear a white coat) and patent some component if you believed it to be of use in a drug. Of interest may be the following story: http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/genetix.htm "In 1976, a leukaemia patient John Moore had surgery at the University of California to remove a cancerous spleen. The University was later granted a patent for a cell line called Mo, removed from the spleen, which could be used for producing valuable proteins. The long term commercial value of the cell line has been estimated at over $1 billion. Permission had not been sought of John Moore for the use of his body parts. Moore demanded the return of the cells and control over his body parts, but the California Supreme Court ruled that he had no entitlement to any rights to his own cells after they had been removed from his body." You asked, "Does the public know if they do this and if they do could these same rules apply to human milk?" My perception is that most of the public does not know or understand this kind of patenting. Hm...what rules?? Someone wrote me that they donated their milk and they were given a detailed consent form and were specifically able to withhold consent for any patenting or commercial use of anything pertaining to their milk. This was not in the USA. I would be happy to hear from anyone who donated milk and what kinds of consent forms they are filling out (in the past and present). It is something I have not looked at closely but am now very curious about. You ask what is the next step? Truthfully, I don't really know. I have spent enormous amount of energy just trying to be believed in regard to the patenting of human milk components. Now suddenly people are saying they believe what I am saying. It's kinda like running on a beach and suddenly ya hit the soft sand. Ya now have to run a little differently to get through it. These patents create serious questions about health care polices and ethics. Breastfeeding advocacy has always been an up-hill battle. For example, many of us are still just trying to educate HCP (health care professionals) in regard to jaundice and breastfeeding. After working in my community for 15 years, I am still hearing about full-term, healthy infants being taken off the breast for normal jaundice. I was told (just yesterday in fact) by a pediatrician that that is no problem because we have breastpumps. So heck I am still fighting the same fire I fought 15 years ago. Except that now instead of blaming the doc for taking the baby off the breast we can blame the mother for not maintaining a milk supply. How do we add another advocacy issue to our plates and stay sane? Don't know.......except that maybe just maybe if we quote from the patents by the infant formula industry on the marvelous abilities of human milk, we might convince some mothers that the "battle" to breastfeed is worth all our efforts. [It shouldn't be a battle but that is what it seems like...] Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC *********************************************** 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(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html