In the newsletter (http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/DietNutrition/tb/1569) Pam Jaiswal posted a link for, to an article on risk of overweight and artificial feeding, there is also a link to an article, written by Medpage senior editor Neil Osterwell, about Prolacta. I clicked on the link (Company banks on the kindness of human milk) and found the article. There are some remarkable quotes attributed to Dr.Ruth Lawrence in it. According to the article, Lawrence calls the starting of Prolacta the first opportunity for 'real science and investigation' to enter the process of getting human milk to vulnerable babies. That will be startling news to the many many people whose daily work involves applying systematically gathered scientific evidence about the physiology of human lactation, to the task of getting human milk to vulnerable babies. If Dr. Lawrence has in fact uttered the remarks attributed to her in quotations in Osterwell's article on medpage, it would make me skeptical about her as editor of a supposedly independent scientific journal about lactation too. The article is worth reading for its synopsis of the current thoughts about Prolacta, from its proponents and from the HMBANA. Osterwell, in contrast to many internet journalists, actually names his primary sources for the piece (LLLI, HMBANA, Wall Street Journal). I assume he has spoken with Dr.Lawrence since he quotes her, but this could be a mistaken assumption on my part. Personally I have trouble making the leap from 'it's not OK to pay mothers for providing milk' to 'it's OK for a privately held company to be paid a profit for distributing milk provided to them by mothers, for free'. I have no qualms about the HMBANA banks getting their costs covered when they make milk available to babies. It's the profit motive that sticks in my craw. What if roads were organized this way? Sewer systems? Armies? The air we breathe? Human milk is a basic necessity of life and in my very strong and not at all humble opinion it should be a public responsibility to make it available to those who need it and can't get it from their moms. What's stopping all these influential people involved in the new venture capital company from using their influence to strengthen the not-for-profit milk banking system that already exists? Rachel Myr Kristiansand, Norway *********************************************** 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(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html