Liz, I agree with you that these are some serious issues we need to discuss. I was hoping that lactnet would be one forum for such conversation. As someone who has been working in this field for many years and is now trying to start a milk bank in our area, these are issues I think about a lot. What constitutes fully informed consent in a situation involving donating milk for a for profit milk bank or for research? Do protocols exist regarding informed consent and possible uses of milk for things other than direct feeding to another baby? How do we establish guidelines about appropriate research and appropriate uses of human milk and human milk components for anyone other than the baby of the mother giving the milk? Are there other models that can can help us? For example, are there enough parallels with donor blood to make their model useful in our case? The more I learn about this, the larger is the area between what we know is appropriate and what we know is not appropriate use of mothers' milk. Our collective experience and wisdom will help to move this conversation forward. Thoughts? Naomi Bar-Yam > Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2006 17:00:34 -0400 > From: Liz Brooks <[log in to unmask]> > Subject: selling human milk .... seeking donor milk for reasearch > > It is a bit ironic that, in the same Lactnet digest, there are two > separate > posts: one asking that mothers send milk directly to a > researcher; another > describing a commerical milk bank that receives donor milk and > turns around > and sells it for profit after re-engineering. > > This is new territory for us as IBCLCs. I am very nervous about > the way > science and technology are racing ahead of our ability to build > ethical > (moral ... religious ... name your flavor) constructs to evaluate > whether we > want to be a party to this stuff. > > It would behoove us all to check the details where we can. If an > IBCLC > recommends that a mother should (or shouldn't) offer her precious > breastmilk > to anyone other than her own baby, it implies a *professional* > endorsement > of the enterprise. Now -- the enterprise may well be admirable: i.e. > offering breastmilk for the cancer patient, or wet-nursing the baby > of a > mother who is sick, injured --or worse. > > But that brings us back to the original premise: know the details > before > you are giving the thumbs up or thumbs down on a suggestion of > human milk > donation. Generally speaking, the more hands (or strata) that are > involved > in the enterprise, the more difficult it is to find out just who > really is > going to benefit from the use/study/sale/commericalization of the > breastmilk. > > Liz Brooks, JD, IBCLC > Wyndmoor, PA, USA ------------------------------------------ Naomi Bar-Yam Ph.D. Mothers' Milk Bank of New England [log in to unmask] 617-964-6676 ------------------------------------------ *********************************************** 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 email list is powered by LISTSERV (R). There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html