If we think of breast milk as not just food, but also as protective and
preventive medicine, then giving a baby formula when he was prescribed
breast milk would be like the nurse disregarding or overruling a doctor's
prescription for a particular drug, and instead giving the baby another drug
known to not be as effective as the one the doctor ordered, and also known
to have numerous and well-documented negative side-effects (changing gut
flora, potential for cows' milk allergy, etc.).  Would we let this happen?

If I needed morphine for pain and the nurse gave me aspirin instead, and I
was a hemophilia?????

Or is it because we think of breast milk and formula as "food" only and see
the substitution as being analagous to giving the baby a hamburger instead
of a steak?

As someone who got a labor/delivery nurse fired for her words/actions to me
while I was in labor -- by simply writing a calm, factual letter to the head
of the hospital stating what she had said and done -- I am a firm believer
in the power of consumer complaints.
Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University