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Well you grew on it when you were a baby. So I know some of you fellas will be up for it. So when you try mixing your protein shakes with milk from mommas all over the world...be sure to post your results here.
Mothers' milk in a bull market
By Marsha Austin, Denver
March 27, 2006
YOU won't find it on any commodities exchange, but there is a booming trade in mothers' breast milk.
The United States' largest non-profit milk banks distributed 745,300 fluid ounces (22,000 litres) last year — double the amount in 2000 — at a cost of $US2.6 million ($A3.7 million).
Prolacta Bioscience, which is in it for profit, started marketing a breast-milk concentrate for $US48 an ounce. And some mothers are selling their own milk on the internet for $1 to $2.50 — more than a third less than milk from the big banks.
Since January one popular website has listed more than 100 advertisements for human milk.
This is all going on with little regulation, raising ethical and safety questions.
Such ventures are also prompting concerns that the steady flow of donated milk that non-profit banks supply to hospitals and mothers could dry up.
"It could affect supply," said Laraine Lockhart-Borman, who runs the Mothers' Milk Bank of Denver. "We've been asking for regulation for years."
The federal Food and Drug Administration has not yet decided whether breast milk should, like human blood or tissue, be regulated, says agency spokesman Stephen King.
"The FDA would need more information to make such a determination," he said. "It would also be part of the discussions, if the FDA were to regulate human breast milk, if we would regulate these products as food or human biological products."
Only California and Texas require breast-milk distributors to be licensed as milk banks.
"It is to protect the safety of the public's health," said Pauline Sakamoto, director of the Mothers' Milk Bank of San Jose, California. EBay, the world's largest Internet auctioneer, has barred the sale of human breast milk, but since January a blog on radioball.net has had 100 postings from women seeking to buy or sell milk.
"Men are compensated for sperm donation, as well as women who donate their eggs. Why shouldn't we be compensated for breast milk too?" said Hillary Moon, a Denver mother of two who is trying to sell her breast milk online.
Many lactation consultants say such transactions are still dangerous.
"When you're buying it on the Internet, you don't know what you're getting," said a spokesperson from the milk bank association.
DENVER POST
Mothers' milk in a bull market
By Marsha Austin, Denver
March 27, 2006
YOU won't find it on any commodities exchange, but there is a booming trade in mothers' breast milk.
The United States' largest non-profit milk banks distributed 745,300 fluid ounces (22,000 litres) last year — double the amount in 2000 — at a cost of $US2.6 million ($A3.7 million).
Prolacta Bioscience, which is in it for profit, started marketing a breast-milk concentrate for $US48 an ounce. And some mothers are selling their own milk on the internet for $1 to $2.50 — more than a third less than milk from the big banks.
Since January one popular website has listed more than 100 advertisements for human milk.
This is all going on with little regulation, raising ethical and safety questions.
Such ventures are also prompting concerns that the steady flow of donated milk that non-profit banks supply to hospitals and mothers could dry up.
"It could affect supply," said Laraine Lockhart-Borman, who runs the Mothers' Milk Bank of Denver. "We've been asking for regulation for years."
The federal Food and Drug Administration has not yet decided whether breast milk should, like human blood or tissue, be regulated, says agency spokesman Stephen King.
"The FDA would need more information to make such a determination," he said. "It would also be part of the discussions, if the FDA were to regulate human breast milk, if we would regulate these products as food or human biological products."
Only California and Texas require breast-milk distributors to be licensed as milk banks.
"It is to protect the safety of the public's health," said Pauline Sakamoto, director of the Mothers' Milk Bank of San Jose, California. EBay, the world's largest Internet auctioneer, has barred the sale of human breast milk, but since January a blog on radioball.net has had 100 postings from women seeking to buy or sell milk.
"Men are compensated for sperm donation, as well as women who donate their eggs. Why shouldn't we be compensated for breast milk too?" said Hillary Moon, a Denver mother of two who is trying to sell her breast milk online.
Many lactation consultants say such transactions are still dangerous.
"When you're buying it on the Internet, you don't know what you're getting," said a spokesperson from the milk bank association.
DENVER POST
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