Detroit mothers call out Medolac over growing exploitation concerns

See the full letter here

Black Mothers’ Breastfeeding Association, Mothering Justice and Breastfeeding Mothers Unite, along with a number of allies, have issued an open letter to Medolac asking for answers to questions and to engage in discussion of the company's "aims and objectives in recruiting African- American mothers in our city to participate in your for-profit milk-selling venture." You can read the letter here. At the bottom there is a place to for community members and organizations who also want to hold Medolac accountable to ask their own questions and/or to sign the letter to show support.

I've shared with the letter authors some of my questions, including my questions about the safety of Medolac's human milk derived products and their involvement with experiments on babies born addicted to illegal/prescription drugs:

Thank you for asking these questions. I would also like Medolac to make public the names of the hospitals that are buying or using their human milk products, and the research studies that show that they are safe for fragile, premature babies in NICUs – in particular, for babies born addicted to illegal or prescription drugs. Why aren’t these babies ALREADY receiving donor human milk? Why are we experimenting on these babies? (Clinical Trial report of research planned by University of Louisville, in partnership with Medolac: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02182973 ) “This study is designed to develop pilot data on the acceptability and benefit of donor human milk for infants undergoing pharmacologic treatment for NAS. Specifically, gastrointestinal (GI) sub-scores, as well as total scores, will be compared between infants historically fed formula and those enrolled in a 2-week donor human milk study period.”)

Edited to add: If you live in Kentucky and want to donate milk to a non-profit milk bank, Indiana Mothers' Milk Bank  has milk collection depots in Louisville, Lexington and Florence. The NICU at the University of Kentucky is one hospital using milk from the Indiana milk bank.