Breast-milk banks pushing for more federal oversight


By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff, 10/24/2002

After this month's discovery that the West Nile virus can be transmitted through breast milk, the nation's human-milk banks, which serve thousands of newborns across the country, are asking for federal oversight to add credibility to their industry.



Federal authorities appear to be taking a closer look at the handful of banks nationwide - the modern-day version of wet nurses - that provide breast milk to babies whose mothers cannot nurse, usually because of sickness. One milk bank representative said she received a call within the last month from an official of the US Food and Drug Administration asking about safety issues.

''We welcome the idea of working with the FDA to develop guidelines and initiate inspections,'' said Mary Rose Tully, the former chairwoman of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America. ''It would protect the public from charlatans and give us a sense of completion.''

This growing industry (sales of donated breast milk are up 25 percent in the past year) relies on the free donations of breast milk from lactating mothers who have a surplus. The milk is then pooled and pasteurized before being sold to mothers whose doctors prescribe it. The human-milk industry today resembles the blood bank industry of decades past when regulations were light and demand was surging.

Dr. Kimberly Lee, associate director of the newborn nursery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said she applauds the idea of more federal regulation of milk banks, particularly if it adds legitimacy to an industry that provides breast milk to vulnerable premature babies among others.

String quartet loses prized cellist
Marina Hoover forced to choose family over work

Tamara Bernstein,
National Post,


Tuesday, October 22, 2002

The St. Lawrence String Quartet has performed frequently in Vancouver -- first as a frisky young group based in Toronto, now as a group of international stature, famed for its fiery, risk-all performances and its unshakeable musical integrity. But when the quartet walks on to the stage of the Vancouver Playhouse tonight, audiences will see a new face.

After a year of trying to combine marriage and motherhood with the St. Lawrence's gruelling tour schedule, Marina Hoover, the group's founding cellist, left at the end of August...

In a field where women were long excluded, and where they're still vastly outnumbered, Hoover's resignation is something of a setback for gender equality.

"If anyone could have done it [balanced career and family], Marina could have," [remaining female quartet member Lesley] Robertson said ruefully from her office in California's Stanford University, where the SLSQ is Ensemble in Residence.

You can't say the Edmonton-born cellist, who has an iron will and constitution, didn't try. She engaged a substitute for only two tours during her pregnancy. She was back on stage -- with a cracked tailbone -- three weeks after giving birth to her son, Benjamin, in August, 2000, breastfeeding him during intermission.

But the SLSQ gives about 100 concerts a year, many in far-flung countries. "I took Benjamin on tour for the first year," Hoover said from her new home in suburban Chicago. "When I travelled with other members of the quartet, they were very helpful. But often I was alone: I'd have the baby strapped to my front, the cello [in a hard case] strapped to my back, the stroller and car seat in one hand, and I'd be pulling my suitcase with the other." [ Nice image, breastfeeding Benjamin during intermission. But I'm not sure what this article says. We don't support our professional artists enough to allow them to afford nannies when travelling? Marry a neurologist and expect your career to suffer? Mamma, don't let your daughers grow up to be world-class professional musicians? - JC]

Breast-fed babies may need extra vitamin DMedia coverage of this change in the AAP's recommendations for Vitamin D will focus on how breastmilk donesn't have Vitamin D. They should be reporting "babies don't get enough exposure to sunlight to allow them to make their own Vitamin D, especially now due to concerns about skin cancer. For this reason, formula has Vitamin D added in the factory, and breastfed-babies may need Vitamin D supplements."

DDN | Lawsuit's focus on breast milkA family with triplets received $27,500 for mental anguish after one of the newborns was accidentally given another woman's breastmilk. Sheesh. I wonder if anybody's ever sued for "mental anguish" for the hospital accidentally giving an exclusively-breastfed baby formula... -- J