It seems that this subject is one that I cannot stop blogging about. There is still so much to say. It bugs me that the National Milk Bank sells every single ounce of donated breast milk they receive to Prolacta Bioscience (I’m not even sure the National Milk Bank wasn’t created by Prolacta; maybe it was! Update: apparently it was.) Yes, all the milk goes to “help treat babies in the NICUs,” but only if someone can foot the bill for it, and the price is very steep ($6.25/milliliter, or $184.83/ounce). Milk from non-profit milk banks also goes to “help treat babies in the NICUs,” and for far less money (around $3.25/ounce). The same stringent quality control and the same outcomes for patients who receive breast milk come from non-profit milk banks as from for-profit ones, with the only difference being that everyone can benefit from non-profit milk banks. The same cannot be said for for-profit ones.

Considering that none of the donors are getting compensated for their trouble and that they’re not even being told the whole story of what happens to their milk when they donate to the National Milk Bank or the International Breast Milk Project, you could say I’m a little ticked off about the whole thing.

Would it bother me as much if the donors were compensated and made aware of how much of a profit would be made? Maybe not, but that scenario is unlikely to happen. Actually, it still would bother me, because Prolacta’s product is so egregiously overpriced for a product that’s marketed “for the nutritional needs of premature and critically ill infants” that it seems almost criminal. Speaking of which, for me to find out the asking price of Prolacta’s human milk fortifier took some substantial investigating. It’s not like they list prices on their website. Many articles and and blogs mistakenly report the price to be around $35-40/ounce, which is only an average taken after you’ve added in your own pumped breast milk to their human milk fortifier. The actual price is $6.25 per milliliter, or $184.83 per ounce. It’s supposed to be a secret, so…. Tell everyone you know, especially anyone considering donating to the National Milk Bank, The International Breast Milk Project, and Prolacta Bioscience. If word gets out about their prices and what’s really happening to the milk that comes into their hands, their supply will drop in a hurry, forcing them to revise their business practices.

Want to donate your milk to a place where it will actually do some good? Find the non-profit milk bank closest to you.

Or donate your milk directly to a mom in your neck of the woods.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 9:16 am and is filed under National Milk Bank, Milk Banks, For-Profit, Non-Profit, Prolacta, International Breast Milk Project. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.