Activists: Something Foul-Smelling in Offer to Buy Breast Milk

In 2011, U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin said that breastfeeding rates for black infants in the United States was half that of white infants – a finding that Medolac Laboratories said was a motivating factor in its recruitment of African-American women in Detroit to sell their breast milk. (Photo via Shutterstock)

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An Oregon company is recruiting African-American moms in Detroit, promising them they could earn up to $800 a month by selling their excess breast milk – which activists say is akin to bribing them to breastfeed their infants.

The for-profit Medolac Laboratories believes all babies should have access to breast milk, either from their own mothers or milk adapted in laboratories for their use, according to the company’s website.

Activists in Detroit are questioning not only the ethics of buying and selling breast milk, but also why African-American mothers from Detroit are being targeted, The Detroit News reports.

“It’s troubling to see a corporation come into our community without engaging in a dialogue with the mothers from whom they wish to profit,” Afrykayn Moon, president of Breastfeeding Mothers Unite, told the newspaper.

“We should be encouraging women to breastfeed their own children when and how they want to before coercing them into diverting milk that would otherwise feed their own babies,” Moon said.

The going rate for an ounce if breast milk is $1. Medolac – which defends trading in breast milk to not only replenish critically short supplies of breast milk for premature babies but also incentive for women to nurse their babies – paid out about $1 million for breast milk last year to members of the Mothers Milk Cooperatives.

Moms selling to the cooperative reportedly averaged $600 to $800 a month.

The company said it was spurred in part by a 2011 statement by U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, who said breastfeeding rates for black infants are about 50 percent lower than for white infants at birth, 6 months and 12 months even when education and income levels are the same.

Medolac says the milk is vigorously tested, then sold to hospitals for $4 an ounce.

Activists have launched a petition stop Medolac from recruiting African-American mothers in Detroit. which claims the milk will be sold to hospitals for $7 an ounce, a 600 percent markup.

Petition organizers said the stance of Elena Medo, the CEO of the company, is that the opportunity to make money will increase breastfeeding rates among African-American rates, but they claim there’s no research to back up that claim.

Instead, they argue the opposite and predict that women in Detroit, which has the highest infant-mortality rate in the country, will sell milk that should be going to their babies.

“Is Elena Medo implying that money is the only thing motivating African American women to care for their children properly?” the petition asks. “There are many breastfeeding advocates in Detroit who are proving our Mothers need re-connection and support to breastfeed, not payment.”

“We would never take milk from a poor woman who didn’t have enough for their own babies,” Medo told The Detroit News.

The petition organizers want Melodac to confirm how much profit will be realized by selling the milk, how much milk will remain in Detroit, now much human milk has been stockpiled and what’s being done with it, and what will be done with the milk that’s not purchased by hospitals.

The letter to Medolac states it was written in the “spirit of open dialogue” about the company’s activities in Detroit. Among the signatories are community organizations, academics and health advocacy groups, including Detroit-based Black Mothers Breastfeeding Association, Detroit Black Community Food Security Network and American Federation of Teachers-Michigan.

“Given the economic incentives,” the letter states, “we are deeply concerned that women will be coerced into diverting milk that they would otherwise feed their own babies.”