breast milk donations are they safe?

[Beaaware]

Read a story in the paper today about a woman who is selling her breast milk to the general public, but what I can't understand is that we have no idea of her health background. On the Health Protection Agency wesbite there is clear advice to people that if they have been exposed to any risk of the human form of mad cows disease (vCJD) they must not donate breast milk, tissues, organs or blood. If children as young as 12 are developing vCJD maybe this is another route of transmission "milk banks"?

Selling bmilk directly is very different to donating to a milk bank. Why don't you look at the milk banking association website to read up about why it's safe?

And the chances of it being less safe than formula milk are very, very, very slim.

I read on mumsnet about Marthasmama she cannot donate her breast milk as she may be at risk of vCJD, I wonder how many other mothers realise this before donating their milk? I did't know there were any risks until I read the Health Protection Agency's website, but for some reason their advice is not widely available in hospitals or GP surgeries, very odd.

Well, strangely enough, the milk banks will ask you, just like the blood banks do.

I have accessed www.hpa.org.uk and also read Marthsmum's thread a while ago about breast milk concerns, it is interesting that the milk bank apply the same rule of thumb for screening people as the donated blood, but unfortunately there are thousands of silent carriers of vCJD, as this has a long incubation period. I think people should not be allowed to advertise their breast milk to the public without being tested for a host of infections, it just seems madness to me, this woman could have HepC for all we know.

well, we've probably all drunk milk from cows that had mad cow disease

I'm not allowed to be a blood donor any more, because I had an NHS transfusion myself, and who knows what might have been in it?

I expect they're being unnecessarily overcautious just to be on the safe side.

The actually screen the milk after it has been donated. Only know this as DD3 was prem and I couldn't produce enough milk and she wouldn't tolerate formula so we used a milk bank...had to pay for the privalidge though

I donated BM when my DS1 was in SCBU, I was producing far more than he needed so donated the excess to the hospital. I had to have a regular blood screening test and was told everything was fine. According to their milk bank the BM was distributed throughout our area in the interests of fairness. I would not have dreamed of selling it though, seems a sad way to make money, my motivation was purely to give something back to the fab SCBU unit.

Interestingly I had a reply from Lynda Coulter of the UKAMB.org regarding the safety of donated breast milk and vCJD. When I read about breast milk donation on the Health Protection Website under Creutzfeltd Jakob Disease I began to be concerned that we may be spreading vCJD to our children via breast milk. As most of us are aware vCJD can be spread through donated blood, the same applies to breast milk, Lynda has confirmed that although they rely on family history and medical records there is no way of knowing if the breast milk donor is silently carrying vCJD. What concerns me is that one of the youngest victims of vCJD to date was only 12 years of age.
The latest news from the Department Of Health regarding this issue is that they are unable to make any commitments regarding future policy at this stage on the safety of the UK blood supply.

We continue to be at risk from vCJD.