Doctoral Dissertation Research: Emerging Milk Markets: Human Milk Banking, Sharing, and Technoscience

University Of California-San Francisco, San Francisco CA

Investigators

Abstract

Understanding how and why some biological products come to be marketed is an important question for science and technology studiesand related fields, and for policymakers. Much of the research on biological product commodification is carried out after commodification occurs and the products are financially marketed. Moreover, the gendered content of biological products is often understudied. This study fills those gaps by analyzing a gendered biological market in formation whose future is largely unknown. Specifically, scientists' emerging use of breast milk in the development of biomedical products and procedures, including stem cell recovery, and cancer and antibacterial treatments, is compared to informal breast milk banking and breast milk sharing to examine how financial and other markets for biological products are transformed. The study also investigates how gender shapes the commodification of biological products that are bought and sold in the biomedical sciences. Evidence is drawn from in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations with scientists, health care providers, donors, recipients, milk bank personnel and milk sharing website personnel, and from policy and other documents and websites. More broadly, this study addresses socially important ethical issues involved in breast milk markets, including whether donors should be paid for breast milk, whether a profit should be made in milk banking, to what degree markets in breast milk should be regulated, and the best uses of so-called excess breast milk. Other broader impacts include policy guidance, and training a graduate student.