Pearl - this news story sounds to me like a conflation of two or even three
of the Lucas projects on feeding pre-term babies. It is another instance of
journalists getting it wrong and confused....MRC is the medical research
council,  who partly sponsored the studies, I think. The formula used in
the study was pre-term formula produced by Farley's who also sponsored the
studies. Don't know why the news report called it MRC formula.

You can get all the recent Lucas work by doing a search on the BMJ website.

Lucas work is valuable, because he shows it *matters long term* what you
give to pre-term babies, and of course his was the first major study, I
think, to link intelligence with early feeding, in a convincing way which
controlled for social and economic background,  and which separated out
feeding intention from actual feeding.

However, there has been discussion (on the BMJ website) about the propriety
of commercial sponsorship  of these studies. Misgivings are totally
justified, IMHO, if only because of the way findings are publicised in the
wider press.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcsastle upon Tyne