> Contrary to Mr. Knox's statements, the research on cognitive outcomes does
> take into account socio-economic status and parents educational level and
> often ethnicity as well.  Starting with Hoefer and Hardy's research in 1929,
> every study that has looked at this issue has taken into account these
> potentially confounding variables.

Although I agree that formula is a far cry from human milk for babies,
and I understand that some more recent studies do show results that
formula fed babies are worse off (IQ-wise, etc.) than bf babies, I think
that talking about studies in 1929 is not really all that relevant
nowadays.  Yes, it says that formula was not equal then and still isn't
now...but formula has changed a LOT since then, and I suspect it has
made advances, so that today's formula-fed infants are perhaps better
off than 1929's formula-fed infants (without ever equalling the bf
infants).  It would be interesting if one could see (socio-economic
corrected) studies that compared 1929 formula fed infants to 1985
formula fed infants, to see if there is any real difference.  There
might not be...but I suspect there would be at least SOME change.

Even "today's" studies that show differences in cognitive development
are not really "up to date" per se, because most of them concentrate on
cognitive development of CHILDREN (like what...7-8 year olds?  12 year
olds?) who were fed formula 7-12 yrs ago that has changed even since
then...so there is perhaps a minor change (hopefully for the "better"
though it could be for the worse, one never knows when experimenting
with "science"!) in what might be the outcomes for a study done on
formula-fed infants of today (2001) when they are 20.  And that study,
if it were done, would be "out of date" by 2021 because the formula
would have changed again since then.  It is virtually impossible to stay
on top of things with respect to studies unless the formula companies
were to stop changing their products ("recipes") every few years.

I do think though, that no matter what we do, we'll never EVER equal
human milk.  Even if we cloned human milk itself, it would not have the
same varying quality that "naturally produced" human milk has, that
varies from one part of the day to a few hours later...one week to the
next, one month to the next, and from birth to weaning.  That would be
very hard to duplicate without having people buy a different kind of can
of formula every time they went to the store...and even then it wouldn't
change as "fast" as human milk does, which changes over the course of
the nursing session and the day.

Fio.

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