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