The UK government’s failure to fortify all flour and rice with the vitamin folic acid “will result in more deaths and birth defects every year that could have been prevented,” argues Professor Sir Nicholas Wald in The BMJ today.
He warns that the current government’s proposal to fortify only one type of flour (non-wholemeal wheat flour) at an inadequate level will prevent only about 20% of neural tube defects, much less than the approximate 80% that could be prevented with fully effective fortification.
