From Dec '26 folic acid is to be added into flour but for some people it could cause severe side effects if they take it. Should there be more debate before we change what we eat forever?

[snowbear22]

Chris Wittey on behalf of the WHO has directed that folic acid will be added to all flour in the UK from this December. Dr Clair Craig is running a campaign against this and is attempting to get a parliament to debate it before mandating folic acid in food.

I'm basing this mainly on her interview on this social media clip and I am not a doctor or involved in the NHS, I would love to hear more of the case for Folic acid in food as I'm sure a lot of medical professionals know a lot more about this than me.
These are the arguments for and against:
Pro's:

1. 200 babies a year can possibly be saved from neural tube defect which is mostly spina bifida.
2. The USA added floic acid to the flour supply and has less spina bifida cases.

Dr Clair Craig arguments against:
1.There are groups of people that should avoid using folic acid- people with cancer because it drives cell replication, people with heart stents as it can cause a stent to re-block and people with undiagnosed B12 deficiency ( around 6,000) as it can cause severe neurological damage. It will be in all flours, even gluten free flour.

2.WHO themselves say that the evidence of helping unborn children is not that strong -it was based on one single trial which gave the control, (placibo group) manganese which can be neurotoxic- and 6 of the control group developed neural tube defects and the control group developed none. The study was deemed unethical after that and never replicated and so all policy is based on that one study.

3.Folic acid is a drug, a synthetic chemical, it is a different molecule to folate- vitamine B9 which you would find in real food such as broccolli, it breaks down differently in the body.

4.Mass medication with no consultation is wrong inherently, it is Government overreach, you should not be mandated by government to take something that you do not consent to, and it is a slippery slope and it is unprecidented that a change that affects so many people has not been allowed any debate in Parliament.

YANBU - Not convinced of the overall good to society if it causes harm to some groups and there should definately be more debate before implementation.

YABU- it would save 200 babies a year from spina biifida and it is overall a good thing.

No. It's scaremongering. I can even tell that from the still on the YouTube video. Mikey Graham is famously conservative, anti-woke Republican, so not an unbiased source.

More scientifically, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland has published studies on the effect of the fortification in the UK (because 70% of flour used in Irish bakeries comes from the UK). It shows that the amount added to bread can be considered to have a negligible effect on those with an undiagnosed B12 deficiency. I have cancer. Nobody has ever told me to avoid bread or folic acid.

Source: https://www.fsai.ie/consumer-advice/food-labelling/uk-flour-fortified-with-folic-acid-q-a

It's another case where the good massively outweighs the potential bad, but is being used as anti-government, anti-expert rhetoric.

I work in food manufacturing, there are ingredients added to food that cause me much higher concern than folic acid.

As long as it’s crystal clear to consumers that a product contains it and full transparency on a label, those who are sensitive will be able to avoid it, just as those with allergies do.

Overall it’ll be beneficial to future generations.

It's a tiny dose. Would you avoid spinach, lentils, avocados, asparagus, and broccoli?

There’s a petition, I have signed it.

Not good if you have the MTHFR genetic variant as do 40%+ of the population.

It’s fluoride in the water all over again.

It is utterly fucking mental to start putting untested chemical shit into food for no actual good reason.

Glad I don’t eat anything with flour now. Sick of hr government interfering in our food. This is why I’m totally against lab grown meat. Who knows what they’ll end up putting in it

Excuse me but how do you avoid something that is being added to ALL flours as a legal requirement?

Mill you own flour or buy imported.

Oh yes, I definitely have the time and money to farm two acres with wheat, harvest it, and then hand mill it like a medieval peasant. Such a fabulous idea.

The new law covers all flour milled and imported into the UK. So unless you know a flour smuggler ?

Untested chemical shit?

It's folic acid.

OK, so if you're on Methotrexate, etc, you could need to not eat a bacon sandwich on injection day, or perhaps you'll need to eat potatoes, rice, quinoa, or any number of other good sources of carbohydrates if you have a particular medical reason not to consume a tiny amount of what is necessary compared to a typical deficient diet, but seeing as B9 deficiency is dangerous for heart health as well as for fetal development, it'll be beneficial, albeit another reason for influencers to make money from scaring people off eating Jaffa cakes.

So for the sake of 200 babies getting something that varies wildly between barely affecting someone and disabling them, they’re mandating adding this into flour. Which will put up the price of bread. FFS. I wish they’d stop legislating for the few. In the US people who want to avoid this could buy wheat berries and indeed mill flour, but wheat berries don’t seem available in the UK.

I only use wholemeal flour - use that if you’re concerned. There are also some independent mills that don’t add it apparently.

Wouldn't you just buy whole wheat grain? Just because companies in the US have given it a cosy sounding name, that doesn't mean it's anything other than just plain wheat.

The internet also seems to think that wholemeal and gluten free products are exempt. So get Hovis instead of Warburtons.

It isn't 'untested chemical shit'. It's folic acid, that's been used as a supplement and added to foods for generations.

Good job it’s not that, then.

Most breakfast cereals in the UK have folic acid in them don't they?

If you're OK
with that then you'll manage with it in flour.

Having said that, I do think these things need discussion.
My friend has a really bad reaction to certain artificial sweeteners (they make her face start to swell) and they're in EVERYTHING pretty much since the introduction of the sugar tax.

I've seen some stuff on the more bonkers corners of X about this. Seems like people are overreacting, echoes of covid.
I thought pregnant women all took folic acid, it was definitely recommended when I had DC years ago. ? The "dose" would be tiny.

I take methotrexate and folic acid is prescribed in high doses to counter the side effects.

Can you show us the 'testing' on this that you are using to add it to virtually everything? It is in the OP that this is based on an unethical study.

You could switch to wholmeal, or buy flour from tiny artisanal mills, which are exempt. But you would also need to make all your own pizza, pancakes, pies, biscuits, cakes, fishfingers, chicken and fish fillets in breadcrumbs, mac and cheese with a crumb topping, etc. And has anyone measured how much of these types of foods per day starts to look like a dangerous dose of these chemicals?

Folic acid is water soluble so any extra that your body doesn't need will be washed out in your urine. We need to consume it regularly or we'd run out. It would be pretty much impossible to over consume folic acid

Flour is already fortified in the uk with a load of things like thiamine, iron etc this simply adds a further vitamin to the pack. It’s actually amazing that it has taken this long given it was the Uk which discovered the link between folic acid deficiency and neural tube defects, and counties across the world have fortified on this basis. There actually aren’t that many public health initiatives that have such a direct impact - this is genuinely one of them.

Thank you.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9381685/#ref-list1
IMHO this states for case for, is a reliable source and references the research.

Have you never eaten breakfast cereals? Many of them are fortified with vitamins and minerals including Niacin, Iron, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin, Thiamin, Folic Acid, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12.