Hundreds of babies have been put at risk or even aborted because ministers have refused to adopt expert advice to fortify flour and bread with folic acid, it is claimed.

The decision means that 85 per cent of young women are deficient in the important vitamin, according to Government experts on the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN).

The lack of this key vitamin in a woman’s diet means her baby is at a greater risk of being born with a disability, specifically Neural Tube Defects (NTD) such as spina bifida.

The fortification of flour and bread with folic acid was recommended by SACN and the Food Standards Agency in 2006, but successive health ministers have failed to implement it.

As a result, the SACN experts believe hundreds of babies have developed disabilities in the womb that could have been avoided.

There has been an alarming rise of 40per cent in the number of abortions where neural tube defects were cited as the reason for the termination. The figure went up from 299 a year to 420 a year between 2009 and 2013.

At the same time, hundreds of other babies may have been born with a condition that can bring a lifetime of hardship and illness.

SACN has written to the health secretary Jeremy Hunt and his counterparts in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland calling for urgent action to put an end to what is a tragedy on a huge scale.

Ministers are thought to have stalled on implementing the health measure because they fear a backlash over what some might describe as the mass medication of the population.

The charity Shine, which supports thousands of families affected by Spina bifida and Hydrocephalus, has been lobbying for folic acid to be added to food for more than a decade.

It believes ministers have failed to take action because they fear it would be unpopular with voters.

A spokesman said: ‘We could be changing and saving lives through taking this action.

‘As things stand, pregnant women face an agonising dilemma at the moment of whether to terminate a baby that is very real to them or they commit themselves to having a child that will have severe disabilities for the rest of its life.’

The SACN letter points out that when Government experts recommended the mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid in 2006, a number of manufacturers decided to cut the amount of the vitamin they added to their own products because it would not be necessary.

However, when ministers then refused to accept the idea, the amount of folic acid in the national diet fell, so putting women and babies at a higher risk.

The letter states: ‘This unforeseen conjunction of reduced voluntary fortification in the absence of mandatory fortification may unintentionally have reduced folic acid intakes and worsened the folate status of the population.’

The SACN experts point out a legal requirement to add folic acid to flour has been successfully adopted in the USA since 1998 together with 60 other countries.

As a result, they say the number of babies developing NTD in the womb in America fell from 10.8 per 10,000 in 1995-96 to 6.5 by 2011.

By contrast, they said: ‘In the UK the number of NTD affected pregnancies (i.e. that of affected infants born and the number of elective terminations because of NTD) has possibly increased.’

The committee said blood tests show that the Red Cell Folate concentration of women aged 20-39 in the USA has increased from 674 nanomoles per litre (nmol/l) to 1020 since folic acid was added to flour by law.

The World Health Organisation recommends that the red cell folate blood level should be a minimum of 906 to ‘minimise their risk of an NTD-affected pregnancy’.

However, the official figures show 85.5per cent of British women aged 16-49 have below this level.

Critics of adding folic acid to bread point to research suggesting some people, particularly the elderly, could be at risk from some types of cancer or heart disease if they took too much.

However, these concerns have been rejected. SACN said all the evidence demonstrates that adopting this policy in other countries ‘had no adverse effects on health’.

The letter to ministers is signed by the SACN chairman, Dr Ann Prentice, as well as Dr Anthony Williams, who chaired a committee on maternal and child nutrition, and Professor Peter Aggett.

Fortification has also been supported by many other leading academics, including Professor Sir Colin Blakemore, who is a renowned neuroscientist and former chief executive of the Medical Research Council.

It is understood that health ministers in Scotland have been keen to go ahead with adding folic acid to flour, however their efforts have been blocked by the Government in Westminster

The Department of Health said: ‘The Department is looking at all aspects of preconception health as a priority, including the uptake of folic acid. We will review the contents of this letter carefully.’ 

Written by Sean Poulter Consumer Affair

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