Lord Patel
Main Page: Lord Patel (Crossbench - Life peer)
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
My noble friend is right, but the United States adds it not only to white flour but to quite a lot of other products. It is voluntary from state to state. There has been an important study in the Republic of Ireland which I will tell noble Lords about very quickly so they do not shout “too long”. The Republic of Ireland was going to add folic acid to white flour when it was discovered that blood samples showed that high intakes of folic acid in Ireland were mainly due to the existing practice of voluntary fortification of various foods by the industry. The FSAI anticipated that folic acid food fortification would continue to increase due to health claims being authorised by food. They are likely to prompt more food businesses to fortify their products so that they can make a claim.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I am not sure what the complexity is with this issue. The scientific evidence is quite clear that folic acid supplementation reduces the incidence of neural tube defects because of the interaction between a gene and the environment. It is a weak mutation of a gene that causes neural tube defects, and folic acid supplementation—I use that word—reduces the risk by supressing that gene interaction. The science is clear, which is why many hundreds of countries use folic acid supplementation. It also might explain why we have different incidences of the neural tube defect in different populations—because of the interaction between the gene and the environment.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
I do not disagree with anything that the noble Lord says, but that is why the Secretary of State has said that he is looking at this very carefully and will come back in the new year.