Folic acid fortification
This article was originally published in The Tan Sheet
Executive Summary
Eradicating folate deficiency should be declared "a World Health Organization priority [so] that by 2010 we basically make....birth defect[s] that are preventable by folic acid disappear from the face of the earth," Emory University professor Godfrey Oakley, MD, states at an NIH Children's Environmental Health Conference in Bethesda, Md. Feb. 25. Grain fortification levels in the U.S. should be raised, Oakley maintains, adding that no country in Europe even has a folic acid food fortification policy. Folic acid has been shown to prevent neural tube birth defects such as spina bifida...