\u201cIt\u2019s such a small effort for such a tremendous impact,\u201d said Lopez, 44, who lives in Bakersfield and is now a lawyer with two young daughters. \u201cThere is very little that I wouldn\u2019t do to spare anybody this heartache.\u201d<\/p>\n
A similar law takes effect in Alabama in June, and legislation is pending or being considered in Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Oregon. Four more states \u2014 Texas, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania \u2014 have expressed \u201cactive interest\u201d in the issue, according to the Food Fortification Initiative, an advocacy group that focuses on addressing micronutrient deficiencies.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAll women and children in the United States should have access to folic acid and have healthy babies,\u201d said Scott Montgomery, the group\u2019s director.<\/p>\n
For nearly 30 years, folic acid, a key B vitamin, has been required to be added to enriched wheat and white breads, cereals, and pastas in the US.<\/p>\n
Decades of research show the 1998 requirement cut rates of serious defects such as spina bifida and anencephaly by about 30 percent, preventing about 1,300 cases a year. It is regarded as one of the top public health triumphs of the 20th century.<\/p>\n
But corn masa flour, a staple used in Latino diets, was left out of the original fortification requirement \u2014 and rates of conditions such as spina bifida and anencephaly in that community have remained stubbornly high.<\/p>\n
In 2016, federal regulators allowed, but did not require, folic acid to be added to corn masa products. By 2023, only about 1 in 7 corn masa flour products and no corn tortillas contained folic acid, a review found.<\/p>\n
Nationwide, Hispanic women have the highest rates of having those defects during pregnancy. In California, the rate among Hispanic mothers is twice as high as for white or Black women, state data show.<\/p>\n
California\u2019s new law \u2014 and the state\u2019s huge buying power \u2014 could help expand its adoption nationwide, said state Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, who sponsored the legislation passed in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be the first oftentimes to get the ball rolling,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I\u2019m glad other states have taken up that mantle.\u201d<\/p>\n
California\u2019s action and pressure from advocates have already spurred changes.<\/p>\n
Gruma Corp., the parent company of Mission Foods and Azteca Milling, has been involved in the fortification issue for nearly two decades. Azteca began selling some \u2014 but not all \u2014 varieties of Maseca, its largest brand of corn masa flour, with folic acid in 2016.<\/p>\n
As of this year, 97 percent of the company\u2019s retail sales in the US include folic acid. The rest are expected to be fortified before July, Gruma said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Mission Foods began fortification in 2024. It now adds folic acid to all of its branded and private-label corn tortillas in the US.<\/p>\n
Such actions by large producers have helped pave the way for smaller manufacturers to follow suit, according to a recent report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group that has pushed for fortification.<\/p>\n
Initially, the industry was concerned folic acid could affect flavor and the cost of changing labels, said Jim Kabbani, head of the Tortilla Industry Association. But he now expects tortilla makers will start selling fortified products on a broader scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think overall the train has left the station and it will be more and more states,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Public health experts cheer the growing momentum.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe science is clear: Folic acid fortification works,\u201d said Vijaya Kancherla, an Emory University epidemiology professor and director of the Center for Spina Bifida Prevention. \u201cIt\u2019s safe. It\u2019s proven. And it\u2019s cost-effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
That view contrasts sharply with critics \u2014 including some at the highest level of government \u2014 who regard fortification of the food supply as a form of government overreach.<\/p>\n
Late last year, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized California\u2019s new law in a post on X: \u201cThis is insanity. California is waging war against her children \u2014 targeting the poor and communities of color,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Kennedy declined to explain the comments.<\/p>\n
Social media feeds are rife with people claiming that folic acid fortification is \u201ctoxic\u201d or that people with a certain gene variation known as MTHFR can\u2019t properly process the vitamin.<\/p>\n
None of those claims is accurate, according to advocates and medical experts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s truly insane is that our nation\u2019s top health official is spreading false claims and frightening people into avoiding a nutrient that\u2019s proven to prevent birth defects and save babies\u2019 lives,\u201d said Eva Greenthal, CSPI\u2019s senior policy scientist.<\/p>\n
At fortification doses, folic acid \u201chas never been shown to harm individuals or populations,\u201d said Dr. Jeffery Blount, a pediatric neurosurgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who works to prevent neural tube defects in the US and globally.<\/p>\n
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasizes that \u201cpeople with the MTHFR gene variant can process all types of folate, including folic acid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even Kennedy\u2019s new federal dietary guidelines support fortification. Documents backing the guidelines advise pregnant women to eat folate-rich foods, such as leafy green vegetables, beans, and lentils. But they also acknowledge that folic acid from fortified foods or supplements is \u201ccritical\u201d before conception and during early pregnancy to prevent neural tube defects.<\/p>\n
\u201cFolic acid fortification of corn masa flour could help prevent\u201d neural tube defects, the CDC website adds.<\/p>\n
Neural tube defects, which affect about 2,000 babies each year in the US, occur in the first weeks after conception, when the tube that forms the spine and brain fails to develop properly.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s often before many women realize they\u2019re pregnant. More than 40 percent of US pregnancies are unintended. In those cases, many women won\u2019t have been preparing for pregnancy, noted Dr. Kimberly BeDell, medical director of a rehabilitation clinic that helps children with spina bifida at Miller Children\u2019s Hospital in Long Beach, Calif.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven women\u2019s best efforts in going to an OB right away and starting prenatal vitamins, it\u2019s just too late,\u201d BeDell said.<\/p>\n
Adding folic acid to corn masa, the way it is added to other grains, is a way to ensure the nutrient reaches the wider population that needs it, she added.<\/p>\n
At age 28, pregnant with her first child, Andrea Lopez didn\u2019t know about the importance of folic acid or that the vitamin might be missing from her diet.<\/p>\n
Then, an ultrasound mid-way through pregnancy showed that her baby had anencephaly, a fatal condition in which the skull fails to develop properly.<\/p>\n
Lopez carried the pregnancy to term, and Gabriel lived for 10 days. The pain of his loss never goes away, she said, adding that Gabriel would have been a high school freshman this year. She supports California\u2019s law requiring folic acid fortification of corn masa and finds it \u201cmind-boggling\u201d that the action took so long to enforce.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrust me, you don\u2019t want to go through this,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s the love of my life. I have two little girls that survived, but he\u2019s my first born. He is my only son.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s such a small effort for such a tremendous impact,\u201d said Lopez, 44, who lives in Bakersfield and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[108767,7,9,8,45572,421,1570,11829,18004,4720,16],"class_list":{"0":"post-243036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-birth-defects","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-food-and-beverage-manufacturing","13":"tag-food-and-drink","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-hispanics","16":"tag-pregnancy-and-childbirth","17":"tag-public-health","18":"tag-race-and-ethnicity"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}