A California Assemblymember is proposing a requirement for manufacturers to add folic acid to corn masa.
Fortifying food with vitamins and minerals is not new in the U.S.
It started in the 1920s, with iodine in salt, followed by vitamin D in milk in the ‘30s.
By the ‘90s, researchers had linked neural tube defects in babies — things like spina bifida and anencephaly — to not getting enough folic acid in pregnancy.
Those who do survive birth with these conditions have drastically shortened lifespans and significant disabilities.
So the federal government required folic acid to be added to cereal in 1998.
It was a hugely successful public health intervention, reducing neural tube defects by more than one-third.
But it missed all the households who don’t eat cereal every day.
In California, state data showed Latina women continue to have the highest rate of neural tube defects.
That’s why Joaquin Arambula, Assemblymember for California’s 31st District in Fresno, is proposing adding folic acid to the masa flour used to make corn tortillas. The bill passed the assembly and is now pending a vote from the Senate.
Dr. Melissa Campos, a family health physician in mostly-Latino San Ysidro, said the change would target a key demographic — women who don’t regularly see a doctor and who become pregnant unintentionally.
She said less than 30% of Latinas in San Diego County take prenatal vitamins before becoming pregnant.
“Where’s the rest of all those women, right? Where's the other 70% of women that are reproductive age that would benefit from this?” she said.
About half of her pregnant patients miscarry, she said, often because of neural tube defects.
She estimates the addition of folic acid to masa flour could save 40 Latino babies every year.
