Professor Michael Turner:

The EU regulates food fortification. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland confirmed that there was a scheme in place for folic acid fortification but it was withdrawn in Ireland in 2010 because the EU introduced legislation on the addition of vitamins and minerals, which made the then folic acid flash labelling scheme superfluous. This is being driven at EU level so questions around mandatory food fortification cannot be answered just by ourselves for a number of reasons. Food and food ingredients now cross borders so it is difficult to try to regulate nationally. Regulation and monitoring of mandatory fortification requires an EU approach because there is a big difference between having something on the label and measuring the folic acid in the food. There is an urgency now for the EU to get its act together. The British Medical Association recommends mandatory food fortification but the EU governments are sitting on their hands on this important issue. This is partly due to the fact that, clinically, the issue of neural tube defects is not as important in other countries as it is in this country - they deal with the problem differently.