Co-Chair HART: hartgroup.org Diagnostic pathologist, lover of data, digital pathology and AI, sceptical but optimistic. Views my own not the RCPath's.
London
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I think I would pass on the mushy peas on toast even if the toast was home made and folic acid free.
Sign the petition.
Toast is the British National dish.
Cheese on toast.
Beans on toast.
Egg on toast.
Welsh rarebit.
Kippers on toast.
That is why adding a drug to our toast and not telling us is such an outrageous thing to do.
Sign petition 👇
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Why has the government gone to such lengths to ensure no folic acid free flour can be imported from Europe?
Why?
(I was wrong in tweet below about disruption -sorry. It is wheat that will be imported from Europe then milled here).
Do companies that import flour from Europe know that doing so is about to become illegal?
This could cause huge disruption at a time when we have had a bad harvest at home.
Surely importing flour should not be hindered?
Link to regulations and petition in next tweet.
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A reminder of the evidence for folic acid being harmful to people with heart stents.
Article link and petition in next tweet.
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They have written one article. I asked them to publish something else but they seemed to think their one piece was enough.
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Do companies that import flour from Europe know that doing so is about to become illegal?
This could cause huge disruption at a time when we have had a bad harvest at home.
Surely importing flour should not be hindered?
Link to regulations and petition in next tweet.
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I have been accused of being a Russian or Chinese agent because of speaking inconvenient truth.
That is all it takes.
Say something unpopular.
Get labelled as an enemy threat.
That is then used as an excuse to silence or worse.
Andy Burnham has announced at the UN a new ‘National Centre for Information Defence’ to wage war against ‘untrue narratives’. He claims that “everything we hold dear” is under attack from so-called “misinformation”. This might be the most censorious thing a modern British Government has done.
We already have NSOIT, the Government Communication Service, the Media Monitoring Unit, RICU, the Defending Democracy Taskforce, the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit, the FCDO’s Information Threats and Influence Directorate, 77th Brigade, NCSC/GCHQ, the National Cyber Force and the Social Cohesion Taskforce.
Is that not enough? How do we know this new body won’t be weaponised to silence dissent and chill free speech?
Will it reprimand the Government itself? FSU Director of Policy and Research @DavidRoseUK's new briefing argues that the Government has itself been spreading misinformation about misinformation — exaggerating the scale of the threat it poses.
The Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, flounced off X, citing the spread of misinformation as a threat to democracy. If government ministers genuinely care about tackling mis- and disinformation, they should stay, debate and challenge falsehoods with more information — not less.
It is vital that the UK defends our democracy against hostile actors such as Russia. But safeguards are essential to prevent bodies established for that purpose from expanding their remit to domestic dissent and policing the social media posts of British citizens who criticise government policy.
We should remember that more than 62,000 people have reportedly been arrested for “speech offences” in Britain over the past five years — including social media posts.
Meanwhile, under its media green paper, Watch This Space, the Labour Government is already proposing measures intended to promote “trustworthy” news sources. The concern is that this could favour established outlets such as the BBC while disadvantaging more critical outlets such as GB News and independent journalism.
The Government needs to explain exactly what powers this new Centre will have, who decides what constitutes an “untrue narrative”, and what safeguards will prevent it from becoming a tool for policing lawful dissent.
2026 Britain is turning more into 1984 by the day. We literally now have a Ministry of Truth.
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Putting folic acid into our flour has exposed quite how many companies are breaking the law with their "wholemeal bread".
Sign the petition (next tweet):
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If you are over 50 years old your limit on folic acid should be 200 micrograms.
They are adding 250 micrograms to every 100g of flour.
Below is NHS advice on if you take more than recommended amount.
Petition in next tweet:
🚨WARNING🚨
If you are in two of the categories below you need to restrict your folic acid intake to about 80g of flour a day.
Over the age of 50 - that is 38% of population or 26 MILLION people.
Gov decided no more pizza for you!
There was no debate!
Sign the petition:
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There was no safety study.
This attempt a year after folic acid was added (without labelling) to our flour will be full of biases.
A randomised controlled trial should have been done.
It is, however, an admission that there are groups "who may be at increased risk of adverse effects."
That is why we do not have population wide prescriptions!
So much for "personalised medicine".
Sign the petition:
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MP Vikki Slade asks about health impacts of folic acid.
Response refers her to a COST benefit analysis.
No assessment of health risks has been done.
Sign the petition.
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Thanks to Ian Roome we have an official answer on how people can identify food containing folic acid in restaurants.
They have to ask.
The second part of his question - on how they can avoid it - was ignored.
Sign the petition:
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This is very true.
Gov claims 200 "saved babies".
The gov's own assessment estimates that these include 112 fewer terminations.
Their first assessment valued these terminations at the full QALY of a whole life lived... that had implicationd so they valued them at < £100k/yr.
WHY would a Government that changed the ABORTION Laws so pregnant women, can abort up to the day of BIRTH, be concerned about SAVING approximately 200 babies by mandating the whole country a Poisonous Concoction Telling everyone that it is "Safe & Effective?" Another Covid SCAM?
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Thalidomide maimed and killed thousands of babies.
The underlying issue was that doctors thought they were giving one thing but it turned out they were giving another - a left handed version or a right handed version of the same molecule.
Drug safety was transformed afterwards but...
The same is true with FOLIC ACID.
They think they are giving folate (natural and good for us) but they are giving an oxidised form that is unnatural and comes with an array of adverse effects.
Even a low risk of a serious side effect is a huge problem when a drug is given to an entire population.
Sign the petition (link below).
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20 years ago these researchers warned that synthetic FOLIC ACID could become an environmental burden.
It can act as a nutrient for phytoplankton which could fuel growth.
This was before adding it to flour.
SIGN PETITION BELOW
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The children who pay the price.
SIGN THE PETITION: petition.parliament.uk/petit…
hartgroup.org/the-children-w…
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We will get there but we need to keep going.
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At current rate of growth we will just fall short of 100,000.
Please keep sharing. @petitiontracker
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What on earth was being redacted here?
This is Health Canada talking about Pfizer.
🧬SV40 DNA UPDATE (Sep 2026)
Info Commissioner orders more disclosed
“Health Canada strongly recommends the removal of unnecessary DNA elements from the backbone of plasmids to be used for the manufacture of COMIRNATY vaccines”
Pfizer refused. Investigation quashed. DNA stays.
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This is why the cancer risk from folic acid at low doses should not be dismissed just because there is no risk at high doses.
There is a 20% increased risk of new cancers with folic acid.
Longer follow up gave a higher risk.
Sign petition below.
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How do you "stand up to cancer" while everything you bake is full of folic acid?
Sign petition below:
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They could have started in November 2024.
It was in all flour by September 2025 according to this:
bakowales.co.uk/userfiles/fi…
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There was no acknowledgement that there is no safe upper limit - because the research has not been done.
There was no acknowledgement that "too much" is well below the RDA when you are talking about people with cancer or heart stents.
Among the negative outcomes from FOLIC ACID that the government assessment decided not to put a number to in their cost benefit analysis were these.
Wilfully blind.
Negligently so.
Sign petition below.
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Among the negative outcomes from FOLIC ACID that the government assessment decided not to put a number to in their cost benefit analysis were these.
Wilfully blind.
Negligently so.
Sign petition below.
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The issues with AZ were responded to fairly promptly (at least outside of UK).
Why was the approach different for mRNA?
hartgroup.org/why-was-the-pu…
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This is not how I eat but it is how many people eat.
Why would people stop taking their supplements - no one has told them to?
What about children who often have a high carb diet?
hartgroup.org/the-children-w…
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Looks like we are doing the tortoise method @petitiontracker
Folic acid petition is the blue line.
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The three main myths around neural tube defects are summarised and explained here:
1. NTDs are caused by a folate deficient diet
2. Folic acid works by replacing missing folate
3. Folic acid is perfectly safe
It is a synthesis of my other causation and safety work so far.
👇
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That was added to the website this week.
It is the same drug regardless of how it is consumed.
The amounts in food are significant and accumulate.
hartgroup.org/some-people-sh…
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Do you love people with the conditions below?
Perhaps, you are one?
Let them know that folic acid is now in a huge variety of regular foods and they need to start examining the small print.
Then sign petition below so their needs can be considered in House of Comons debate.
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Also...
For pregnant women studies show an increased risk of:
1. pregnancy loss
2. multiple births (and all the complications that come with that)
3. gestational diabetes (and all the complications that come with that)
4. 20% increased cancer risk in mother
And the company that distributes folic in Europe even markets an alternative like this:
dsm-firmenich.com/en/busines…
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So was I and I did x4.
It was sold as the biggest public health breakthrough of 1990s and still celebrated as one of the best interventions to this day.
There are major problems though:
1. Although it may help high risk women avoid a second affected pregnancy, the one trial in ordinary women likely only had a positive result thanks to there being 9 lost pregnancies for every "prevented" neural tube defect. hartgroup.org/six-saved-babi…
2. The advice to supplement did not lead to a reduction overall. In fact the fall in incidence happened over decades prior. Once women were told to take it the falls plateaued. hartgroup.org/the-fall-befor… hartgroup.org/the-plateau-in…
3. Claims of success are based on ignoring terminations, ignoring background declines and other statistical trickery. hartgroup.org/canadas-46-per… hartgroup.org/the-statistica…
4. The government claim that 200 affected pregnancies could be prevented (amounting to 28 live births a year) hartgroup.org/what-does-the-… is so small that a tiny risk such as one hour of reduced life expectancy each (which would be unmeasurable) would outweigh it. Half of a single known risk factor outweighs it. hartgroup.org/half-of-just-o…
5. The government never did a risk vs benefit analysis based on health outcomes. They only did a cost benefit which mentioned harm and then didn't cost them!
6. There has been no House of Commons debate. The regulations were changed in 2021 on advice from Whitty at a time when regulations were being pushed through with too little scrutiny. They were then signed off under labour months after they became government in Nov 2024.
7. Importantly there are millions of people for whom the NHS advises caution and yet it is now in an unbelievable number of food products. hartgroup.org/the-impossible…
8. Anyone raising concerns is dismissed as not liking babies, or wanting people to suffer with spina bifida or being a danger to public health. Obviously, none of those are true!
9. It was sold as a vitamin (and people continue to use that moniker) but it is synthetic and our bodies are terrible at handling it. 1,300 times slower than natural folates! It creates a bottle neck of synthetic drug in the blood and it is that causing the adverse effects. hartgroup.org/the-enzyme-bot…
10. Mass medication of the population is WRONG. This is a red line that should never be crossed.
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Folic acid is turning up in surprising places.
Please sign the petition in next tweet.
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Folic acid is being added to our food but...
1. No one has set out what success / failure would look like and it could be claimed based on any future trajectory
2. There are ZERO plans to measure the negative impacts.
Article and petition both linked below.
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Our MPs are scared of scientific topics.
It is a dereliction of duty.
Sign the petition below.
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Folate is not one salt like
citrate from citric acid or
nitrate from nitric acid.
Folate is a family of reduced natural molecules (with 4 extra hydrogens on the pteridine ring).
Folic acid is synthetic and oxidised.
The salt made from it is oxidised.
nitter.net/ClareCraigPath/status/…
Folic acid is a synthetic chemical not found in nature.
The body can convert it into a useful folate BUT...
It is 1,300 times slower at doing this with folica acid than natural folate.
The result is a backlog of unmetabolised folic acid (UMFA) which has harmful effects.
🖊️👇
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Folic acid is a synthetic chemical not found in nature.
The body can convert it into a useful folate BUT...
It is 1,300 times slower at doing this with folica acid than natural folate.
The result is a backlog of unmetabolised folic acid (UMFA) which has harmful effects.
🖊️👇
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Folic acid acts on an enzyme that affects neural tube development.
It is not simply replacing folate stores.
It is a drug effect.
Article link and petition below:
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Folic acid is being sprayed onto the leaves of crops while they are still in the ground.
It does not have to be listed as an ingredient in that case.
It is unclear how much remains on the finished products.
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Thank you.
This was helpful. I am not an expert in biochemistry and am grateful for the critique.
Regardless of the samantics, the fundamental underlying point you are missing is that in 2009 it was discovered that we process folic acid 1300 x slower than folates.
That has massive negative implications and shows how different the molecules are in a practical sense.
In the meantime, I don't think acid base and pH is the difference here. The "salt" of folic acid is not the same as a natural folate either.
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What does "naturally high in folic acid" really mean?
Are they deliberately messing with language when they mean folates?
Have they sprayed it with folic acid to enhance storage as described in this study?
Neither of them puts @Ocado in a good light.
Why is @Ocado stating that their Tenderstem Broccoli contains Folic Acid? It contains natural folate - folic acid is not natural it is synthetic
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There is a correlation between folate stores and risk of NTDs.
But... remember that correlation is not causation.
There are many unanswered questions about NTD causation.
One is the difference in rates in Bangladeshi and Pakistani migrants to England.
Aritcle and petition
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Review including some evidence of FOLIC ACID being linked to obesity. Some was contradictory.
"It is imperative to conduct further investigations in this particular field."
Pretty sure investigations they had in mind didn't involve dosing 🇬🇧 and seeing who gets fat.
Sign 🖊️
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You are making an argument about naming.
The point is that the molecules are different.
folic acid: C₁₉H₁₉N₇O₆
tetrahydrofolic acid: C₁₉H₂₃N₇O₆
Acid and alkali can't do it.
All that can do is add protons and change charge.
It takes a redox reaction for folic acid to be converted into folate and our bodies are terrible at doing it.
Even the manufacturer admits as much.
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It is not too late to write to your MP to ask them to oppose the assisted suicide bill before the vote today.
Link to template below.
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Nothing better than a real bacon sandwich but....
there's over 100 micrograms of folic acid in that.
Please do something about that.
Mass medication is unethical.
petition.parliament.uk/petit…
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Keep throwing the stones at the dam.
This is what happens on X when you spend weeks writing worthy campaigning posts about the health dangers of folic acid fortification*, and then write one spur of the moment throwaway post about Artificial Intelligence. 🙄
* Please sign the petition in the comments.
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Have a look at this example for a child in one day.
(All without a trip to the biscuit tin).
The adult guidance limit is set at 1000 micrograms per day (based on B12 deficiency alone - there is no safe limit because other harms have not been properly measured).
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There is no safety data on children.
This is what the government says about that:
SUL = safe upper limit
GL = guidance limit
assets.publishing.service.go…
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The other big problem is that the estimate is a daily average over a whole year.
You could massively exceed limits on many days and still have an average that looked OK.
Moreover, certain people will be at far more risk than others...
hartgroup.org/the-children-w…
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Based on total flour it is 83g.
Based on missing food diary calories it is 89.
Gov assumed only 59g.
One slice of bread contains 30g.
A cup cake contains 20g.
One sandwich and no treats?
Did anyone ask if that was realistic?
What about the children?
hartgroup.org/finding-the-mi…
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Where it falls apart is in little white lies. A type of lie we might all have made...
The gov estimates daily exposure to be aroung 200 mcg on average from adding it to flour.
Their sum was based on food diaries.
Women 16-49 lied the most in these diaries.
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From the manufacturer of folic acid... (who is also trying to sell a version that is closer to natural folate).
Sign petition:
DSM Firmenich on Metfolin “Low folate status during pregnancy is a risk factor in the development of neural tube defects (NTD) in the fetus. Additionally, high levels of folic acid during gestation are associated with insulin resistance and obesity at 5 years of age.” 👀
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Neural tube defects occur in epidemic waves. Why?
Article link below and chance to sign petition.
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If you want to prevent neural tube defects, you first need to understand why they occur.
It is far more complex than folate deficiency.
Article and link to petition below.
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The principle that we do not mass medicate the population needs safeguarding. It is a RED LINE that must not be crossed.
Academics love the idea.
They have proposed:
Adding LITHIUM to drinking water to reduce suicides.
Adding STATINS to fast food to reduce heart attacks.
and
Adding FOLIC ACID to flour to reduce neural tube defects.
If we let them do it then what will be next?
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The British National Formulary limits over the counter folic acid to 500 micrograms per day.
The government is exposing people to that much every day.
Sign petition below.
I asked grok to estimate how much folic acid someone would consume with a fairly typical, not very healthy, diet containing lots of processed food, following the mandatory addition of folic acid to white flour.
Results below. grok's conclusion - someone on this diet will consume up to 500µg of additional folic acid every day, when the adult UK reference intake is just 200 µg/day.
And pregnant women are advised to take a folic acid supplement so they will be consuming even more - an additional 400 µg/day. Ironically, the women this policy is not targeted at - women who conscientiously take their supplements as advised by government - are going to be consuming nearly 1000µg/day of extra folic acid. 800µg/day more than the reference intake.
This is craziness, even if you assume for a moment that folic acid is safe for everyone (which it is not). People eating a fairly common diet are going to go way over the government's own "safe" guidelines.
Did anyone think this policy through? Is there anyone conscious with an IQ of above 80 in the UK Department of Health or the Food Standards Agency? Or does no-one there care about public health any more?
nitter.net/i/grok/share/322688a83…
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Under randomised conditions in rodents, folic acid:
reduces MTHFR activity,
restricts growth in the womb,
shrinks the memory structures of the brain and impairs memory,
weakens the immune cells that police viruses and tumours,
shortens survival after infection and
accelerates the growth of tumours that already exist.
That is a long list of problems for a supposed vitamin that is being added to our food as a legal requirement.
Link to article and petition below:
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The "experts" who mandated folic acid in flour claimed exempting wholemeal would leave a choice.
"individuals can avoid fortified flour if they choose to or need to.”
The conclusion I have had to draw is that they've never cooked anything and have no idea how food is made.
🧵
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Drugs, which all come with warnings, should not be in our food!
Folic acid is a drug.
Folate is vitamin B9 and is a different molecule.
Sign the petition:
petition.parliament.uk/petit…
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Abortion data used to be published spring the following year.
That means 2024 data in Spring 2025,
2025 data in spring 2026,
and we should be awaiting the 2026 data in 6 months time.
The 2024 data is still not out.
The 2023 data is horrible. One boy. One girl. One abortion.
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This graph shows the rate of absence for hospital consultants due to benign tumours and cancers.
It has nearly doubled since 2020.
Have they aged that much?
The people sharing it are blaming a respiratory virus...sigh.
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Every human has a problem processing folic acid.
It is not just those with MTHFR variants.
Article and link to petition below.
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