States mandate folic acid in corn masa flour to close a decades-long gap in birth defect prevention
When the FDA mandated folic acid fortification of enriched cereal grains in 1998, it excluded corn masa flour, the dietary staple central to traditional Hispanic diets. This gap has persisted for nearly three decades, leaving Hispanic populations at disproportionately higher rates of neural tube defects such as spina bifida. California, Alabama, and New Jersey have since passed state-level mandates requiring corn masa flour fortification.
Single source · Not corroborated
The FDA's 1998 mandate to add folic acid to enriched cereal grains — wheat flour, rice flour, and others — is widely credited with reducing neural tube defects like spina bifida by roughly 35% nationally. Corn masa flour, however, was not included in that mandate, a regulatory gap that advocates say has disproportionately affected Hispanic communities for nearly three decades.
Writing in the Washington Examiner, Eric Wargotz, MD — a pathologist and president of MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society — argued that the omission produced a predictable public health disparity. He pointed to the high prevalence of the MTHFR C677T gene variant among Hispanic populations, estimated at 20% to 25% carrying two copies, which he described as reducing the body's enzymatic efficiency in converting dietary folate into a usable form. He argued that combining high genetic folate requirements with a staple grain stripped of folic acid created what he called "an avoidable clinical crisis."
With federal action absent, states have moved independently. California passed Assembly Bill 1830, authored by Assemblymember Dr. Joaquin Arambula. Alabama followed with legislation described by Wargotz as championed by Republican lawmakers. New Jersey most recently enacted the "Fortifying Corn Masa Act," led by Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz.