Campaigner vows to fight on for folic acid in bread

Being confined to a wheelchair has not held Simon Thurston back. His father, Lyall, is behind him. Photo / Alan Gibson

Spurred by the birth of his son with spina bifida, Lyall Thurston's 20-year campaign to make it mandatory for bakers to add folic acid to bread was about to pay off.

But the former Rotorua district councillor's dreams were crushed this week when Prime Minister John Key said the Government would defer for three years a decision on whether to proceed with a new transtasman food standard requiring New Zealand bakers to do so from September.

The birth of Mr Thurston's eldest son, Simon, in 1983 catapulted his family into becoming involved in disability rights and issues in New Zealand and overseas.

In the early 1990s international research and medical trials indicated spina bifida was one of the few birth defects that were preventable and that taking folic acid before conception could lessen the incidence of a baby born with neural tube defects by 70 per cent.

Mr Thurston - who in 1999 was made a Companion of the Queen's Service Order for his community work - has been fighting for the fortification of bread ever since.

He is also a member of the Coalition of Parents of Children with Spina Bifida and a past national president of CCS Disability Action (formally the Crippled Children Society).

"We'll never really know but as a parent of a child with a disability you ask yourself, 'Was this preventable?"' he said.

Being confined to a wheelchair for most of his life has not held back 26-year-old Simon, a former prefect at Rotorua's John Paul College.

He lives independently and is a policy analyst at the Rotorua District Council.

He gained a triple-major arts degree from Victoria University and is in his second year of a law degree at Waikato University, where he drives himself once a week.

Simon said he backed his father's campaign "100 per cent".

"I've heard from Dad the facts and it's a clear-cut case. He's put his blood, sweat and tears into this. I'm the example. I'm the face behind Dad's campaign."

Bakers argue that women would need to eat at least 11 slices of bread a day to make a difference to the health of an unborn child, but Mr Thurston said this argument was based on someone not eating other foods containing folic acid such as nuts, orange juice, eggs and some vegetables.

There is also now debate over research that showed there could be links between folic acid and prostate cancer but Mr Thurston said this had not been proven and called it "scaremongering".

Mr Thurston said fortified bread had been backed by the World Health Organisation and 57 countries already did it. He will make a submission to a discussion document proposing the deferral of bread fortification. "We will keep fighting," he said.