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From: howard@metheus.UUCP (Howard A. Landman)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Folic Acid
Message-ID: <210@metheus.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 4-Mar-84 22:18:47 EST
Article-I.D.: metheus.210
Posted: Sun Mar  4 22:18:47 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Mar-84 03:31:38 EST
Organization: Metheus, Portland Oregon
Lines: 21

Since my wife is pregnant, I have spent some time trying to assure that she
gets a decent diet.  One of the problems I have had is that I would like her
to be getting about 4 mg of folic acid per day, but it is apparently illegal
to use more than .8 mg (800 mcg) in any non-prescription pill.  The only
justification I have ever seen for this was a vague reference in one book to
folic acid "masking" pernicious anemia (B-12 deficiency).  So, two questions:

(1) Is there a law/ruling that limits the maximum amount of folic acid in
non-prescription medications to 800 mcg?  Who issued this?  When?  Is there
a similar limit in other civilized countries than the U.S.?

(2) Even if folic acid masked B-12 deficiency, wouldn't it be safe to allow
large amounts of folic acid in a multiple vitamin which included reasonable
amounts of B-12?

My interim solution is to give her several 800 mcg folic acid pills in addition
to the C, multiple, B, E, etc. that she was already taking; but this is not
very cost-effective.

	Howard A. Landman
	ogcvax!metheus!howard