The Folidi failure: When the system breaks down
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Certain things should be a no-brainer. One of them is this: anything placed on the market to improve people’s health must actually do so. Especially when it involves pregnant women, or women preparing their bodies for pregnancy.
What happened with the Folidi supplement is shocking. It exposed a chain of trust that has now been shattered: The patient trusts her gynaecologist. The gynaecologist trusts the importer. The importer trusts the manufacturer. The manufacturer trusts the supplier.
Poof. All of that - gone.
Yes, mistakes happen. But this was a very serious mistake. And what we’re seeing now is just another chain of legal threats: the affected women are considering legal action, the local health authorities say they're “looking into it,” and the manufacturer is pointing fingers at the supplier.
What’s even more shocking is the silence from higher authorities - both in Malta and in Europe - about fixing the system that allowed this failure to happen. The Malta Women’s Lobby, and the Nationalist Party, called for a review of this responsibility gap. Women want answers: how was this allowed to happen?
What we do know is that supplements are classified as food products. This means they’re not subject to the same stringent checks and balances as pharmaceutical or medical products. Responsibility falls under the Food Safety Commission - which, so far, has said nothing. And under current law, the Commission isn’t even legally obliged to test such products. This isn’t just a Maltese issue - it’s a problem in many countries across the globe.
But in this case, it only impacted Malta. About 40 women who took Folidi in Malta had to be treated for unprecedentedly, dangerously high levels of vitamin D.
Something, somewhere, is terribly wrong.
Anyone placing a product on the market must ensure that the product is exactly what it claims to be. And when that product affects people’s health - especially the health of pregnant women - those checks should be mandatory.
This was very serious. Yes, mistakes happen. But if we just let this pass without learning from it - without taking real, structural action - then we become complicit in the next failure.
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