Pass the Iodized Salt

Simple goiter (enlargement of the thyroid gland) is one of the few diseases which might be conquered by Act of Congress. Prevalent in a wide "goiter belt" running from western New York through the Great Lakes basin and across the plains to the Rockies, this type of goiter can be almost entirely controlled by a tiny amount of iodine in table salt. But thus far, Congress has rejected a law (such as Canada has) requiring all table salt in interstate commerce to be iodized.

Last week, despairing of a legislative remedy, the U.S. Public Health Service turned to the next best thing: a nationwide educational program to encourage housewives to ask the grocer for iodized salt. When Ohio's Congresswoman Frances P. Bolton introduced a compulsory iodization bill, the Salt Producers' Association opposed it, protesting that it was medication by legislation. But the producers have assured Mrs. Bolton and PHS that they will use their advertising and publicity programs to promote the use of iodized salt. Mrs. Bolton, whose 22nd Ohio District is in the goiter belt, had taken up the campaign when she learned that iodine-deficient mothers often have feebleminded children.

In Public Health Reports, Dr. William H. Sebrell outlined the campaign's goal: not only to prevent goiter, but to spread the word that iodine is essential to bodily health. The thyroid gland takes up iodine from the bloodstream and uses it to form a hormone, thyroxine. In turn, thyroxine regulates many body functions, including heat production, brain development, sexual maturity, and the growth of hair, skin and bones. A shortage of such an element as iodine, said Dr. Sebrell, may not be indicated dramatically by serious illness: "Just as often, or oftener, the result may be lowered efficiency, nervousness or lack of energy. Too vague for any specific diagnosis, such a generalized malaise may weaken the individual's capacity throughout much or all of his lifetime."

People living near the coasts used to get ample iodine in seafood and in vegetables grown in iodine-bearing soils. Nowadays much produce is shipped to the coasts from iodine-poor areas. In some places iodine is found in natural salt deposits as an "impurity." Old-fashioned refining methods left the iodine in, but modern, high-temperature processes have been taking it out.

About one-third of all U.S. table salt is now iodized, but many housewives in iodine-poor areas suspect iodized salt (clearly labeled, under federal regulations) of being "medicated." Millions more do not know that they, and more particularly their children, cannot be healthy without iodine--which modern technology first took out of their salt, and is now able to put back.

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