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Iodine deficiency in China - a crucial lesson for U.S - Editorial

Better Nutrition, August, 1996 by Jamess Gormley

In the June 4th issue of The New York Times, China's Public Health Ministry estimated that "more than 10 million cases of mental retardation in China are a result of iodine shortages during brain development." This estimate includes hundreds of thousands of people who "suffer the worst physical and mental handicaps caused by the lack of iodine," a tragic and nutritionally-preventable catastrophe marked by severe mental retardation and physical disfigurement, a condition called cretinism.

Glen F. Maberly, Ph.D., chairman of Emory University's Department of International Health, was one of the first Westerners to blow the whistle on widespread iodine deficiency in China.

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"The whole intellectual fabric of a large portion of the population is being dulled," he said in the article. "With the lack of iodine, the brain does not wire correctly in early development," particularly that development which occurs from the pre-natal age of 14 weeks through the third trimester.

Although the problem of goiter (enlargement of the thyroid) was recognized as such by the Chinese 3,000 years ago, and addressed by persuading the public to eat iodine-rich foods, such as kelp, today's Communist Party leadership (with significant backing from the World Bank and the United Nations) is only now pledging the eradication of iodine deficiency by the year 2000.

A little late, considering that the 1990 World Summit for Children (held in New York) recognized the magnitude and seriousness of the problem and, at that time, adopted, as a target for the international community, the virtual elimination of these disorders by the end of the decade.

Although China is planning to add iodine to the salt consumed by the 1.2 billion Chinese, there are other alternatives, such as control-dissolving sodium iodide in public drinking water, one of several solutions which worked successfully for a village in Mali, West Africa, in 1993.

Let us remember that the incidence of endemic goiter, in the United States, fell dramatically after the introduction of iodized salt in 1924.

Let's also take a moment to think about the children born, in the United States alone, with severe deformities of the spinal cord (e.g., spine bifida) caused by preventable deficiencies in maternal folic-acid levels. We must condemn our government's reluctance, until recently, to add this B vitamin to the food supply.

The only good that can come out of these avoidable human tragedies is the knowledge that we can stop nutritional genocide from ever occurring again. In good health!

Iodine deficiency in China - a crucial lesson for U.S - Editorial

Better Nutrition, August, 1996 by Jamess Gormley

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