Headlines & features

William Petroski of the Des Moines Register reports that Iowa motorists can rest assured that there will be plenty of salt available next winter’s required road maintenance.

The article builds on the Salt Institute news release (pdf 42.57 kB) and reviews, in paticular, marketplace dynamics for road salt.

Subtitled, "How changing the lives of women and girls in the developing world can change everything," NY Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof equates the slavery issue of the 19th century and totalitarianism of the 20th century with the 21st century's brutality and denigration of women in "The Women's Crusade ." He recommends that President Obama launch a foreign aid program to educate girls in Africa and Asia, to eliminate IDD through salt iodization and to eradicate obstetric fistula, a childbirth injury that is one of the worst scourges of women in the developing world.

The article reviews how Chicago area public works officials used the challenges of potential road salt shortages last winter to examine their snowfighting strategies and improve salt management -- what the Salt Institute has preached for 40 years as "Sensible Salting ." Mick Zawislak reports in the Daily Herald :

With salt in good supply and at a more reasonable cost, the panic of last season has passed. But it taught a lasting lesson to those charged with clearing the streets.

As a proven way to save money and help protect the environment, the area's lower-salt diet is expected to continue this winter. Though winter is months away, local officials have recently decided how much salt they'll buy for 2009-10.

Urban air pollution cuts children's IQ by 4.5%, according to Science News , previewing an article to be published in the August issue of Pediatrics.

Salt storage facilities in the Port of Milwaukee, WI are in the path of a proposed re-engineering of I-794 and the Hoan bridge in the Milwaukee harbor. Reconstruction or replacement of the bridge and its associated roads must begin before serious deterioration of the bridge in 2013. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported today that the Milwaukee Area Association of Commerce has petitioned Gov. Jim Doyle to get the process underway, arguing that the decision requires a lot of pre-planning and community consultation. The fear has been that state agencies might have pre-conceived notions of the changes -- and that those changes would injure current uses of the Port. Milwaukee imports about 1 million tons of salt annually.

Compass Minerals International Inc. reported record earnings in its second quarter, despite lower revenue compared with the same period last year.

In a release after the market closed on Tuesday, the Overland Park-based company (NYSE: CMP) reported earnings of $14.1 million, or 42 cents a share, for the quarter that ended June 30. This compares with earnings of $1.6 million, or 5 cents a share, last year.

Revenue for the quarter was $159.5 million, down 1.5 percent from $162 million last year, due in part to decreased specialty fertilizer sales volume.

Although the authors were too preoccupied with their primary (and legitimate) focus on health disparities in relation to socio-economic status, this new study in the British Medical Journal by University of LIverpool researchers Martin O'Flaherty et al found:

Between 1986 and 2006, overall, age adjusted coronary heart disease mortality decreased by 61% in men and by 56% in women.

With all the high-profile salt-bashing going on in the UK, it may be important to note that in the same period, salt intake levels (figures from Intersalt, BMJ, July 30, 1988 and FSA today) are totally unchanged.

Vice President Joe Biden made an appearance in Kiev, Ukraine to assure Ukrainians that the United States has not abandoned the ex-Soviet republic in its push for a stronger relationship with Russia, Reuters reports.

In a photo released by the White House, the vice president is seen taking part in a welcoming ceremony, where he dipped bread into salt.

This story in USN&WR is one of many reporting two articles in today's Hypertension magazine dealing with blood pressure. Unfortunately, they consider studies showing a salt/blood pressure relationship as newsworthy when the debate has clearly moved on to health outcomes as in: if we reduce dietary sodium will we achieve better health outcomes. The story also reinforces another blind alley: identifying several high sodium foods whereas the blood pressure evidence was on diets, not foods. The publication took down public comments including that by the Salt Institute, originally published but apparently editorially incorrect on policy grounds. This is the essence of that comment: