The World Health Assembly in Geneva has just approved -- unanimously -- a resolution offered by Peru that directs national health departments to report the status of their efforts to promote universal salt iodization (USI) every three years, reports the International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (ICCIDD).

ICCIDD, with the active support of the Salt Institute, lobbied the issue in Geneva, contacting 17 country delegations and speaking on the floor of the Assembly. The action was also endorsed by The Network for the Sustained Elimination of Iodine Deficiency.

The new May/June issue of Foreign Policy magazine includes a compendium of the answers of 21 of the world's "leading thinkers" in response to the question: "What is one solution that would make the world a better place?"

Among the 21 intellectuals is Denmark's Bjørn Lomborg , author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and the tell-truth-to-power advocate that Al Gore refused to debate about "inconvenient truths" on the environment.

Lomborg argued that the most important problem for mankind is overcoming iodine deficiency. He explained: "Children lacking iodine do not develop properly, either physically or intellectually. All they need is salt fortified with iodine." Lomborg, a professor at the Copenhagen Business School notes that 3 million people die a year from malnutrition - and hundreds of millions of children suffer reduced mental and physical abilities because of "unsexy-sounding 'micronutrient deficiency' - a lack of iodine, vitamin A and iron.