The New York Times' headline writer has done humanity a great service. Since the mid-1920s when American and Swiss saltmakers began iodizing salt -- and ending the scourge of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD) -- public health authorities have been in agreement that fortifying salt with iodide or iodate is the best means to overcome IDD. But terms like "hidden hunger" and "micronutrient malnutrition" don't capture mindspace. With the visible manifestation of the enlarged neck, a swollen thyroid gland, goiter, now rare in many societies, there has been no good way to convey that IDD is not an aethetic problem as much as the cause of irreversible mental impairment. If an expectant mother doesn't get enough dietary iodine, her child can be penalized 10-15 I.Q. points because the brain doesn't fully develop. Iodized salt solves this deficiency problem for pennies a year.

"Raising I.Q." connects with people.

Iodizing salt stands along with basic sanitation and clean public drinking water as the greatest triumph of 20th century public health.

And iodized salt was the world's first "functional food," a topic much in the news today as food manufactures vie to engineer healthier foods.

With that for context, read the story in today's New York Times: "In Raising the World's I.Q., the Secret's in the Salt. " (free registration required) I especially liked the lede where one Khazah boy calling another stupid was quoted saying:

"What are you," he sneered, "iodine-deficient or something?"

Over the past 15 years -- the period during which UNICEF identified salt iodization as the top global child health priority -- Kiwanis International has raised more than $75 million to combat IDD. Now the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has begun investing, too. Groups like the International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (ICCIDD) have been at this since the 1980s and after a major worldwide conference of salt producers in 2000, the salt industry has been integrally involved. In the wake of Salt2000, salt producers joined with ICCIDD, Kiwanis International, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a few others to form The Network for the Sustained Elimination of Iodine Deficiency . Read more on our website .

It's great to see publicity like this story. Had it appeared a decade earlier, it would have touched the hearts of Americans then as it does now and made Kiwanis International's fundraising task a great deal easier.

Congratulations to all!