Headlines & features

In a news conference at the India-International Salt Summit in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, India's salt commissioner predicted that India, currently the world's third largest salt producer (after China and the U.S.), will double its salt production by 2020. NewKerala.com carried the story

Australia and New Zealand may be on the other side of the globe from the U.S. and Europe, but the lessons being learned "Down Under" about cycling between iodine deficiency and sufficiency -- and back again -- have application globally, particularly in those areas which smugly assume their previous success in salt iodization have "solved" the IDD problem. The December Endocrine News of the American Thyroid Association tells this instructive tale on pages 16-17.

Recounting Australia’s unusual experience at a symposium held by the American Thyroid Association (ATA) in September, Creswell Eastman, M.B.B.S., M.D., noted that Australia unwittingly began dosing people with sufficient iodine last century in an “accidental public health triumph.” Dr. Eastman is regional coordinator Asia Pacific and vice chairman of the International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (ICCIDD), and a professor at the University of Sydney Medical School.

And continuing:

Although the United States has been iodine sufficient for several decades, concerns remain that pregnant women do not receive enough, according to Dr. (Elizabeth) Pearce. The effects of iodine deficiency are most worrisome in pregnant women and their babies, with even a mild lack linked to lower intelligence in the children. Dr. Pearce believes iodine strategies used in Australia and Europe could be applied in the United States.

The editors of the New York Times have assembled a spectrum of comments on the current controversy over the Big Apple's push to reduce salt intake.

UK shadow health minister Stephen O'Brien visited the Compass Minerals/Salt Union mine in Winsford, Cheshire and praised the "Herculean" efforts by salt miners in responding to a salt shortage caused by a harsh winter in the British Isles and inadequate customer salt storage, reports The Guardian , quoting O'Brien:

The photo caption captures the gist of this story in today's NY Post : "Farley: Ignores facts to push trendy policy." Daniel Compton continues:

One NY Post headline read "Restaurant Chefs Boiling Over NYC Mayor's Salt Crackdown ," reporting NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg's "controversial" anti-salt campaign. The mayor bristled and responded, the Post reported:

Just for fun, this recycled column (originally from the Washington Post ) offers a humorous insight about how associations work in Washington, DC. using, in this case, the example of the Salt Institute.

New York City's "voluntary" salt reduction program, "even if it does not become legally mandatory," is "astonishingly presumptuous," writes Jacob Sullum on reason.com .

New York City's health department announced target goals for population salt reduction, prompting some discussion and dissent, reports The Gothamist .

The financial devastation of failed snowfighting is not a North American phenomenon. "High street loses out as snow shuts 50 M&S stores," headlined the London Evening Standard , as Britain's leading retailer as would-be shoppers and sales associates could not reach the stores.