Britain's Food Standards Agency (FSA) has a target to reduce average salt intakes across the population to 6g per day by 2010. It selected its targets, it says, on surveys from 2000-2001 claiming British men consume 11 g/salt/day and women, 8.1 gpd. The agency announced July 22nd the publication of a survey of Britons' urinary sodium -- the "gold standard" measure for salt intake, "which shows the UK's average daily salt consumption has fallen from 9.5g to 8.6g since 2000." FSA termed the results "an encouraging decline in salt levels," but conceded its pace would fail to achieve the 6 gpd target in 2010 so it unveiled a consultation to "make its voluntary 2010 salt reduction targets, for 85 categories of food, stricter, and set more challenging 2012 targets, for 80 categories of food."

The publication behind the news release tells a different story .

Entitled "An assessment of dietary sodium levels among adults (aged 19-64) in the UK general population in 2008, based on analysis of dietary sodium in 24 hour urine samples," the methodology explains the care taken to secure accurate samples and analysis. So, we can be pretty sure that the 2008 number is sound. The study actually didn't find 8.6 grams, but rather 8.728 grams; it is expressed as 148 mmol Na (a millimole of sodium being equal to 23 milligrams; this assumes, as they mistakenly do, that all the sodium comes from salt, which it doesn't -- no matter). So they misled on the achievement, but still, reduction from 9.5 grams salt (161 mmol Na) would be an impressive achievement. Indeed, FSA continues to boast that it "is encouraged that action to reduce the average amount of salt we are eating on a daily basis is clearly having a positive impact." This, of course is not the proper metric: salt reduction isn't an end it itself. The "positive impact" would be reduced incidence of heart attacks or better than projected cardiovascular mortality -- no matter, here.

The deception arises in the 9.5 gram (16 mmol) "starting point" which turns out to be a phone survey, not a carefully controlled collection of 24-hour urine samples with quality analysis (as was done in 2008).

Fortunately, we have another exceptionally well-done survey of a representative British population. And from a good deal more vantage point so we can see just how much improvement has been recorded. Its size is nearly comparable, 754 in the 2008 survey and 598 in the Intersalt Study published in the British Medical Journal, July 30, 1988. Intersalt sampled three British populations, carefully collected 24-hour urine samples and had them analyzed in a single laboratory. The results? One population had 149.9 mmol; one 150 mmol; and the third, 151.8 mmol. A far cry from the FSA's claimed 2000-01 starting point of 161 mmol. Instead of a 13 mmol reduction to 148 mmol, over the past 20 years Briton's have changed their salt intake virtually not at all (2 mmol, probably within the margin of error).

All evidence suggests that sodium/salt intakes are largely unchanged in most populations over the past century. The high-salt consuming Finns and Japanese claim signficant reductions, but it does lead one to wonder if the "starting points" are valid in those cases.

So, when FSA makes these bold pronouncements of their "progress" in reducing cardiovascular disease in the UK by cutting salt intake, take it with a grain of salt. Ask whether beating up food manufacturers about reducing salt in their foods is really working. Is a 1.3% reduction over twenty years (even if true) worth the effort? Even using the much-lower "real" starting point, the current pace would have Britons' achieving a 6 gpd target not in 2010, but a bit further down the road -- in 2205 if the current trend can be sustained. That is, another 197 years, not two, before reaching the target of 100 mmol (6 gpd of salt). They admit they're behind schedule, but that may just be classical British understatement, right?

Let's be honest in interpreting the data. FSA has made NO PROGRESS despite the enormous pain it has inflicted on British food manufacturers and diverting resources to supporting "Sid, the Slug" has postponed real progress in improving Britons' health. No wonder FSA prefers to make up number about salt intake than face the proper challenge of improving public health.

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) conducts mini surveys amongst consumers on a quarterly basis in order to monitor changes in consumer attitudes towards food related issues. The latest survey was just published and there were some interesting surprises.

Despite a costly public relations campaign demonizing salt, including many television ads, which named and shamed manufacturers for the salt content in their foods, the latest mini survey revealed that consumer concerns over salt has dropped dramatically. In fact, consumer concens with salt are at their lowest level since December 2003 - years before the FSA began its aggressive anti-salt campaigns, including "Sid the Slug " and "Your Food is Full of It ."

Bravo to the British consumer. It is a fitting tribute to the quote, "You can fool some of the people…."

With important stories on salt imports into New Orleans, a salt feature story on Comedy Central, the beginning of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines review processs, factss behind the (misleading, anti-salt) headlines, and salt industry safety challenges and achievements, all the latest news is at your fingertips in the November SI Report .

Terri Coles of Reuters (Toronto) recently wrote an interesting article on the new Dietary Guidelines. Coles is one of the few writers who wisely made reference to the Yeshiva University study , written by Marantz, Bird and Alderman, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and published in January, 2008 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The authors wrote that the members of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee should use explicit standards of evidence in making their nutritional recommendations. If not, their recommendations could end up producing unintended consequences that may have a negative impact on public health.

Most importantly, the authors proposed that there should be alternative and more rigorous standard for evidentiary support, and went as far as to state that when adequate evidence is not available, the best option may be to issue no guidelines . Now, how courageous is that?

Imagine - saying that you should not make any recommendations until you have reliable data - extraordinary!

The New York Times, like the Washington Post, loves to "blow the whistle" on bad actors, be they corrupt politicians, greedy businessmen or hypocritical "public interest" groups. Yesterday's Science column by John Tierney on "'Misleading' Research From Industry ?" revisits a subject of repeated comment in our blogs. We've pointed out that every funding agency has an agenda when it ponies up to support health-related research. The solution: examine the methodology and the integrity of the analysis. Too often, industry-funded studies are dismissed for bias while government-funded studies are given a free pass (despite numerous examples of why they shouldn't).

Tierney briefly reviews the disparagement of industry-funded studies, lamented by the British Medical Journal as creating a "hierarchy of purity among authors," and reports:

Now some researchers have looked to see what kind of hierarchy actually exists. After analyzing weight-loss research conducted over four decades, they've found that the quality of data reporting in industry-sponsored research does seem to be different from that in other research: It's better.

The study, published in the International Journal of Obesity , concluded: "while continued efforts to improve reporting quality are warranted, such efforts should be directed at nonindustry-funded research at least as much as at industry-funded research."

Ironically, the article appeared concurrent to the first meeting of the new 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee whose salt subcommittee chair has enjoyed millions of research dollars leading to reports that endorsed the official government policy of universal sodium reduction while specifically opposing release of the data in those studies for independent expert analysis. So, if the Gray Lady wants another whistle-blowing target there are surely many choices.

Before the age of science, the influence of the classical Greek philosophers was so overwhelming that their simple opinions were taken as divine edicts. Anaximander (610-647 BCE) spent a good part of his life teaching students that animals were miraculously formed out of pure moisture and Aristotle (384-322 BCE) proposed that animals spontaneously arose out of soil, plants or even other species of animals. These opinions resulted in the theory of the 'spontaneous generation' of life, which held sway until the Middle Ages and beyond. Even Van Helmont (1578-1644), the famous Belgian physician and chemist, recorded detailed recipes for the preparation of spontaneously generated mice. For 2,000 years, polemics were the only means of explaining nature, for never once in the history of the debate had anyone ever thought of actually carrying out experiments to prove or disprove the validity of their theories. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was among the first to seriously question these dogmatic theories and insisted that only careful experimentation and precise observation would lead to the truth. He became the period's most eloquent proponent of methodical experimentation and has often been referred to as the 'Father of the Scientific Method'.

In applying the scientific method to the practice of medicine, the notion of "evidence-based" medicine developed. Although it is not a new concept, it has had a renaissance in recent years, and now everyone refers to their brand of practice as evidence-based medicine. The one institution that rigorously adheres to the strictest principles of evidence-based medicine is the Cochrane Collaboration . Unfortunately, within other organizations, the term "evidence-based" is often used rather loosely and routinely ignores the rigorous discipline upon which the practice is based. What is worse, there is a lack of understanding of what quality evidence actually is. The following is the accepted understanding of the hierarchy of evidence to be used in making evidence-based evaluations:At the very bottom of the quality of evidence pyramid are ideas and opinions. They are exactly the sort of pronouncements that Bacon railed against. Even expert opinion cannot be compared to scientifically generated evidence. Yet, the Dietary Guidelines and the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) upon which the Guidelines are established are predominantly based on opinion - the lowest level of evidence. In fact, when the initial call for comments to the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee was announced, our input focused squarely on that issue. Quoting from "The Development of DRIs 1994-2004: Lessons Learned and New Challenges ," our comments (comment ID 000010) highlighted what a number of scientists originally involved with the development of the DRIs were now saying - that we have to get away from expert opinions and start basing our judgments and policies on much more rigorous science.

Unfortunately, that is not what we witnessed at the first meeting of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) meeting held October 30-31, 2008.

As was the case with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, the chairperson of the sub-committee for Fluid and Electrolytes for the 2010 Guidelines is Larry Appel. As it happens, Prof. Appel is listed as a member of WASH , an advocacy group whose singular aim is: "to achieve a reduction in dietary salt intake around the world." In their justification for salt reduction, WASH focuses almost exclusively on hypertension to the virtual exclusion of all other risk factors and biomarkers that are responsible for overall health outcomes. They systematically ignore all data (including the Cochrane review and its latest reissue - ) as well as the most recent evidence that demonstrates the net negative health outcomes from reduced salt diets . How a member of such an advocacy group could be selected to lead what is supposed to be an objective advisory group is quite astonishing.

At the opening meeting, Appel made his presentation to the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee selectively picking all evidence that supported his salt reduction agenda and ignoring all else that didn't. He mentioned a number of NHANES studies, but ignored the most recent one as well as all others that did not agree with his opinion.

When another DGAC member brought up the issue of the possible negative consequences of reduced iodized salt consumption, Prof. Appel repeated a statement he made at a recent FDA hearing. "There is no problem with iodine in this country. We don't have goiter anymore." This was a typical Greek philosopher's statement. As it happens, our iodine values have been dropping steadily during the past 30 years, and although they are not yet at a level that would be considered a public health emergency, they are tending that way . As a result of Appel's pronouncement, there was no further discussion of the iodine issue.

All in all, the first meeting of the DGAC was a great disappointment. It appears that we are once more headed towards a series of recommendations that will result from a process based far more upon opinion than on scientifically-derived evidence. It was like retreating to the notion of spontaneous generation. This is just not on, and we will continue to do whatever we can to ensure that this process get back on track and be the product of objective science, not subjective personal opinion.

As the Mark Twain observed: "Figures don't lie, but liars figure." You may have seen the headline recently heralding research that concluded that a third of all serious heart attacks can be attributed to the "fried and salty foods" in the "Western diet." Not so fast says Sandy Szwarc in Junk Food Science .

The analysis is classic "dredge data," Szwarc points out. The researchers excluded more than half the sample without explaining how the excluded subjects compared to those retained in the reported results. The data themselves were derived from a highly inaccurate post-heart attack dietary recall survey. And that typified a series of built-in biases that included "information bias," "selection bias," "observation bias," "recall bias and reverse causation." The analysis, too, confined to risk factors, was faulty with many key factors not controlled. She commends, as we do, a further read of the work of John P. Ioannidis, M.D., with the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts-New England Medical Center on "Why most published research findings are false ."

The way forward, she avers and we wholeheartedly agree, is with an evidence-based approach as pioneered by the Cochrane Collaboration. She explains how the process worked in a Cochrane Review of the role of anti-oxidants in cardiovascular disease . She doesn't mention it, but the Cochrane Review on salt and cardiovascular disease concluded there is no scientific basis for a population reduction of dietary sodium. First issued in 2003, that finding was reviewed and affirmed earlier this year.

This blog post should be required reading for every medical journal editor. Go figure.

Thirteen prominent scientists will constitute the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), just named today. All are content area experts. Their views on developing evidence-based recommendations instead of past DGACs' expert opinion summaries will be determined beginning at the first DGAC meeting next Thursday and Friday. Stay tuned.

Most discouragingly, the sole appointee with a "salt" background is Dr. Larry Appel, appointed despite an obvious conflict of interest not only as a partisan in the anti-salt lobbying fraternity, but the leader of the 2005 DGAC effort which included, for the first time ever, a numeric goal for sodium intake -- a level that further research has already found problematic.

From the USDA release, members of the 2010 DGAC consists of:

Linda V. Van Horn, PhD, RD, LD, (Chair) Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Preventative Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL. Dr. Van Horn has expertise extending across many areas of nutrition research and public health as a nutrition epidemiologist who has conducted population level research in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease, obesity, and breast cancer. She is currently the principal investigator in the Women's Health Initiative Extension Study and the Dietary Intervention Study in Children.

Naomi K. Fukagawa, MD, PhD, (Vice Chair) Professor of Medicine and Associate Program Director of the Clinical Research Center, University of Vermont and Fletcher Allen Health Care, Burlington, VT. Dr. Fukagawa is a board-certified pediatrician and an expert in nutritional biochemistry and metabolism, including protein and energy metabolism; oxidants and antioxidants; and the role of diet in aging and chronic diseases, such as diabetes mellitus. She has chaired the National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Centers' Committee and is currently a member of the National Institutes of Health Integrative Physiology of Diabetes and Obesity Study Section.

Cheryl Achterberg, PhD, Dean and Professor, College of Human Sciences, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. Dr. Achterberg's research has evaluated the impact of behavior on the dietary patterns of populations, including low-income and elderly Americans. She has served on panels for numerous groups, including the World Health Organization, the Institute of Medicine, and the United Nations as an expert in nutrition education and community interventions.

Lawrence J. Appel, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and International Health (Human Nutrition), Division of General Internal Medicine, and Director, ProHealth Clinical Research Unit, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD. Dr. Appel is a physician whose research pertains to the prevention of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and kidney disease, typically through lifestyle modification, such as dietary intake of sodium and potassium. Dr. Appel served on the 2005 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee as a member of the science review subcommittee and Chair of the electrolytes subcommittee. He has also served on several committees for the Institute of Medicine, including the Dietary Reference Intake Panel for electrolytes and water, which he chaired.

Roger A. Clemens, DrPH, Associate Director, Regulatory Science, and Adjunct Professor, Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Science, The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. Dr. Clemens has extensive experience in functional foods and technology with a special emphasis on probiotics and prebiotics. He has expertise in toxicology and food safety, as well as knowledge of food processing and the food industry. He is a spokesperson for the American Society for Nutrition and the Institute of Food Technologists.

Miriam E. Nelson, PhD, Director, John Hancock Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Tufts University, Boston, MA. Dr. Nelson is a leading authority on physical activity and energy balance, with extensive research experience integrating the science of energy balance into behavior change programs. She recently served as Vice Chair of the first Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee chartered by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Sharon M. Nickols-Richardson, PhD, RD, Associate Professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Dr. Nickols-Richardson's expertise focuses on dietary and physical activity determinants of muscle strength and bone density, as well as dietary interventions for obesity and nutrition over the lifecycle from child nutrition to older adults. She served the Institute of Medicine as a consultant on the Dietary Reference Intakes book "The Essential Guide to Nutrient Requirements."

Thomas A. Pearson, MD, PhD, MPH, Senior Associate Dean, Clinical Research and Albert D. Kaiser Professor, Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY. Dr. Pearson is an epidemiologist specializing in lipid metabolism and the prevention of cardiovascular disease. He contributed significantly to the American Heart Association's guidelines for prevention of heart disease and stroke, and is as a founding member of the World Heart Forum for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention.

Rafael Pérez-Escamilla, PhD, Professor, Nutritional Sciences and Public Health, University of Connecticut, and Director, Connecticut Center of Excellence for Eliminating Health Disparities among Latinos, Storrs, CT. Dr. Perez-Escamilla is an internationally recognized scholar in the area of community nutrition for his work in food safety, obesity, diabetes, and food security, with a specialty in Latinos and low-income American populations. He is currently serving the Institute of Medicine in re-examining the pregnancy weight gain guidelines.

Xavier Pi-Sunyer, MD, MPH, Professor, Applied Physiology, Columbia University Teachers College and Chief, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Nutrition, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, NY. Dr. Pi-Sunyer has expertise in obesity, type 2 diabetes, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism, and general medicine with over 250 research papers on these topics. He chaired a National Heart Lung and Blood Institute obesity committee and has served on the Institute of Medicine Dietary Reference Intake Panel on macronutrients. He was also a member of the 2005 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee where he chaired the energy balance and weight maintenance subcommittee.

Eric B. Rimm, ScD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA. Dr. Rimm is an epidemiologist whose research evaluates the impact of lifestyle factors, particularly diet, that relate to the risk for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. He is internationally known for his work on moderate alcohol consumption and health and has served on the Institute of Medicine Dietary Reference Intakes Panel for macronutrients.

Joanne L. Slavin, PhD, RD, Professor, Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. Dr. Slavin is an expert in carbohydrates and dietary fiber. Her research expertise focuses on the impact of whole grain consumption in chronic diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, as well as the role of dietary fiber in satiety.

Christine L. Williams, MD, MPH, Vice President and Medical Director

Healthy Directions, Inc., and former Professor, Clinical Pediatrics, and Director, Children's Cardiovascular Health Center, Columbia University, New York, NY. Dr. Williams is an expert in nutrition in cancer prevention and preventive cardiology, especially hypercholesterolemia, in children. She received the prestigious Preventive Cardiology Academic Award from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health for her work in preventive cardiology for children.

If you're intending to prepare a paper for the Beijing salt symposium next September, breathe a sigh of relief. The deadline for submitting papers has been extended from December 15 until April 30. Check the Symposium website for details.

Confirming earlier studies by Global Insight, Inc. and Iowa State University (and, doubtless, many others), the Washington State DOT just released a report on a four-day, winter weather closure of Interstate 90 at Snoqualmie Pass last winter with a total economic loss of $28 million.

The study employs new economic impact assessment methods developed by Washington State University's Social and Economic Sciences Research Center seeking "a reality-based, comprehensive analysis of the effects … on the state's freight-dependent industries and the economy as a whole." The study included a survey of trucking firms and freight-dependent businesses. The study found the four-day storm cost 170 people their jobs and those still employed were penalized $8.6 million in lost wages. State tax revenues declined $1.42 million through reduced economic activity. That's one short segment of one road for one storm.

The "first significant import shipment of bulk salt in more than four years" has hit New Orleans, according to the lead story in the October 20 issue of River Transport News. "Industry observers indicated that over the last three weeks, lower Mississippi imports have accelerated with the arrival of several 40,000-ton shipments. Additional shipments are expected." If sustained, the Port of New Orleans "salt imports could approach or exceed record levels." The previous record was set in 2001 and was nearly matched two years later.

The headline, "Booming Salt Demand Adds More Pressure to Barge Freight," tells the corollary story: upriver salt shipments are straining available barge capacity. "It appears that riverborne salt shipments could reach a new record high this year, exceeding the previous record of 9.7 million tons set in 2004," the RTN story reported. They have averaged 8.5 million tons since 1996, the story added. The additional stress is magnified, the story continued.

Under normal circumstances, the projected increase in riverborne salt shipments would cause barely a ripple in the inland barge market. This year, however, salt shipments are being compressed into a significantly shorter shipping window.

Salt shipments into the upper Midwest got an extremely late start this past spring. The heavy snows and severe weather last winter and spring not only resulted in heavy salt usage; it also resulted in the latest opening of the upper Mississippi River to navigation on record. Shipments were further disrupted in May and June as the upper Mississippi River was periodically closed to navigation due to flooding and high water.

When the reporter called for our explanation for the spike in imports, I noted that they seem to reflect the "supply" response to the "demand" signal sent out a couple months ago by Upper Mississippi state DOTs who sought vastly expanded bid amounts of deicing salt. Surprise. Markets work!

The Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MTO), like most cutting-edge snowfighters in North America, has moved strongly into using liquids in its winter maintenance functions. Among the motivations: reducing the amount of salt used to keep the roadways clear and safe. Unlike many agencies, however, MTO determined to document the benefits achieved by adopting pre-wetting of rock salt and use of salt brine applied directly to roadways ("direct liquid application" or DLA). MTO's chef technology researcher Max Perchanok, reported the agency's findings to the Ontario Good Roads Association's annual Snow and Ice Colloquium yesterday.

MTO's prediction in adopting pre-wetting was that they could achieve the same level of service and save about a third of the salt they applied. An early 1995-99 test using 5% brine achieved a 23% salt reduction and a follow-up study in 2002-03 found that increasing the brine component to 7-15% achieved salt savings of 18% to 40%. As a result, 99% of MTO's (mostly-contractor-operated) fleet now is equipped for pre-wetting. Adoption of pre-wetting was confirmed in another study in 2004-2006 which found an 8% to 30% reduction in granular salt usage.

MTO also moved towards DLA with forecast salt savings of 20% to 30% and all its contractors incorporated DLA into their operations by the wnter of 2005-2006. Confirmatory research, however produced disparate results ranging from no salt savings to savings of 50%. MTO has concluded that it has achieved overall salt reduction, but "salt savings are not confirmed" because of the "highly variable results."

Most surpriing to MTO was the corollary examination of the outcomes of using liquids. Using liquids has allowed the agency to reduce the frequency of salt applications by 17% to 33%. A study in Kenora determined that using liquids reduced the time to achieve bare pavement from an average of 20 hours in 2000 to an average of only 2 hours in 2003 when DLA was implemented. "The level of service improved," MTO concludes. Moreover, a study in Waterloo found a dramatic improvment in crash prevention. Anti-icing with liquids was found far more effective than using pre-wet salt; the study, however, identified only marginal safety improvements in using pre-wet salt which is directly counter to an established relationship in the published research literature that shows performing winter maintenance service slashes crash rates by 85% and injuries by 88%.

In sum, MTO found using liquids improved their operations and, particularly the safety of Ontario highways, achieving a higher level of service and delivering on predicted salt savings, though this latter conclusion was supported only with inconsistent data.

Most issues in the salt industry are invisible to the late-night talk shows and ignored by our cultural arbiters, but the latest flap about the cost and availability of road salt for the coming winter has cut a broad swath. In last night's "The Colbert Report " on the national network Comedy Central, Stephen Colbert, tongue firmly in cheek, called for a return to a salt-based economy as a means of stabilizing the nation's precarious financial condition. "Moving to a salt-based economy is a return to our fiscal roots," he explained.

The price of salt has gotten so high that some cities can't afford enough road salt for the winter and will be forced to de-ice their roads the old fashioned way with global warming. In the last year, salt has gone up from 45 to 79 dollars a ton. A ton of dollars is currently worth two euros. That's why I'm not saying you should invest your money in salt. I'm saying you should convert your money into salt. Moving to a salt-based economy is a return to our fiscal roots. Roman soldiers were paid in salt. It's where we get the word salary which is compensation people get in exchange for doing a job. Ask your parents. Of course, we can't trust our banks anymore, but our salt wealth can be stored in any number of locations.

As reported earlier with the January-June U.S. salt sales figures showing an 11.6% increase in sales, the industry's labor force put in a lot of overtime the first half of this year. Hours worked in North American salt facilities rose 9.83%. Pushing for extra output also strained the industry's safety record, with a 28.6% increase in lost-time injuries, according to the Salt Institute's report on industry safety.

The percentages hide the full story, however. While the production hours were nearly 6 million, the number of lost-time injuries was nine, up from seven in the same timeframe in 2007. Any number above zero is lamentable and justifies a strong, continuing safety effort, but the industry's remarkable safety improvements in recent years have reduced the denominator in the calculation so that a single incident is magnified greatly. Industry-wide, reportable incidents, which many safety experts consider a better indicator of safe working conditions, increased from 49 to 50, inching up only 2%, a fifth of the increase in work-hours.

All that should not diminish the continuing safety efforts by salt companies. Salt companies recorded an astounding 0.30 lost-time injury rate (up from 0.26 last year), but this is light-years better than the lost-time rate for all U.S. nonmetal mines which recorded a 4.27 rate. Before we reach euphoria for this record, 13 times better than the MSHA benchmark, we should reflect that the rate of reportable incidents is about the same. The adage declares that those who work hard enjoy good luck. That seems apropos.

With that long contextual introduction to the release of the first half safety statistics, congratulations are due to the company safety leaders. Among large companies, Cargill led the way with regard to both incidence and severity; Morton Salt tied with Cargill for the best incidence rate. Among smaller salt companies, not a single company recorded a single lost-time injury, a tremendous achievement.

Safe work, of course, is achieved at the level of each worker, but the work teams at each facility are a key element of encouraging adherence to approved safety procedures. The facilities with the best records for the January - June include, for incidence: Morton Salt, Rittman, OH evap plant for large processing plants; Cargill Deicing Technologies Cayuga mine in Lansing, NY among salt mines; Cargill Salt's Watkins Glen, NY evap plant for small processing facilities and Morton Salt for terminals and warehouses. With regard to severity rate, industry leading facilities include, again, Morton Salt's Rittman plant; Morton's Grand Saline, TX mine; Cargill's Watkins Glen plant, again, for small processors, and Cargill's terminals and warehouses.

As they would say in the NFL, this is a very competitive league with very little separating the top performers from their competitors. Unlike the NFL, everyone can be a winner in this league.

It would be easy to dismiss the premise of a talk delivered yesterday at the 2008 Joint Meeting of The Geological Society of America, Soil Science Society of America, American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, in Houston. But the audience seems serious enough.

Entitled "Taking the salt out of sea water" sound shopworn, but there's no doubting the need for additional supplies of fresh water in many areas. The UN estimates that, globally, 1.1 billion people lack access to sustainable, clean drinking water and that 1.6 million children die each year because of that lack of access. University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) geoscientist David Kreamer, noting that 37% of the world's population lives within 100 km of a coastline, proposes that mothballed naval ships, such as the decommissioned US aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, be retrofitted to become mobile desalination plants. He terms it "practical." Sounds like it's anything but that, but at least the idea is being vetted by relevant scientists.

Medical News Today has the October 1 story.