Seaweed and help for endemic goitre

Thyroid enlargement caused by low iodine content in food will often be accompanied by mental retardation if aquired early in life, even physical retardation and, in most severe cases, cretinism. Public information, social welfare and iodized salt or seaweed food can theoretically eradicate this unnecessary disease. Simple goitre is the easiest of all known diseases to prevent…… It may be excluded from the list of human diseases as soon as society determines to make the effort was stated by a pioneer in goitre prophylaxis in 1920. The statement is still valid. The goitre is still a curse. One problem is that while smallpox was definitely eradicated the day the last patient was cured, goitre can only be kept under control. Background iodine deficiency will always remain, the remedy must be set in perpetually. In our days many ambitious campaigns have a posthumous reputation as: there is little sign that the preventive programme continues to be pursued with vigour and determination. For injection of iodized oil or distribution of tablets, every single person has to be called on every six months, for iodized salt authorities must have continous control that no other kind is ever distributed within the vulnerable area, and it is necessary that people really use salt for cooking. Wherever seaweed is introduced in the right way there is at least some hope that a custom will develop, a demand will be created, which could possibly survive periods when governments give other priorities. Other andvantages are the multiple health benefit, the economic  gain that seaweed does not have to be imported into any countries bordering the sea, and the positive impact on employment, as mariculture of seaweed creates lots of job opportunities. The knowledge of seaweed as antigoitre prophylax and remedy is centuries or milleniaries old, in most countries the indroduction of seaweed for food would not mean an innovation but a revival of old customs. New is only the possibility of offering seaside resources for inland needs.