Yet iodine deficiency remains the world’s leading cause of preventable mental retardation. Prenatal iodine deficiency as well as deficiency in adulthood leads to compromised intelligence as measured by IQ testing, especially in the developing nations that report some of the world’s lowest IQ scores. In 2007, Kul Gautam, the deputy executive director of UNICEF, announced, “Today over one billion people in the world suffer from iodine deficiency, and 38 million babies born every year are not protected from brain damage due to IDD.”7

Harriet A. Washington, A Terrible Thing to Waste, loc. 6595