[ExI] Making [100 million] people smarter on the cheap.

[spike]

> ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick

> >http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/opinion/04kristof.html?_r=1&em
> 
> ...What Kristof wrote was:
> 
> "When a pregnant woman doesn't have enough iodine in her 
> body, her child may suffer irreversible brain damage and 
> could have an I.Q. that is 10 to 15 points lower...

> Still, even 50 million somewhat brain-damaged people is a 
> staggering and dreadful needless waste of potential. Yes, 
> there'll be rumors that adding iodine to the salt or other 
> foods is an Evil Crusader Plot, but not if the leaders of 
> such nations and faiths can be persuaded to speak up in favor 
> of doing so. It might suit some of them to stupidize their 
> populations, but that's not a foregone conclusion.
> 
> Damien Broderick 



Ja, I fully agree.  My notion is that if the leaders of the nations of
iodine-starved people had any intentions of solving this problem, they could
easily do so.  The solution is cheap even by their modest standards.  The
fact that they have done nothing suggests a specific intention to allow the
problem to continue, perhaps out of malice, perhaps out of criminal apathy,
perhaps a mistaken belief that iodine deficiency will somehow reduce
population growth, or the notion that brain damaged people are easier to
control, easier to keep down on the farm away from the crowded cities.  Even
the poorest governments in the world could supply iodized salt to its
neediest citizens for less than the cost of maintaining a wing of their
presidential palaces.

They could solve it, but they don't.  What (if anything) do we do now coach?

spike