A new set of standards for iodized salt is awaiting final approval and is expected to hit shelves during the first half of 2010, according to the People's Daily. For more than a year, the Ministry of Health has been working to make the new standards official.

The new standards will lower the volume of iodine contained in iodized salt and will allow provincial health departments to adjust the proportion of iodine according to the needs of the local people. In addition, China will not provide iodized salt for Iodine-excessive areas or for populations with thyroid gland diseases.

As for some news reports that linked iodized salt with the increase of thyroid gland cancer cases, experts said there is no solid evidence supporting such a connection. Globally speaking, thyroid gland cancer cases have been increasing in recent years, but its pathogenesis is still unknown. On the other hand, it has been widely recognized that iodine intervention can prevent low-grade thyroid gland cancer, experts said.

On average, a Chinese person eats 5 to 10 grams of iodized salt daily. Every kilogram of iodized salt includes 30 milligrams of iodine. In this way, he or she consumes 150 to 300 gammas of iodine. This is below the upper limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO), and far below that set by the European Union or the United States.

Due to wide-spread iodine deficiency diseases, China started carrying out iodine intervention programs in 1993, mainly through popularizing the use of iodized salt. Two years later, China established a monitoring system for iodine deficiency diseases and the use of iodized salt. In the past decade, iodized salt has helped increase Chinese children's intelligence quotient by about 12 percentage points. It has also helped to prevent iodine deficiency diseases.

According to some experts, however, 5 to 10 percent of the Chinese population is still not covered by standard iodized salt and is suffering from iodine deficiencies. The situations in Tibet and Hainan are the worst. A WHO report from 2007 says that China still has 1,219,000 newborns with iodine deficiencies.

(China.org.cn by Pang Li, August 13, 2009)