Kristof: How To Raise The World's IQ With Salt

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan: Travelers to Africa and Asia all have their favorite forms of foreign aid to "make a difference." One of mine is a miracle substance that is cheap and actually makes people smarter.

Unfortunately, it has one appalling side effect. No, it doesn't make you sterile, but it is just about the least sexy substance in the world. Indeed, because it's so numbingly boring, few people pay attention to it or invest in it. (Or dare write about it!)

It's iodized salt.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[stell]

Many of the diagnoses for the debillitating diseases around the world could be remedied with simple nutrition. From that I have to assume that the worst form of violence is poverty. Poverty isn't just being without money, it's being without the bare necessities of life. Who is to blame?

[RobBob]

Not to be a spoilsport, but by definition an IQ of 100 is considered "average". Thus the only way to raise the "world's IQ" by a billion points would be to add 10 million people to the world's population. That's not what the author had in mind.

If salt can make a billion third-worlders smarter, then the curious side effect would be to lower every American's IQ score.