Word: goiter
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Simple goiter (enlargement of the thyroid gland) is one of the few diseases which might be conquered by Act of Congress. Prevalent in a wide "goiter belt" running from western New York through the Great Lakes basin and across the plains to the Rockies, this type of goiter can be almost entirely controlled by a tiny amount of iodine in table salt. But thus far, Congress has rejected a law (such as Canada has) requiring all table salt in interstate commerce to be iodized...
...bill, the Salt Producers' Association opposed it, protesting that it was medication by legislation. But the producers have assured Mrs. Bolton and PHS that they will use their advertising and publicity programs to promote the use of iodized salt. Mrs. Bolton, whose 22nd Ohio District is in the goiter belt, had taken up the campaign when she learned that iodine-deficient mothers often have feebleminded children...
...Public Health Reports, Dr. William H. Sebrell outlined the campaign's goal: not only to prevent goiter, but to spread the word that iodine is essential to bodily health. The thyroid gland takes up iodine from the bloodstream and uses it to form a hormone, thyroxine. In turn, thyroxine regulates many body functions, including heat production, brain development, sexual maturity, and the growth of hair, skin and bones. A shortage of such an element as iodine, said Dr. Sebrell, may not be indicated dramatically by serious illness: "Just as often, or oftener, the result may be lowered efficiency, nervousness...
Chiefly concerned are isotopes of elements which the thyroid, especially in cases of toxic goiter, has the property of absorbing and concentrating at the afflicted portion of the gland. This process enables the radiation emitted by the radioactive isotopes to destroy harmful growths. Other elements which do not become concentrated in the body as iodine does, may be used in research on body chemistry, since by their effect on a Geiger counter, their progress through the body may be traced--thus they are termed "tracer elements...
Radioactive isotopes of phosphorus have been employed in palliative therapy in such conditions as leukemia and polycythemia; but the goiter treatment by means of radioactive iodine he holds, represents a "first" in what he hopes will be a long series of definitive treatment based upon the application of fundamental researches of the nuclear physicists...