The disease is the result of a lack of the vital micronutrient iodine in the diet. Even though only a minute amount is needed throughout one's life to ensure proper body functioning, more than 1.5 billion people around the world are at risk because they don't get enough iodine. Indonesia, like all the other nations that attended the 1990 World Summit for Children, pledged to eliminate IDD by 2000. Only about 60 percent of the world's edible salt is now iodized, and nearly 28 million children are born each year at some risk of mental impairment due to iodine deficiency in their mothers' diets during pregnancy. Hundreds of thousands of children and adults around the world suffer from cretinism caused by a lack of iodine intake by a pregnant woman during her first trimester.
Cretins are often unable to hear or speak and are sometimes dwarfed or paralyzed.
Iodine deficiency is also responsible for countless miscarriages and stillbirths in the developing world. All rights reserved.