It may not be a question of the initiative itself, rather, what conditions in Switzerland at the time led to an uptick in iodine deficiencies.

There was no uptick, CIDS was endemic to the alps as far back as roman times. Its consequences literally slipped into linguistic vernaculars (e.g. french as the insult "crétin des alpes", lit. "cretin from the alps", and "cretin" was the original term for CIDS-induced mental impairment).

Maybe they should just RTFA

Tiktok mind and some angry people can't comprehend how hard it was to actually get to the cause and solution to a lot of diseases

Can I get some benefits of doubt please? :D

I don't question the initiative.

The article just read like it was some strange illness that affected Switzers around a certain time.

The article mentions comments from the 19th century about the same subject.

I think, that Switzerland, and especially those remote mountain regions, stayed more isolated than similar regions in France or Austria well into the early 20th century, making the issue stand out more in comparison.

French alps had the very same problem.

Austria I don't know. Many Austrian had the reverse problem with too much iodin and basedov eyes.

The country: Switzerland The people: Swiss

The word Switzer isn’t in use since a very long time :)

Sorry, I was lazy and just translated Schweizer without checking :D

> I am always flabbergasted when people question incredibly effective public health initiatives.

I think it comes from a generalised distrust of governments/big institutions. Which comes from hearing (often heavily distorted) stories about things like Tuskegee Syphilis, MKULTRA, CIA vaccinators in Afghanistan and Thalidomide.

This was pre-internet and in remote areas where there is a distrust of central authority.

And there are loads of examples through history up till current day that show that blindly trusting authorities is naive. Heck, even in the article, some doctors were poisoning their patients with iodine. It is not far fetched that some people in these areas were informed of these problems. So a tiny amount kills us... and so you are saying any even tinier amount will save us. I'd be pretty skeptical too.

It seems that when presented well and with personally verifiable evidence, people were willing to accept.

I am really flabbergasted when people blindly accept in mass what authorities tell us.