Iodine deficiency during pregnancy: the implications and challenges for Australian women and their offspring

The re-emergence of iodine deficiency (ID) in Australia, particularly in the south-eastern states of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, in the late 1990s/early 2000s resulted in two national public health responses. The first, involving fortification of commercially baked bread with iodised salt, was begun in Tasmania in 2001 and became mandatory across Australia and New Zealand in 2009. This initiative has seen the general population in Tasmania return to a status of iodine sufficiency.