In 1917, David Marine, a U.S. physician in Ohio, and his colleagues initiated an iodine prophylaxis program in over 2100 schoolgirls

Over the next few years, he and colleagues published a series of papers reporting a significantly decreased frequency of goiter in children treated with iodine (0.2%), compared to children who did not receive iodine supplementation (>25%).

In the U.S., iodized salt first became available on grocery shelves in Michigan on May 1, 1924, spurred largely by the series of reports by Cowie, Marine, and others in the preceding few years