The Alliance for the Union of Romanians submitted to the Senate a draft law that prohibits the sale of iodized salt intended for human consumption, for animal feeding, as well as for use in the food industry.

The legislative initiative also stipulates that iodized salt is sold only in pharmacies and purchased only with a doctor’s prescription. In addition, the sale of iodized salt outside pharmacies will be punished with a fine of 4,000 to 20,000 lei.

What the proposed AUR draft law contains

• the sale of iodized salt is allowed only through a pharmacy network with a doctor’s prescription, packaged in an amount of no more than 0.5 kg.
• Industrial iodized salt should contain a maximum of 30
• mg of iodine/kg of salt, respectively 50.6 mg of potassium iodate/kg of salt or 39.2
• of potassium iodide/kg of salt

1) Violations are the following actions:

• a) marketing of iodized salt for human consumption, for feeding animals
• or for making bread and bakery products;
• b) retail sale of iodized salt, except for cases provided for
• Art. 2 para. (3);
• c) non-compliance with the conditions of transportation, storage and sale of salt
• non-iodized, established by the manufacturer in accordance with legal regulations;
• d) use of iodized salt in the production of bread and bakery products, la
• consumption in public and collective food, as well as animal feed.
• (2) Violations provided for in para. (1) lit. a) and c) are punishable by a fine
• from 4,000 lei to 8,000 lei, and the provisions of para. (1) lit. b) and d) are punishable by a fine from 10,000 to 20,000 lei.

“Romanians daily consume 2-3 times more “iodized” salt than the amount recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), which is 5 grams of salt. This high consumption of salt explains the high level of hypertensives – about 40% of the adult population of our country – as well as a large number of deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases and brain attacks”, – motivates the initiation of the AUR bill.

The initiators of the bill refer to a study carried out in 2015 by the Romanian Consumer Protection Association, which shows that “non-iodized salt has an unlimited shelf life (8% of the products analyzed), while for iodized salt the shelf life varies between 1 year and 20 years, depending on chemicals added in the process of salt iodization. These variations in shelf life demonstrate the toxicity of iodized salt caused by the chemicals added in the salt iodization process,” the AUR states.