Back to the 50's

[Wmaebe1]

I just had a memory breakthrough.....I distinctly remember as a little girl in
kindergarten( in the very late 50's) having to take little chocolate pills that
the teachers called 'goiter pills'. I remember kids trying to get back in line
for seconds as they tasted very good! Does anyone remember these pills? Could
they have been used regionally? I live in Wisconsin. I wonder if they had any
adverse affect on us?
Wanda

[nOFuTuRe]

I don't remember that, but I remember we had nuclear bomb drills,
where we were all moved to the basement (New York City) and ordered
into fetal positions on the floor until we heard the all-clear sirens.
What a joke!

[Candace Campbell]

I read about that. Wisconsin was part of the "Goiter Belt' And the
pills contained iodine. At the time iodine deficiency was the most
common cause of goiters. Nothey were not harmful. Today you get way
more iodine than that in the amount of iodized salt in your food.

[Wmaebe1]

>From: punki...@webtv.net (Candace Campbell) wrote:

>I read about that. Wisconsin was part of the "Goiter Belt' And the
>pills contained iodine

Thank you thank you thank you!! I was beginning to think that I just imagined
it. lol! (Being only 5 years old, you know) :)

Did the 'goiter belt' encompass many states?

My mom had a huge goiter removed 20 or so years ago. The doctor described it
as being the size of a goose egg.
She had it removed and I guess she was one of the lucky ones as she takes no
medication. They must have left a tiny portion behind. Either that or she has
an incredibly high TSH. I am making her ask her doctor about getting a TSH
test done to make sure she is still normal as she said the thyroid topic never
comes up and she doesn't think it is ever checked.
Wanda

[peg....@gmail.com]

On Sunday, August 2, 1998 at 1:00:00 AM UTC-6, Wmaebe1 wrote:
> I just had a memory breakthrough.....I distinctly remember as a little girl in
> kindergarten( in the very late 50's) having to take little chocolate pills that
> the teachers called 'goiter pills'. I remember kids trying to get back in line
> for seconds as they tasted very good! Does anyone remember these pills? Could
> they have been used regionally? I live in Wisconsin. I wonder if they had any
> adverse affect on us?
> Wanda

There wasn't much Iodine in the soil in the Great Lakes area. These pills were to protect people from getting thyroid cancer (also called the goiter). I took them too! Loved them! Don't know of an adverse affect ... it was before Iodine was in salt.

[MI]

On 10/27/15, 4:46 PM, in article
c6fab8ab-b499-4eae...@googlegroups.com, "peg....@gmail.com"

You've brought memories. I had forgotten all about them. I live in Canada
and they were certainly given out at school. I remember the pills cost 10
cents a year. My mother wouldn't let me take them and I have often wondered
if the lack of iodine at a young age (They administered them to 6 to 12
YO's) contributed to my thyroid deficiency.

--
Martha



--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---

[polygonum]

A goitre (UK spelling) is most definitely not thyroid cancer.

--
Rod

[MI]

On 10/28/15, 12:11 AM, in article d9baom...@mid.individual.net,

I agree sort of. It doesn't HAVE to be, but it CAN be. When they discovered
my goitre, they immediately checked for cancer. I was relieved when
everything checked out. Just a couple of cysts.

[polygonum]

My point was not that all thyroid swelling isn't cancer. More that the
thyroid swelling caused by low iodine as in "the goiter belt" isn't
cancer. And taking iodine supplements to ensure sensible levels isn't a
cancer cure.

Very glad that yours were "just" cysts - though surely unpleasant enough.

--
Rod

[jljcr...@gmail.com]

I was just talking to my wife and she was raised in MI and they don't remember them. I remember saving them for a week at a time and crushing them and putting them in our milk and make it chocolate. We went to a one room school house grades 1 to 6. The pills came in a gallon jug. Thanks John

[tauf...@gmail.com]

I remember taking them at Gards Corner grade school i King Wisconsin . Iodine if i remember right .i didn't mind them they tasted slightly like chocolate but a lot of the kids either threw them away or gave me theirs.

[pbu...@pressenter.com]

We got them in our one room country school in west/central WI. I had just fixed myself a glass of chocolate milk with Nesquik and as I drank it there was a small hard chunk of chocolate that hadn't disolved....
And it was Back To The Fifties and those tablets. I was in grade school 1951 - 1959. GOOD LITTLE THINGS.

[stephens...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, August 2, 1998 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-7, Wmaebe1 wrote:
> I just had a memory breakthrough.....I distinctly remember as a little girl in
> kindergarten( in the very late 50's) having to take little chocolate pills that
> the teachers called 'goiter pills'. I remember kids trying to get back in line
> for seconds as they tasted very good! Does anyone remember these pills? Could
> they have been used regionally? I live in Wisconsin. I wonder if they had any
> adverse affect on us?
> Wanda

Definitely! I grew up outside of Shell Lake, WI and went to a country schoolhouse. I can taste those pills even now. Some kids would try to make chocolate milk by putting them in the little milk bottles that had pull off tabs. Remember those?

[josephm...@yahoo.com]

[josephm...@yahoo.com]

THEY GAVE THEM OUT IN RHINELANDER,WI. IN THE 50'S, THEY WERE BECAUSE ALL THE BOMB TESTING OUT IN NEVADA AND UTAH !

[dennis...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, August 2, 1998 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-4, Wmaebe1 wrote:
> I just had a memory breakthrough.....I distinctly remember as a little girl in
> kindergarten( in the very late 50's) having to take little chocolate pills that
> the teachers called 'goiter pills'. I remember kids trying to get back in line
> for seconds as they tasted very good! Does anyone remember these pills? Could
> they have been used regionally? I live in Wisconsin. I wonder if they had any
> adverse affect on us?
> Wanda

I remember them well. Back in Stevens Point WI my kindergarten class got our daily 'treat'. As you said they were very tasty. This would have been around 1957 I think.

[donna...@gmail.com]

On Friday, May 26, 2017 at 9:13:46 PM UTC-5, tauf...@gmail.com wrote:
> I remember taking them at Gards Corner grade school i King Wisconsin . Iodine if i remember right .i didn't mind them they tasted slightly like chocolate but a lot of the kids either threw them away or gave me theirs.

I attended Pickerel Lake school, a one-room school in the town of Belmont, very near King. We were getting the pills in the 1940s. Yup, they tasted good, we got one every Friday.

[schult...@gmail.com]

[schult...@gmail.com]

Yes, I remember those as well, and I live in Wisconsin. I was in kindergarten in 1960. Everyday at milk time we'd get our little carton of milk and our goiter pill. Seems so absurd now, but normal at the time.

[glenice....@gmail.com]

I live in Northwestern Ontario and remember taking iodine pills in public school. They tasted very good. Even though I took them, I am on meds for hypothyroidism so don’t know if there is a connection or not.

[kathym...@gmail.com]

I went to st Patrick's school and the nuns gave me one every day in kindergarten I'm from Erie Pennsylvania and lake Erie and the only thing we worried about was small pox and polio.

[jims...@yahoo.com]

On Sunday, August 2, 1998 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-4, Wmaebe1 wrote:
> I just had a memory breakthrough.....I distinctly remember as a little girl in
> kindergarten( in the very late 50's) having to take little chocolate pills that
> the teachers called 'goiter pills'. I remember kids trying to get back in line
> for seconds as they tasted very good! Does anyone remember these pills? Could
> they have been used regionally? I live in Wisconsin. I wonder if they had any
> adverse affect on us?
> Wanda

Yes, I too grew up in Wisconsin and distinctly remember getting the goiter pills in grade school in the 40's and 50's in Milwaukee. Maybe also in Fond du lac and Wausau where I also lived as a kid.

[celti...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, August 2, 1998 at 1:00:00 AM UTC-6, Wmaebe1 wrote:
> I just had a memory breakthrough.....I distinctly remember as a little girl in
> kindergarten( in the very late 50's) having to take little chocolate pills that
> the teachers called 'goiter pills'. I remember kids trying to get back in line
> for seconds as they tasted very good! Does anyone remember these pills? Could
> they have been used regionally? I live in Wisconsin. I wonder if they had any
> adverse affect on us?
> Wanda

My mother who is in her 90's remembers taking them in school in the 1930's...Shared the memory with her children. She did get a goiter however, and had it removed when she was in her 40's. Had 2/3's of her thyroid removed as well she is now taking thyroxin, because her partial thyroid removal.

[marcia...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, August 2, 1998 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-7, Wmaebe1 wrote:
> I just had a memory breakthrough.....I distinctly remember as a little girl in
> kindergarten( in the very late 50's) having to take little chocolate pills that
> the teachers called 'goiter pills'. I remember kids trying to get back in line
> for seconds as they tasted very good! Does anyone remember these pills? Could
> they have been used regionally? I live in Wisconsin. I wonder if they had any
> adverse affect on us?
> Wanda

At last someone else remembers. I was in school in Madison WI and was born 1950. I remember getting goiter pill on a regular basis (because they tasted like malted milk) maybe they gave them once a week? I did have a neighbor with a huge goiter but we paid little attention to it after getting used to it because she was very kind and loved and after explanations were given we were no longer afraid. Quite a difference in aceectence these days.

[marcia...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, August 2, 1998 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-7, Wmaebe1 wrote:
> I just had a memory breakthrough.....I distinctly remember as a little girl in
> kindergarten( in the very late 50's) having to take little chocolate pills that
> the teachers called 'goiter pills'. I remember kids trying to get back in line
> for seconds as they tasted very good! Does anyone remember these pills? Could
> they have been used regionally? I live in Wisconsin. I wonder if they had any
> adverse affect on us?
> Wanda

Beside the goiter pills I still have vivid memories of drills where we had to crawl under our desks until the danger was over. Maybe in Wisconsin they were tornado warnings but as I grew older and these drills continued I'm thinking it was a cold war issued and they thought by getting under a desk we would be protected from nuclear war. Sad but its so nice to share these memories which get so vague you wonder if they really happened with other folks who went thru them as well. I like this site. Thanks for sharing!

[sandyl...@gmail.com]

Born in 1954, southeast wisconsin and I remember taking those pills as well. Thinking about them brings back the exact chocolate taste. I thought they were for something to do with radiation from bombs, but reading up on it, sounds like we were in the goiter belt of the Great Lakes and needed supplemental iodine for our thyroids to work properly....

[rj...@yahoo.com]

[William Baumgarten]

[D Young]

[D Young]

Yes, I grew up in Land O' Lakes wisonsin in the 1950s. When I was in Kindergarden, 1st and 2nd grades, they gave us goiter pills that did taste like Chocolate. I ate them like candy and we would would sneak them. They caused me great issues with my Thyroid. I became over active (Graves Disease). I was a very sick little girl. Of course, my parents never new what caused this huge issue. It was awful and has cause me great problem. I should sue Wisconsin. As I am no 72 years old and I am going through the process of using Tepezza for my eyes which was caused by these pills giving to very your children and the teachers did not supervise the use of them. They were set by the door and we were told to take one. Of course, we took handfuls as they tasted like Chocolate.

[Joan Christensen]

On Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 7:46:53 PM UTC-4, peg....@gmail.com wrote:
> On Sunday, August 2, 1998 at 1:00:00 AM UTC-6, Wmaebe1 wrote:
> > I just had a memory breakthrough.....I distinctly remember as a little girl in
> > kindergarten( in the very late 50's) having to take little chocolate pills that
> > the teachers called 'goiter pills'. I remember kids trying to get back in line
> > for seconds as they tasted very good! Does anyone remember these pills? Could
> > they have been used regionally? I live in Wisconsin. I wonder if they had any
> > adverse affect on us?
> > Wanda

> There wasn't much Iodine in the soil in the Great Lakes area. These pills were to protect people from getting thyroid cancer (also called the goiter). I took them too! Loved them! Don't know of an adverse affect ... it was before Iodine was in salt.

I was in Wisconsin at that time and remember taking the pills also. I have had a low thyroid level for 45 years that I know of. I have wondered over the years if we took these pills because of atomic bomb testing because we were in the fallout area for radiation. Never did really know.