Great article on iodine and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and the requirement for selenium

The site is PerfectHealthDiet.com run by Paul Jaminet, Ph.D an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and his wife, Siou-Chin Jaminet, Ph.D, a molecular biologist and cancer researcher at Beth Israel.

Anyway, Mr. Jaminet wrote this excellent in-depth piece on Iodine and Hashimoto's as a balance between diametrically contrasting opinions on iodine. Dr.'s Abraham and Brownstein are all advocates of high-dose iodine, while Chris Kresser (over at the Healthy Skeptic) received a lot of press for his blog post “Iodine for hypothyroidism: like gasoline on a fire?”

Iodine for hypothyroidism: like gasoline on a fire?
http://chriskresser.com/iodine-for-hypothyroidism-like-gasoline-on-a-fire

Paul does a good job removing any confusion while confirming the need for selenium along with iodine supplementation, and visa-versa, using animal and human studies with a nice common sense approach.

Iodine and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, Part I (delves into animal studies)
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/05/iodine-and-hashimotos-thyroiditis-part-i/

iodine-and-hashimotos-thyroiditis-part-2 (human study)
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/05/iodine-and-hashimotos-thyroiditis-part-2/

And for the record, I personally recommend making yourself iodine sufficient (which can be acid forming) only after daily supplementation with a proper amount of selenium and magnesium (500mg,) and other alkalizing minerals for several months -- boron, manganese, potassium, zinc, chromium etc. In the process, you'll also prepare yourself (liver, kidneys, thyroid) for all the toxins being supplanted by the iodine. I really think the most important organ for hair growth is a normalized thyroid gland.