Question about negative ions

[TheRealJoeFish]

RationalWiki's article on Himalayan Salt Lamps

Negative ionic goodness

The problem with the claim that these lamps release negative ions is that electric lights and candle flames aren't nearly hot enough to break apart the ionic bonds between sodium and chlorine. As one university physics professor puts it, "If that were true, we'd have chlorine gas coming out our salt shakers." The electrostatic attraction between even two ions is so large that chloride cannot be released in significant amounts. The orange color that they emit is from the excitation of electrons to higher energy levels. They are orange because of impurities in the salt, especially iron oxide (rust). If burning fire can't make these lamps release negative ions, it's not likely slightly warm electric lights could.

Perhaps these lamps don't ionize the sodium or chlorine in the salt, but the molecules in the air around the lamp. "Negative ions" have been a buzzword used by various woo machines for decades, and there do exist air ionization machines that can indeed negatively ionize air molecules. The only problem is, negatively ionized air molecules don't really cure anything. (If you have a lot of ions in the air, we call it "lightning.")