When he returned from a visit to North Vietnam in June, 1969, Henrik Beer, Secretary General of the League of Red Cross Societies with headquarters in Geneva, was reported in the press as having spoken highly of doctors and social workers there, and as having said that civilian health had improved despite wartime shortages. He spoke of measures for control of a number of epidemic diseases but said nothing of VD. I wrote him on June 9 and received a courteous reply dated June 24. Noting that he is not a physician but had seen something of VD especially in Poland and Germany after World War II, he offered the opinion, based on what he had seen in North Vietnam, that VD did not seem to be regarded as a major health problem there. According to his "very amateurish" observation, as he characterized it, he had seen no sign of public prostitution in Hanoi or Haiphong, and thought that night life was mostly forbidden and almost entirely absent in the northern cities. This would be in marked contrast to what we have seen reported of South Vietnam under the influence of the United States. Ngo Cong Ouc, wealthy socialist opposition leader in the National Assembly of the Saigon government and editor of Saigon's principal newspaper, wrote in the New York Times of October 24, 1970:

“American political and economic aims have completely altered the nature of Vietnamese society. With their money the Americans are setting communities against one another, and destroying all the traditional spiritual and moral values. The number of prostitutes increases daily. More than 400,000 Vietnamese women are currently engaged in this wretched and humiliating profession.”

As for China, if it is true that VD has been largely eliminated there, we have information that may help us understand why. To begin with, Edgar Snow, whom I cited before, gives us these details about the campaign waged against VD by Dr. Hatem or Ma Hai the, nicknamed "Shag." The story was told to Snow by one of Dr. Ma's associates, the Chinese doctor, Tai Ch'un ch'i:

"Our first goal was to eliminate the chief carriers, the prostitutes," said Shag. "We started off in the Peking Tientsin area, with a team of about a hundred doctors and assistants. Women party workers first went into the brothels and explained the program. It wasn't hard to win support; most of the girls were slaves who had been sold into the houses. No guilt was attached to anyone and no punishment involved. "When everything was prepared we closed down every brothel in Peking in one night. The women were taken to hostels specially set up for them, where they were thoroughly examined and treated. Most of the brothel owners and pimps had fled; a lot of them went on to Shanghai and later to Hongkong [sic]. Those who remained were rounded up and treated. About 80 per cent of the 70,000 whores in the Peking Tientsin area were infected with V.D. My own team treated and cured as many as 1,200 cases every two weeks. That's about all it takes with penicillin; ten to fifteen million units does the job. The follow up work took a lot longer, of course, but that wasn't our responsibility." What did happen to all these Suzie Wongs?" "Some went back to their villages, some to work in factories; quite a few were young enough to be sent to primary school. We made medical helpers out of the more intelligent. We produced several very able laboratory and research workers from among them. Nobody refers to their past and there's no stigma attached. Many of them have married."

The campaign was soon duplicated in Shanghai, Hankow, Canton and two dozen other cities. In the process medical assistants were trained in the techniques of diagnosing and treating syphilis and gonorrhea, and the anti V.D. forces quickly expanded. (see VD CONTROL MUST EMPHASIZE MORALS MORE THAN MICROBES PART VIII)