Over the last decade, the number of syphilis cases in China increased tenfold, according to this Associated Press report, because more migrant workers have been able to afford to hire prostitutes. The A.P. further reports that the “stigma and perceived high cost of visiting sexual health clinics” in China is hampering prevention and treatment efforts. In the U.S., meanwhile, police informants are paid well to become johns. [%comments]
When More Money = More Syphilis
TAGS: Prostitution
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Dear Chris;
The two sides of the whole point of my endeavor. This one case is not at all unusual in science or in life.
Robyn A. Goldstein, 2003
Okay, by popular demand, more to the story.
The vice-cop was Det. William Nunn, (Retired), who ate his own service-revolver bullet in about 1990 (as a consequence of alcoholism and depression, most likely). The event took place in the early 1960′s as far as I can figure. Bill told me lots of stories of his career. (Among others, how the higher-ups would revile them for only bringing in Catholic priests who were getting “serviced” in back alleys, instead of clergymen of other denominations. —”Think what you will,” said Bill, “but that’s all we ever found.”)
He worked vice for most of his career. The story of the non-sex-prostitution arrest puzzled me too. Bill said that the room actually had a peep-hole to an adjoining room. “That was Vice in those days…very low-tech.” He said.
I protested that they weren’t really guilty of doing anything illegal. He said that the crime was hiring a prostitute. If a john hired a prostitute and went to a room, then the john had a change of heart and left–he and she still committed a crime. (This is not so strange as it appears at first glance, but does bring up the problem of future legit employment for hookers. Could you hire one to paint your house?)
How the judge would see it was another matter. I am sure this case was not typical. The police may have had some other reason for putting an end to this strange behavior. And I don’t recall Bill saying how the case turned out.
Prior to the Communist revolution, syphilis was rampant in Chinese cities. One of the great achievements of Chairman Mao was the almost total eradication of syphilis in China.
The present Chinese government need to be a little less capitalist and a lot more communist in terms of the original idealistic principle of communism
I wonder how much of this was caused by the general lack of female partners due to imbalance caused by the restrictions on number of children, and the preference in China for a male child.
With the scarcity of supply of female partners, to meet the demand of a larger male population, are Chinese males willing to particpate in higher risk / high cost behaviours (in addition to now having the financial means, and access through freer movement)?
Of course, one small problem with Mao’s “eradication” of syphilis was that he was, personally, one of the biggest carriers of syphilis–he personally infected most of his mistresses, of which he had literally dozens. See any recent biography of Mao Tse Tung.
That’s the problem with Communism, people’s personal peccadilloes always end up undermining their idealistic principles.
It’s a good thing there are companies like http://chembio.com that develop testing and technology to diagnose infectious diseases like syphilis and HIV quickly. These rapid tests can really change the health outcome of those infected w/ the disease.