Unions v. Syphilis

The loudest drums ever beaten on the once taboo topic of venereal disease were pummeled last week by the War Advertising Council. Launching a new poster campaign with the slogan HIDDEN ENEMY--V.D., the Council appealed to U.S. advertisers to unite in a nationwide drive against syphilis and gonorrhea.

In spite of Surgeon General Thomas Parran's efforts, the national fight against venereal disease has not been going well. Syphilis last year was up 21%; gonorrhea, 28%. Thirty states now require a Wassermann test of prospective brides and grooms, three more of grooms, three others an affidavit of freedom from infection. But these reach only a small proportion of the whole population.

A new attack on the V.D. front was described in San Francisco last week by its young instigators, Dr. Richard Alexander Koch (rhymes with gosh) and Journalist Arthur Colston Painter. Deciding to tackle venereal disease among factory workers, they asked labor unions to help by encouraging voluntary blood tests. At first suspicious, the unions finally consented when Koch and Painter promised to report the results only to the individual worker (not to his union or employer).

By last week, 15,515 San Francisco workers (about 87% of the membership of the unions approached) had submitted to blood tests, and a startling 9% of the total proved to have syphilis or indications of it (national figures for recent draftees: 7.5%). The most cooperative group was the longshoremen ; in their own hiring hall on Clay Street, 97% of the union members took blood tests--and nearly 16% flunked.

Shocked by these figures, the unions joined San Francisco health authorities in urging infected members to get treatment. Some 80% promptly did so.

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