The Good News: Thailand Controls a Baby Boom

He is a champion of condoms, a pusher of the Pill, a voice for vasectomies -- and a major reason that the annual rate of Thailand's population growth was cut in half, from 3.2% to 1.6%, in just 15 years. And while he sometimes comes across as an energetic public relations man with a bagful of gimmicks, Mechai Viravaidya, 47, the engineer of Thailand's remarkable drive to curb its birthrate, regards population control as serious business.

In 1974 Mechai, a former government economist, launched a private nonprofit organization, now known as the Population and Community Development Association (P.D.A.), to foster family planning and distribute birth-control devices. With growing encouragement and financial support from the government, the Bangkok-based P.D.A. has made population control a national mission. Today some 70% of Thailand's couples practice family planning. Mechai estimates that , without his program Thailand's population, currently 54 million, would have grown to 64 million.

He began by touting condoms -- now commonly called mechais in Thailand. "Wherever there was a crowd, we would be there handing them out," says Mechai. "Movie theaters, traffic jams -- we tried to turn every event into a family-planning session." With humor and showmanship, Mechai has judged condom-blowing contests and has shown how to use condoms as tourniquets. Each New Year's Eve, the P.D.A. gives traffic police boxes of prophylactics to distribute in a "cops and rubbers" program.

While continuing to hand out condoms, Mechai has helped couples move on to more sophisticated forms of contraception. He put birth-control "supermarkets" in bus terminals, offering Pills, IUDs and spermicidal foam as well as condoms. Mechai also opened vasectomy clinics across the country, including one in Bangkok's massage-parlor district. Each year on the King's birthday, the P.D.A. offers free vasectomies (normal price: $20).

The campaign has brought about a profound change in the way Thais look at their families. The proof is in millions of people like Boonya Nuenmun, 36, a farmer in Korat province. Though his parents had nine children, Nuenmun says, "I've got two daughters, and that's enough already. I've been practicing birth control for years."