The Minister of AIDS

In the early 1990s, it was widely predicted that Thailand would be a giant petri dish for the virus that causes HIV/AIDS. A number of factors, including the general acceptance of sexual activity as a natural part of life, and the availability of commercial sex, sent the statisticians' computers into overload.

Some authorities predicted that as many as 60 percent of the population could ultimately become infected.

Well, here it is 2010 and the actual numbers are light-years lower than the predictions. In fact,

they're lower than they were in the early 1990s. The incidence of HIV infection in Thailand has actually dropped in the last 20 years, and shared needles are the most common current cause of infection.

One man is largely responsible for saving several million lives. In a world where heroes are hard to come by, Mechai Viravaidya (pictured above) qualifies.

Born to a Thai father and a Scottish mother, Mechai founded a nonprofit family planning organization for the rural poor in the 1970s. The group stressed (among other things) condom use, and they did it with creative vigor. They held condom blowing-up contests among school kids, passed out condoms at every community gathering, and provided taxi drivers with

condoms for their passengers.

By the time AIDS hit Thailand late in the 1980s, Mechai had gone into government, and in 1991 he was named Minister of Tourism, Information and (at his insistence) AIDS. Unhampered by religious strictures or ultra-conservatives, he attacked the disease with every resource at his command.

Practically overnight, every bar in Thailand had a big brandy snifter on it, full of free condoms.

Since some sex workers are illiterate, groups of young actors took to the streets, especially in the entertainment district, doing comedy routines that included several young women unrolling a giant condom over a standing man. Classes in proper condom use were held in virtually every red-light venue. Hotels and brothels were given free condoms by the millions.

Suddenly condoms were everywhere. They were in television cartoons, in childrens' magazines, in public-service spots. The safe-sex message targeted the young men and women of the Thai armed services, high school and university kids, Thailand's large gay and katoey (transvestite) population, and every other at-risk and potentially at-risk group in the Kingdom.

Condom manufacture was encouraged with government grants. They were made in every possible color and flavor, including tropical fruits. They became ubiquitous. They became that most potent of all Asian adjectives: they became cute.

They also became (well, sort of) fashionable. Mechai's group encouraged fashion designers to create, for want of a better term, condom couture, and the designers threw themselves into the task with results like those above. These dresses and hats are made almost entirely of condoms.

Mechai diversified but kept the message intact when he founded his restaurant chain, which is called Cabbages & Condoms. In the photo at the top of this piece, Mechai poses beside one of the restaurants' well-protected lighting fixtures. The centerpiece of each table is a colorful bouquet of inflated condoms. As old Thai hands say frequently, "Only in Thailand."

This sign guides tourists to a Cabbages & Condoms resort. I love the two disgruntled little sperm at the bottom.

So the plague was largely averted. Mechai returned to the nonprofit sector and his organization, now the Kingdom's largest NGO, recently received a one-million dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But the thing Mechai is proudest of is the fact that, throughout Thailand, condoms are known as "mechais."

And here he is, one more time, with, yes, a condom teddy bear.

Tim - Sunday