Hit Record

"Please call Mr. Smith at Mutual 6256." Last week wags were planting such deadpan messages by the thousands all over Los Angeles. When the victim called the number, he heard a sepulchral voice intone: "Venereal diseases are increasing in Los Angeles . . . Remember these facts. VD is spread mainly by sexual intercourse and kissing. Symptoms include sores, rashes and discharges. Treatment by a capable physician must begin immediately. These diseases can be cured."

Even before the voice could offer telephone numbers for getting the name of a recommended physician, the pranksters were howling at the caller's consternation. And city health officials wore a slightly abashed look over their role as unwitting accomplices in setting up an epidemic gag.

They began using the telephone number last summer for recorded answers to a deluge of queries about Salk vaccine inoculations. This month, alarmed at an upsurge in VD that is giving the U.S. 1,000,000 new cases of gonorrhea a year (20% among youngsters aged 15 to 19), they installed the VD recording, mentioned it in a single newspaper interview.

As the gag spread, the officials were more jubilant than embarrassed. Their hit record is drawing 5,000 callers a day--so heavy a load that two of their five answering machines burned out and had to be repaired. The payoff: prompted by the message, 70 VD victims daily are telephoning for help. Says one official: "Every case cured helps us to break the chain of infection. We could have spent thousands on propaganda and never begun to get such results."

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