China and Population Control

Abstract

To the Editor. — I read with interest the Letter From Beijing by Dr Ma 1 entitled Child, One Family, published in the March 24/31 issue of JAMA . It put forth a convincing argument why it is essential for China to implement the one-child policy. But I am afraid that the Chinese phonetic translation used by the author for child, family, do sheng zi nu , is not exactly correct. Du (not do) sheng zi nu means son, only daughter, not one child, family. The Chinese phonetic translation for child, family is yi jia yi hai .