Original version

BBC World Service Online

Health Check

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Health issues and medical breakthroughs from around the world.

Health Check: 07/06/2010

07/06/2010

BBC World Service - Health Check, 07/06/2010

Gay men & blood donation. Sex & sport. Georgia health. Women's groups and babies' health.

Should gay men be allowed to donate blood? Does sex before sport affect performance? The Georgian Health System.  And why women's groups improve the health of babies.

Should men who sleep with men be allowed to give blood? In most countries there’s a lifetime ban on any man who's ever had sex with a man from donating blood because of the risk they might have HIV.  Students in Canada are boycotting blood donation drives in protest at what they say amounts to discrimination against gay men. And now HIV researchers writing in the Canadian Medical Association Journal are calling for the ban to be lifted.  Professor Norbert Gilmore from the McGill Faculty of Medicine in Canada joins Ian Franklin, the Medical & Scientific Director of the National Blood Transfusion Service in Scotland to discuss the ban. 

Fabio Capello, the England manager is limiting his players' access to their wives and girlfriends before and after matches. But does sex before a match affect performance on the pitch?  Greg Whyte, Professor of Applied Sport & Exercise at Liverpool John Moores University explains. 

In Georgia a new health insurance scheme has already been introduced to give people better access to health care. The government subsidises it and it costs just $15 a year. But as Angela Robson reports still 70% of Georgians have no insurance at all.

Around the world four million babies die every year before they are even a month old.  New research out in the journal the Lancet shows that a surprisingly simple solution can make a difference – or at least it can in some places.  And that simple solution is to set up women's groups. Professor Anthony Costello from the University College London Institute of Child Health has evaluated the impact of women’s groups in both India and Bangladesh

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Health Check

07/06/2010

Genres

Brand

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service