The AIDS ‘Business’, epigenetics and how best to help young people at risk... - 24 March 2009

The AIDS ‘Business’, epigenetics and how best to help young people at risk from misusing drugs and alcohol.

AIDS expert, writer, and epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani recently returned to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where she trained and did research for her MSc and PhD to tell Peter Goodwin about her new book: The Wisdom of Whores, which delivers home truths about the ‘business of AIDS’ which could potentially prevent millions of people from dying.

Andrew Prentice discusses the ‘experiment of Nature’ being harnessed by his group in a research effort spearheaded by his colleague Branwen Hennig in The Gambia where seasonal variations in the availability of crops create altering nutritional environments for mothers around the time of conception. The scientists are hoping to reveal effects that maternal diet can have on gene expression, and how this in turn could affect the future health of newly-conceived babies.

Adam Fletcher tells Audio News about ‘detached’ youth programmes to help avoid problems with drugs and alcohol among young people. Social workers go to the young people wherever they are joining in their social networks, rather than trying to persuade them to drop into special centres.