Amanda Knox, HPV vaccine success, HRT prescriptions, Stockard Channing and 'Night, Mother - a podcast by BBC Radio 4

from 2021-11-04T11:17

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Fourteen years ago this week, 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher was sexually assaulted and killed in a brutal attack in her apartment in the Italian city of Perugia. Her death was a shocking and unimaginable loss to her family. But sadly her name did not become the most memorable in the murder investigation that followed. As the world's media descended, a narrative quickly emerged around Amanda Knox - Meredith’s American flatmate - and her then boyfriend Rafaele Sollecito. Dubbed 'Foxy Knoxy', the story became about a sexually voracious femme fatale and her accomplice, who it was said killed Meredith in a drug-fuelled sex game gone wrong. After being found guilty and serving four years in prison, Amanda was fully exonerated by the Italian Supreme Court on appeal in 2015. Amanda now lives back in Seattle, is married, and has just had a baby - having built a career as a writer, podcaster, and campaigner against wrongful conviction. In an exclusive interview with Woman’s Hour and Newsnight, Amanda Knox talks to Emma about trying to restore her reputation, losing control of her identity, and speaking out about the film Stillwater starring Matt Damon, which she says drew on and profited from her story without her consent.

Since 2008, 12 and 13-year-old girls have been offered a vaccine against human papilloma-virus - or HPV - with a view to helping prevent cervical cancer. Now a new study published today in The Lancet has found that it doesn't just help, but has the potential to almost wipe the disease out completely. Cervical cancer rates in women who had HPV jabs as teenagers were found to be lowered by as much as 90% compared to those who hadn't. And as the vaccine is now also given to boys, it dramatically decreases the amount of virus circulating in the population to infect women who can't take the vaccine. Professor Dame Lesley Regan, Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at St Mary's Imperial College and past president of the Royal College of Obstetricians&Gynaecologists discusses what it means for women's health.

The cost of repeat prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy in England is to be significantly reduced. The Labour MP for Swansea East, Carolyn Harris, had put forward a Bill to make HRT free, as it is currently in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland where there are no charges for prescriptions. Although the Government didn’t support the change in full, it announced at the end of last week that women would only have to pay for one prescription charge a year – potentially saving over £200 annually. The Government also announced that they will be setting up a menopause taskforce, which will be co-chaired by Carolyn Harris, who says it is time to revolutionise menopause support.Though best known for playing Rizzo in the film Grease, First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the television series The West Wing, and Julianna Margulies’ mother Veronica in The Good Wife, multi-Emmy award-winning actor Stockard Channing is a Broadway veteran nominated for multiple Tonys. Currently on stage at the Hampstead Theatre in London in ‘Night Mother’ - a tense two-hander play that takes place over a single evening – she joins Emma to discuss her latest performance and first as a London resident.

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