Health

Today we look at the growing problem of inhalant abuse. More and more kids and teenagers are getting high by inhaling substances like glue, gasoline, solvents and industrial cleaners. We'll talk with Doctor Marvin Snyder, of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. We'll also speak with "Jimmy" and "Kathy," a teenager who became addicted to inhalants and his mother (they prefer to use pseudonyms).

Terry Gross talks with two people who are working to spread the word about AIDS.
1) Rashidah Hassan ("reh-shee-dah heh-ssan") is the Executive Director of BEBASHI ("beh-bah-shee"), short for "Blacks Educating Blacks About Sexual Health Issues." It's a Philadelphia-based group that used down-to-earth strategies to warn people of color about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

We talk with Washington Post sports writer Mike Freeman about yesterday's revelation that basketball great Magic Johnson has tested positive for the AIDS virus.

Doctor Jonathan Mann, the director of the 1992 International Conference on AIDS. That conference has already become controversial, because the site of the conference was moved from Boston to Amsterdam. That decision was made because of the U.S. government did not give assurance that people with AIDS would be able to enter the U.S. to attend the conference. Mann is a professor of epidemiology and international health at the Harvard School of Public Health, and the former head of the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS.

June Reinisch the Director of the Kinsey Institute, and the principle author of "The Kinsey Institute New Report on Sex." In it, she debunks many myths Americans have about sex, and she discusses what she calls the "sexual illiteracy" of many Americans. (It's published by St. Martin's Press).

Yesterday President Bush voiced his opposition to federally funded needle exchange programs to stop the spread of AIDS. Today Terry talks with activist Rod Sorge (pronounced like George).He's the director of PWA's (People with AIDS Working for Health, Inc.) Harm Reduction Institute, a program that runs a needle-exchange program in New York City. Giving out needles in New York is against the law and Sorge and his group have been arrested for it. Sorge runs ACT-UP's needle exchange program.

We talk with Jodi Jacobson, senior researcher at the World Watch Institute, and the author of a new report on the state of women's health around the world.

Writer Sam Fussell was scared of living in the big city, so he decided he'd look like less of a target if he took up body building. He chronicles his four year transformation in his book, "Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Body Builder."

We examine the current craze surrounding low-fat and low cholesterol foods. First, nutritionist Jane Hurley of the advocacy group, Science in the Public Interest talks about recent marketing trends in "healthy" food...things like McDonald's "McLean" burger. Second, Wall Street Journal cultural writer Raymond Sokolov talks about America's obsession with food and fat. Third, cardiologist Thomas Graboys of the Harvard School of Public Health gives us some sane advice about diet and health.

Critic Maureen Corrigan comments on the profusion of mainstream publications which implore readers to follow a holistic lifestyle, and warn them of new, overblown health risks.