Woman's Hour - Cornell University rape investigation, Tributes to Esther Rantzen, Sunbeds

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

New York state prosecutors say they will reopen a criminal inquiry into the alleged rape of a woman at Cornell University in 2024. The woman, referred to in court documents as Jane Doe, alleges in her lawsuit that seven men from Cornell's Chi Phi fraternity chapter assaulted her in an incident involving alcohol and the drug ketamine. The case was investigated by university police but will now go before a grand jury. The case has been discussed widely online, with many including actress Florence Pugh reacting with fury over the reported disciplinary actions taken by the university. Nada Tawfik, BBC North American correspondent, and Tracey Vitchers, Executive Director of It's On Us, a non-profit programme dedicated to college sexual assault prevention, join Anita Rani to discuss.The broadcaster, campaigner and charity founder Dame Esther Rantzen has died at the age of 86. She will be best remembered for presenting the BBC TV Programme That’s Life. She also set up Childline – the telephone helpline for children suffering abuse or neglect – and spent a lot of time campaigning for older people and for assisted dying. Guardian journalist Zoe Williams remembers her and her impact on women's lives. Australia has launched its Endometriosis Management Plan, which gives GPs and patients a much greater role in the management of their endo. Professor Danielle Mazza from Monash University in Melbourne has been instrumental in designing and delivering the plan. She discusses how the UK might benefit from something like this with Dr Sylvia Kama-Kieghe, a GP in Sheffield, and Vice President of Membership and Workforce at the College of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare.A social media-driven resurgence in the popularity of sunbeds is said to be fuelling a rise in cases of skin cancer, particularly among young people, according to some experts. Melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, is now one of the most common cancers in people aged 15 to 34, according to Cancer Research UK. Meanwhile research by the Teenage Cancer Trust found around 48% of 18 to 34-year-olds in the UK use sunbeds – the highest proportion of any age group. Observer journalist Marine Saint has been looking into this, along with Rosie Vare from the Teenage Cancer Trust.Producer: Melanie Abbott Presenter: Anita Rani

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service,

Odo gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's ODbolo.com. Is Facebook Dying? I'm Tristan Redmond, hosted the Global Story podcast from the BBC. More than 15 years after the social network, a new movie on the inner workings of Facebook hits cinemas in October.

The journalist who's reporting inspired the film tells us why Facebook stopped being cool and whether meta its parent company can reinvent itself. For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your pods. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. We will be remembering the broadcasting pioneer and campaigner Dame Esther Ransom this morning, who has died at 86. Some beds are making a comeback. Maybe in your world they never went away. But there's also a rise in skin cancer, particularly amongst young people. It's the most

common cancer in the 15 to 34 age group. We'll be finding out more. New York State prosecutors have reopened an investigation into the alleged rape of a woman at Cornell University in 2024. It's a case that's gathered a lot of attention on social media and hit a nerve for many women. We will be finding out the details. Australia have introduced a new endometriosis management plan. They are defining it now as a chronic disease, which means that patients and GPs will set out their goals to manage it together. They can start treatment without waiting for a diagnosis, rather than waiting years as some have had to in the UK. More on that. So as always, we are discussing a lot in the hour, and as always, we want to hear from you. So if you have a

personal story or an opinion on anything we cover, then get in touch in the usual way, the text number is 84844. If you've got a smart speaker, you can say, Alexis, Ask BBC Sounds to send a comment. You can email us by going to our website, and the WhatsApp number is 0300-100-444. The text number once again 84844. But first, the case of an alleged rape of a woman at Cornell University in the US has dominated many social media feeds this week.

You may have seen some of the posts, including from celebrities like Florence Pugh, who said she was sickened by the case. The allegations date back to 2020. when a student said she was drugged and raped at a fraternity house at Cornell University in New York State. The college carried out its own investigation at the time and expelled two students, but the district attorney at the time didn't bring criminal charges. Now prosecutors in New York State are reopening the investigation after a lawsuit was filed by the former student, the woman referred to in court documents as Jane Doe.

She alleges seven men from Cornell's fraternity chapter assaulted her in an incident involving. alcohol and the drug ketamine. She also alleged that Cornell failed to protect her or adequately punish the men involved. The case will now go before a grand jury. So what is the latest in the case? And why has this particular story captured the attention and rage of many on social media? Well, joining me to discuss this are Neda Tofeek, the BBC North America correspondent and Tracy Vitchers, the executive director of its honours, a non-profit program dedicated to preventing college sexual assault and of course your comments on this 84844. And if you have been affected by anything you've heard in the discussion, you can go to the BBC Action Line website where you'll

find links to support. Ned, I'm going to come to you first. So let's start at the beginning. Jane Doe, because she wants to remain anonymous, which is why she's given that name. What does she allege in her lawsuit? Yeah, well, in this lawsuit, which was filed just a few weeks ago, she alleges that she was gang raped by fraternity members from the Kai Phi House. And she says it all began when she was out for a regular night out and that she stumbled to see a friend she knew who is one of the men who is accused in this lawsuit at the Kai Phi fraternity house. And she said that happened at around 11 p.m. She said she had arrived visibly drunk because she had about 10 drinks. before she got there. And at the fraternity house, you know, she kind of started dancing and having

another beer with the friend before he proposed a threesome with one other man, one other man in the fraternity. And in the lawsuit, it clearly states that she was incapable of consenting to that proposition because she was in a drunken state. And then she says as the night went on, she was pressured into snorting ketamine. She was also pressured into taking other drugs and alcohol before men started having sex with her. And she said that, you know, this went on until around 545 at night. None of the behavior, the sexual acts, she says she was able to consent to again in her state. And the lawsuit cites several Snapchat group messages. from what is called the Kai Phi Activ's Snapchat

that had a number of fraternity members on it, dozens of fraternity members on it. And the lawsuit posts some of those chat messages, which are quite vulgar. One of them, you know, for example, at 142 in the morning, has one of the men essentially saying that she is available for sex,

for anybody who can come up into the fraternity house. And, you know, a later message, you know, according to CBS News that they got a hold of from the Snapchat messages asks, is the shop still open? So as you can see, you know, her lawyer is saying essentially that these messages are the smoking gun that these men gang raped her. And this lawsuit now is obviously in the hands of the DA. As you said, they've reopened this case.

but they've made a very big distinction between what's in this lawsuit and the information that they had at the time. It's actually quite distressing even hearing the details that you've just told us there. So what happened between her reporting the incident? Did she report it? And why the decision not to bring charges? Yeah. So actually, it's very interesting because as this case has come to light, there have been new revelations. So I'll start with what we knew immediately when this lawsuit was filed.

The district attorney immediately came out and said that his office had been inundated with messages and phone calls and that he had decided to reopen this because of concern in the community. But he said he wanted people to understand why he didn't believe criminal charges were warranted in the first place. Now, he says that Jane Doe, and we know that Jane Doe reported this to Cornell Campus Police. So a distinction here, Cornell Campus Police, Ithaca Police, that is, of course, where Cornell is located. They were never told about this. So this was all through Cornell. And about three weeks after the incident, she sat down for an interview with Cornell campus police,

as well as others at Cornell, who had to conduct what is called a Title IX investigation, and that's under federal law, universities have to seriously investigate conduct of sexual assault. And that is separate from any kind of criminal investigation. So Jane Doe sat down with Cornell police and others at the university. And over hours, this transcript has not been released, but there has been some reporting by CBS News that she said that she was 100% confident that she was raped. She talks about how she has gaps in her memory. because she, you know, with all of the drug use that she was pressured to take and she felt coerced by these men,

she doesn't remember later into the night everything that happened. That transcript, the district attorney said he never saw. He says what he got was a six-page statement that they had Jane Doe look over and review and sign. Again, we have not seen that full statement, but the district attorney has released select portions of it. And the way he characterizes it is that the statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped and that she described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual. And the district attorney is essentially saying this might seem brutal and morally reprehensible. But in New York, unlike some other states, a victim who is a victim of sexual assault. impaired by alcohol or drugs that they choose to consume as opposed to being drugged without their consent

is not automatically deemed, you know, a crime and unable to consent under New York law. So he's trying to make a distinction between what he can charge as a prosecutor and that statement that he got. Of course, that hasn't made anybody more comfortable in this scenario. Now there are questions about whether laws need to be strengthened. and why he was okay with just reading a six-page statement in a situation like this and not calling in Ithaca police to investigate themselves and to interview Jane Doe separately because her lawyer says, of course, for victims of sexual assault,

you need investigators who are properly trained to deal with this and campus police just aren't. I mean, like you say, so many questions have come out of just what you've, the information you've just given us, not least consent and what is consent, but also that it wasn't investigated by anyone other than Cornell campus police. How unusual is that considering the seriousness of the allegations? Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting because the district attorney says that they rely on Cornell police because of the jurisdiction of campus to handle these things.

But if, you know, I've been speaking to other former federal sexual abuse and crime prosecutors who say that they, absolutely think that the police should have been called in. And it's not just, you know, several the students who feel that way and those piling on the pressure. I mean, even, you know, the mayor, for example, and others, the governor have, have criticized that police weren't called in to look into this. And, you know, I should just add some of the statements that have come from Jane Doe's lawyer and from Cornell University. You know, Jane Doe's lawyer said in the days following the assault that Jane Doe was traumatized, numb, unable to function or accept the horror of what had happened, that she was in self-preservation mode, and that she never spoke to anyone other than the officer who took her initial complaint,

adding that she would have expected at the very least that she would have been interviewed several times and evidence collected by law enforcement and a case developed. She said, the lawyer says, this is the normal sequence for serious crime investigations. The defensive posture I have gleaned from the district attorney's statements leads me to believe that they recognize that there were failures and they are trying to excuse them, he said. But Anita, what we have seen, the district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, has done several interviews with media. And even when he is confronted with the Snapchat messages, with the additional information and transcripts, he continues to go to this position that he is constrained my New York law. And again, he does, even though they are reopening this case to see if there can be criminal charges presented to a grand jury, which is essentially a group of citizens who would weigh if there's enough evidence for possible criminal charges, he insists that he did the right thing. And we also have a statement from Cornell University. They say that they support the decision of the district attorney to reopen this and for it to be heard by a criminal grand jury and that they have also conducted an investigative. with a hearing where trained faculty and staff heard evidence over multiple days.

They say the complaint and respondents had the opportunity to testify and present evidence, and a range of sanctions were issued, including expulsions and suspensions. Now, I should just jump in here to say that part of Jane Doe's lawsuit was, you know, pointing out they say that only two of the seven men were expelled, that one had essentially graduated before punishments were levied, but that others were able to lessen their punishment by writing essays and several others were essentially suspended. Now, Cornell University has hit back at that saying none of the individuals charged were offered the opportunity to write essays as a sole consequence of their involvement. Do we know what the punishment was? What did, what punishment did

they actually receive? Well, we know that, and this is the thing, this is another contention. Cornell is saying that by federal law, they are constrained from giving exactly who the men were and what their punishment was. People are disputing that, saying there's nothing in federal law that constrains that. It's up to the university to decide. But we are going off of everything that has been available from students at Cornell probing into this and what the lawsuit says from Jane Doe's lawyer, we believe that two of the seven men were expelled. Again, one graduated before anything could happen and that the others faced some of the others faced suspension. So that is a temporary measure. It's not like being expelled from the university. And the lawyer points out that

Jane Doe left Cornell because she was so traumatized while some of these men were able to go on and get an Ivy League education. And Cornell also makes the point. point in their statement that the involved fraternity was closed in 2024 and remains barred from campus and saying that any suggestion that they didn't impose consequential punishments for those involved is false. Yeah, the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun, has played a pivotal role in bringing national attention to the allegation. So we've got a clip of the editor-in-chief, Sophia Dasa, on NPR, talking about the culture of sexual misconduct and the school task force, which was formed in 2025 to tackle rampant campus sexual violence.

We realised that, you know, this is not a dark chapter in Cornell's history. It reflects a culture that the university has not yet confronted. The fact that sexual misconduct is treated as an educational problem, assigning essays, workshops, and lectures as a part of the task force was extremely concerning to us. And the lack of transparency, it was both concerning to us and clearly to the Cornell community. The co-lead of the task force had said, and I quote, that the charge was never to solve the problem.

So our question is who's responsible for solving it? I'm going to bring in Tracy Vitchers here, who's the executive director of its honors, a non-profit program dedicated to preventing college sexual assault. Tracy, welcome to Women's Out. So how are sexual assault cases handled on U.S. campuses? Thank you so much for having me. Cornell, to the student journalist's point,

is a symptom of a much larger systemic and cultural. problem on U.S. college campuses. The epidemic of sexual violence on college campuses is not new. And I think Cornell is just the most recent case in point. There have been decades where survivors and advocates have called for serious reform in the ways that institutions both prevent and respond to sexual violence. But despite those calls and advocacy, incidents rates have largely remained unchanged with one in five women being sexually assaulted during their time on campus in U.S. institutions of higher education. What we have really seen with this Cornell case is an interrogation of the existing Title IX

rule. I know not a reference Title IX earlier in her description of the events and the investigation that the institution undertook, but just to provide some context, ever since the Clinton administration, every single presidential. administration since has interpreted Title IX to protect students who have experienced sexual violence on campus. And each administration has engaged in various levels of reform. The most recent reform that has now stuck was undertaken during the First Trump administration. And so throughout the First Trump administration, the Department of Education led by former Secretary of Ed, Betsy DeVos,

engaged in what we would consider a rulemaking process. And this rolemaking process fundamentally altered the ways in which institutions of higher education are required to respond and investigate sexual violence under Title IX. And the challenge that we have with this role as advocates and as leaders and survivors is that the administration has continued to posture that these changes were intended to, quote unquote, protect women. But the lives and experiences of student survivors tell a far different story. The Title IX rule made it fundamentally harder for survivors to report sexual violence to their campus community. Just to come back to a bit more about this particular case, and we will talk about consent as well, because I think that's a big area that we should talk about. But what would you say to those who question the discrepancy in Jane Doe's recollection of the incident?

What do we know about what happens? Absolutely. That's a great question. we know that the brain and the body responds in various ways to trauma. It can lead to gaps in memory. It can lead to challenges providing a linear recollection of events. We also know that when individuals are actively experiencing a traumatic event, they can fawn, fight, or freeze. And when you read the description of what Jane Doe underwent,

it does appear that there were attempts to, you know, to just freeze. There were moments where she fawned. There were moments when she, you know, was clearly under the influence of drugs and alcohol and therefore could not consent. And what happened to her was horrific given the reporting. And, you know, with that in mind, it is not, it is not unreasonable to think that there would be gaps in her memory, given, you know, the alcohol, the drug use and just the trauma that she underwent. And I do think that it is really important. to call out that Jane did report to her institution. And she did move forward with a Title IX investigation. That is really critical here because, as I mentioned, under the Trump rule, it is much more difficult for survivors to report.

The standard that schools have to apply to even consider opening an investigation is extremely high. And so Cornell, at least when she reported, did believe something had happened. or they would not have opened an investigation into these seven men. And how are the reputations of young men generally treated in these kinds of cases when handled by universities? That's a great question. You know, the 2020 Title IX rule, as I mentioned, not only made it harder for survivors to report, but it also stacked the deck in favor of students who are accused of sexual misconduct on college campuses. The Title IX rule was very heavily influenced by, you know, students who had been,

accused of sexual misconduct and claimed that they had been wrongly accused and therefore wrongly suspended or expelled or received other types of punitive measures. And so under a Title IX investigation as it stands now, institutions are required to provide written assurance that students who are accused are essentially considered innocent until found responsible under a Title IX investigation. They are allowed to have an advisor of their choice who is permitted to cross-examine the student who has filed the complaint in real time. And we, also know that their schools are barred from taking any kind of action against those students that could impact their ability to participate in their educational activities and programs

until they're found responsible. And so we know that this is the case and we also know that this role has made it much more difficult for schools to actually hold students, like meaningfully responsible even if they are found to have committed sexual violence and violated Title IX. Neda, I'm going to bring you back in here. If a grand jury now hears the evidence, what are the possible outcomes? Well, that is the big step here. It's because the district attorney says he has a female now in charge, someone who, a senior prosecutor, he says, has a lot of experience prosecuting sex crime. So first, she has to look at the new evidence and determine what charges they think they can successfully bring.

If a grand jury hears that and believes that there is enough evidence, enough probable cause to formally charge any of those men, then we could see what's called an indictment against some of those men or all of them potentially. So that is the big question, whether they will have to go to trial, to face a criminal trial for their actions or whether they won't. And that will really be interesting to see the community reaction to that. And Tracy, very quickly, lots of famous names and women generally are talking about this on social media. Florence Pugh wrote on her Instagram asking men to be angry for us. What responsibility do men have to speak up about violence against women and girls? Men absolutely have a responsibility to speak out and stop. I think one of the most horrific, you know, one of the most horrific parts of this case is also, to Nada's point, the group chat.

And how many young men, they say 50 young men, they say 50 young people. men were in that group chat, and not one of them stopped what was happening despite knowing what was going on. At its honest, we focus very heavily on empowering young men to be part of the solution by teaching them how to be active bystanders. And I really believe that young men need additional education and support in understanding the implications of violence and the role they have to play in preventing it. Tracy Vitchers and Neda Tofie, thank you so much for joining me this morning. 84844 is the text number. Now, The broadcaster, campaigner and charity founder, Dame Esther Ranssen, has died at the age of 86.

She'll be best remembered for presenting the BBC TV program That's Life, but also for setting up child line, the telephone, help line for children suffering abuse or neglect, as well as for her work campaigning for older people and for assisted dying. She was a guest on Woman's Hour several times, talking about subjects like loneliness and ageing. People closer to me who really felt that I had pulled. off an emotional skin too many, that it was wrong of me to do that. And someone expressed it really clearly, wrote to me and said, loneliness has a shaming quality, born out of the perception of social failure. It's an ache that dares not speak its name for fear people will think

as needy, or at very least lacking Jue de Vib, and so will shun us like an empty restaurant, which I thought was really telling. The hideous inspiration for what I wrote was when I heard myself say to my daughter, who is religious, I think God wants you to move in with me. You didn't really say that. I said that. May you be forgiven? Well, God, please forgive me. It was a terrible thing to say. And, you know, I did apologise to her after it.

But, you know, I think there's passion for thinking that it's really important that we have our own space to ourselves is not helpful if that's not what you really enjoy. I find it quite irritating when when people ask me how old I am and I say I'm 70, I get a round of applause. Now, in this day and age, I can imagine a round of applause if you say you're 102, but 72 these days is no achievement at all. So I usually say, please don't worry about that. But I do love, I love going to schools, which I do a lot for childline, and tell them my age, because sometimes they are lost in awe.

Although I did say to a six-year-old sitting in the front row, you know, you should never ask a question to which you don't already know the answer. I said to a six-year-old, how old you think I am, and he said 96, and that didn't go down terribly well. Just hearing her voice puts a smile on your face, doesn't it? That was Esther Ranson speaking to Women's Hour in 2011 and 2013. While joining me now to reflect on her life and impact on women's lives in particular is the calmness at the Guardian, Zoe Williams. Morning, Zoe. What can you to...

I think we should, you know, hear a bit... The first thing I wanted to do last night was to just learn about her life, Who was she? Where did it all begin? So let's start there. Tell us about Esther's early life. So she was actually raised in New York until she was 10. And then she moved to London, had a very kind of a very middle class, North London upbringing, private school. People didn't really talk about that kind of career path in the days when she came into being.

Nobody said, oh, another private school, Oxbridge person, because she also went to Somerville in Oxford. Because just to be a woman and make a mark was with diversity enough. And so, you know, she just processed as this kind of eminently RP, classically BBC creature. But she sort of wasn't, she wasn't that. She was always quite scrappy and, you know, very ambitious.

And there was a lot of kind of sexist chit-chat in the 70s and 18. about how ambitious she was, because that was still considered quite a bad thing for a woman to be. How did she get into broadcasting? So she started as a researcher on Ned Sherrin's. Ned Sherrin had a show called BBC 3, before BBC 3 existed, of course, younger listener. Nothing's original. No, and she was, you know, she was the dog's body. I think a lot of the obits have kind of quoted her calling herself the dog's body of that era.

But she was a real grafter, you know, she was, she was, she was, immediately extremely valuable to the production team and got a job quite effortlessly, I believe, on this Braden's Week show in which this kind of, he was a Canadian guy at Bernard Braden hosting a magazine show in the early 70s. And he basically, I mean, I don't want to speak ill of him either, but it sounds like he would get the researchers on screen. at any opportunity because it took the heat off him for a bit. So she got on to, she got in front of a camera relatively fast. And when he moved back to Canada, she had, she was the main presenter of that's life.

I mean, and that was 1973. It's really extraordinary. It was on for TV for 21 years, which is incredible. And as you mentioned, I mean, we all grew up watching a lot of us, a lot of people listening, I'm sure. And it was just to see a woman. at the helm and to think, okay, well, that's possible. A woman can just be in control of a TV show like that. Tell us about that's life.

How did it come about and how important was it as a TV program? Well, this is it. So it morphed from Braden's Week into that's life. But it didn't at all feel hidebound by the magazine format that Braden had kind of cooked up, which was much softer. So Esther Anson would have really soft, really fun pieces and the one that always sticks in all of our minds if you were born in the 70s

is the dog that could say sausages because it really is, I mean genuinely the dog is saying sausage is amazing. I re-watched it. Well, I watched it this morning. It's very entertaining. It really is good. But also, you know,

you would see quite striking, terrible consumer injustices. I remember watching one and I was a kid and just feeling shocked that somebody could show something on TV it was about a toddler who'd been really, really maimed by some patio doors. So she was very, she was very kind of fired up by injustice, but she was also very magaziney. So the injustice that really struck at her in the first instance were the injustices were consumer-based.

So it's like you shouldn't have sold this to a bunch of people who have either got a tummy bug or lost a child to it. And she didn't, she didn't have any compunction about sense of scale. She didn't think that some things were inappropriate for the show that she was doing. She didn't think that anything was too serious. But she didn't think that anything was too light either. So it was amazingly, it was very, very impactful because it had the water cooler quality that you'd still be chatting about the sausages dog. But it also had immediate impacts because, of course, we didn't have that much TV. So if she ran a thing saying playground floor surfaces were causing more injuries than needed to happen,

like it wouldn't be long before there was actual legislation or certainly local authority protocol about playground surfaces. That's just knowing being a great broadcaster, isn't it, knowing how to tell a story and put it across to the masses, but also know how that people want a bit of entertainment and the light as well. How did that's life influence her setting up child line?

So she was, it started off as a one-off, the child line idea. where she was doing an investigation and she had a one-off special in 1986 and there were survivors of childhood abuse talking about what that had been like. And don't forget, nobody talked about this then, nobody talked about long-term trauma. There was still in the psychological manuals the notion that you would just be fine, that you could just, things could happen to you in childhood and never affect you again. We didn't really have a concept of post-traumatic stress as such, even, you know, despite the

First World War. So the way she talked about it when she actually listened to survivors and gave credence and empathy to their experience was absolutely extraordinary and generated a huge, a huge response. And then she set up childline. But on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, On the first show in which she announced that, my mum was actually a set designer on that show. And the response, the immediate response was so overwhelming that members of the production team were having to answer the phone to people calling in.

And they were just, they were astonished, both at the scale of the response, the human suffering underneath it. It was astonishing. It was a completely, I mean, I think now you probably would, Well, now you definitely, it definitely wouldn't happen on the hoof like that because people were completely sideswept by it. And she also campaigned for older people with Silverline. Yeah.

And it was really sweet hearing that that footage you have about her with her daughter. Because she, because the last time I interviewed her was only a couple of months ago. I was interviewing her about what goes to make a successful chat show. It was just the head of Claudia Winkleman starting her doomed chat show. And I could hear Esther, I was talking to her over the phone. I could hear her daughter in the background. I don't know if her daughter ever did move in with her, but they were incredibly close.

And I think it gave her the confidence to talk about old age in a way that she knew that she wasn't asking for pity. You know, she was just saying this is the experience. She was very, very big on that kind of broadcasting and being that figure in public life. Let's not hide this experience. If there's a really bad experience going on, let's talk about it. What was it like meeting her a couple of months ago?

Well, she's always been a really, really nice person, you know. She's kind of, she's very, she's very, she's very, she was very open. She was very, I mean, as you can see from the work that she did, and the way she talked about her own experience of widowhood and loneliness, she didn't have, she didn't have much front. She would always tell you exactly what was going on. And she would. Which in itself.

is really usual we're quite yeah because we're very used to i guess people talking about their own experiences and knowing that with a platform that you can kind of get attention to things but she was doing it before anybody and also kind of connecting the dots in tv terms would would the one show exists if it hadn't been for that's life and you know just all the people answering telephone calls in the background um what do you think she achieved for for women in broadcasting well for a start i mean it was huge the fact that she even existed and you And it's been conveniently forgotten now, but she was absolutely pilloried by, you know,

the spitting image had this horrible, I think it was spitting image, I hope it was, had this horrible puppet of her with these gigantic teeth. Her appearance was picked over, poured over, castigated, far and wide. She was considered this uppity woman, and she was an uppity woman. And I think, and she was a trailblazer.

You know, she wasn't, she would, I didn't share her politics. tall. She was quite kind of, she was very middle, she was very establishment. I'd say she was kind of centre-right, if anything, although I think she was kind of radicalised later in life. But she did the role modelling of not being afraid to take up space in public, which I just cannot stress enough how important that was and how, what a mountain that was to climb, because people were horrible to hear about it, and it was water off a duck's back. Zoe Williams, thank you so much for speaking to us this morning, remembering Dame Esther Ransom.

844 is the text number. Your sales order says one thing, your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says, good luck. Odu brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's O'DO.com. Is Facebook dying? I'm Tristan Redmond, hosted the Global Story podcast from the BBC.

More than 15 years after the social network, a new movie on the inner workings of Facebook hit cinemas in October. The journalist who's reporting inspired the film tells us why Facebook stopped being cool and whether meta its parent company can reinvent itself. For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your pods. Now, one in 10 women in the UK is affected by endometriosis, but it takes an average of nine years to get a diagnosis. In the summer, we discussed a new NHS tests aiming to cut those diagnosis times, but not every GP can access them, and there are questions about their accuracy.

Well, yesterday, a new pain management program for endo was announced as a trial as part of a £2.3 million UK-wide study, led by the University of Aberdeen and NHS. Grampian. However, in Australia, things seem to be moving further and faster. They've launched a new endometriosis management plan aiming to get GPs and patients collaborating for better care. Professor Danielle Mazur from Monash University has been instrumental in designing and delivering the plan. She joins me now down the line from Melbourne, as does Dr. Sylvia Kamekege, who's from the College of Sexual and Reproductive Health and a GP in Sheffield. So welcome to you both. I'm going to come to you, Professor Mazel or Danielle, first of all. Tell us more about this. What does this new national plan cover in Australia and why was it needed? Yes, so the national

endometriosis management plan was introduced in order to really translate the guidelines into practice. So we know that there are very large numbers of women with endometriosis in the community. They turn to GPs first to diagnose and then to manage the condition. So what we really wanted to do was to support GPs to deliver what we know is best practice care, what the guideline recommendations actually say. And so we develop the plan so that patients and GPs can sit together during a consultation and go through and identify what the current issues are for the woman, what her priorities are. What her priorities are and what she needs to have addressed. And so, and they can both see by using the plan what the guidelines recommend in this situation. And the plan also builds in resources

for the patient, resources for the doctors. And it's really a structured way to deliver best practice care. So you'd go to your GP, you'd sit in front of a screen together and what? Look, and click through it? Yeah, so it's online. Your readers can, or your listeners, sorry, can also go online and have a look at the plan themselves if they'd like to. And it steps you through what we do

when we deliver chronic disease management because endometriosis is a chronic disease. But most of the, particularly the young women who have this condition, don't really conceptualise it like that. Sometimes they think, if they go in to see their GP, their GP can deliver the cure on the spot. It's not really how it all works.

So what we want is to increase understanding in women about the condition, what it is, what the management options are, and give them the tools to better manage the condition in conjunction with their healthcare professionals. How is this funded and how does it differ in Australia to, here in the UK? Yes, so we have a similar system to the UK. Australian general practice are kind of small businesses, so you can choose whichever GP you'd like to go and see.

You're not registered necessarily to a practice. And you get care through consultations, but the government also has a way of funding chronic disease management. which if a GP creates this plan for the patient, then it unlocks the capacity to access allied healthcare with a government subsidy. So we know that this is really important, particularly for conditions like endometriosis.

We're seeing, for example, a pelvic physiotherapist might be very helpful to a woman who's dealing with the pain of endometriosis. I want to bring in Dr. Sylvia Carmichiege, who's a GP in Sheffield. Sylvia, your thoughts on hearing this? Yes, indeed. And thank you so much for having me. Very interesting looking through this. And I would say well done to the team in Australia for putting this together.

We do recognise endometriosis having this very significant and long-term impact on women's lives and how there needs to be so much more done. We're dealing in the UK. We're dealing with time to diagnosis of an average. of nine years and that increases to 11 years when you look at women or people from ethnic diverse communities. So there is a lot of work that needs to be done. And what I feel some of the gaps in terms of the diagnosis are being able to put the symptoms together and arrive at a place where it is recognised that this is endometriosis that we're dealing with. And then the next steps

would be the treatment, the monitoring and then referral as that is needed. So I, I'm really interested, and I think what stands out to me from this EMP, this plan, is how the woman and the GP are working closely together, how there is a plan that both have recognized and agreed on. And it looks to me that the woman has the plan herself and knows this is what I expect. This is how things could go and when to come back. So, so important when it comes to managing endometriosis. Here in the UK, we also recognize it as a chronic disease.

And I think what we can do more because it can be a little bit patchy or not very consistent in terms of how that management is delivered, what we can do more is about trying to get the diagnosis recognized earlier and trying to get the treatment put in place quicker for women. And there are, Sylvia, the new diagnostic tests being trialled, as I mentioned in my intro in England and Wales and a new pain management plan being developed in Scotland, but still a long way to go. that is true but there is good news the fact that they are there in the horizon and the nice has approved the one of those tests that you mentioned so this is a saliva test that looks at genetic material and so that's recently been approved they have confirmed that I think a couple of weeks ago when that comes actually physically comes into the surgery I can't say to you but I think it's pretty soon the fact that we have a policy that supports the need for this test I think is an amazing step. And I think we watch this space and it might come to us sooner than later.

Danielle, we talked last week on the program about how difficult it can be to access hormonal contraception like the coil for conditions like Endo, with some women waiting months. What's the picture like in Australia? So the government has recognised that there's a real need to support general practice to deliver long-acting reversible contraception. So there's been recent policy measures to, provide scholarships, funded scholarships to GPs to train in intrauterine device insertion. And also GPs are paid more to actually deliver this service because we have a fee for service system in Australia. And the government has also funded my group to set up an

online community of practice to support primary care to deliver long-active. contraception and these products, IUDs and implants can be used both for contraception and for endometriosis management. So there's a lot of investment going in Australia into making IUDs, particularly the hormonal IUD and the implants much more accessible to Australian women. Any advice for British GPs, the NHS or the government here? Big question. Oh, I throw up my hands in horror when I hear the stories about But the funding barriers to women accessing these kinds of essential services, it's a real worry. Sylvia, what would you like to see happening next?

Well, I think a lot has been done, but I think we can do so much more. We recognise that our patients talk about feeling dismissed and not listened to. And thankfully, we already have very strong foundations, both from NICE and from the Women's Health Strategy that was renewed earlier this year, where the emphasis is on listening to women and educating both women and clinicians. And really, according to our nice guidelines, the very first presentation for a woman can actually walk away when the doctor and the patients have had that conversation. They can walk away with a treatment plan, with decisions around medication, referral for an ultrasound scan, for example, and referral to secondary care or to a specialist if that is needed. So what I would love to see is more support for general practitioners, for primary care, more support in terms of time training. What I'd love to see is for us to get into that practice of regular monitoring, which is something that is highlighted in this plan.

So regular monitoring is not just treating this condition as if it's a one-off thing where you treat a chest infection, for example, because it does have a chronic stage. And you want your patients, even after you've given them treatment, to come back, to see how are they getting on? What is what's troubling them? How is it affecting them? And I think this also contributes to our patients feeling that, yes, we understand, we're listening and we understand the impact of this condition in them. So this is what I'd like to see. And I think we are moving in that direction. And we need a lot of support to do that.

There's a lot of issues within the service. But given the tests coming along, given the policies, both in Nice and Women's Health Strategy, I think it's forward-looking. And there is hope. But a lot more needs to be done. Professor Danielle Mazur and Dr Sylvia Kameyage, thank you so much for joining me to talk about that this morning. 84844, the text number. Now, something for poetry lovers. This week marks the beginning of Way With Words on BBC Radio 6 music, led by Craig Charles.

It's their annual celebration of all things spoken word and lyrics to mark National Poetry Day on, well, today, the 1st of October. Across the week, Craig will be here. from the likes of Rupi Cor, Amy Matthews, Elvis Costello and John Cooper Clark, before Craig shares a poem he's written to mark the occasion called Liverpool Rocks, focusing on the music scene that emerged from Liverpool in the 1970s, and you can hear Craig's poem on Six Music Today from 1pm, or head to their socials to see the accompanying film recorded in different locations across the city. Now, tanning, or more specifically, some beds have been more.

back in a big way over the summer. Look at social media and there'll be posts about tan maxing and influences extolling the virtues of using some beds. But this resurgence could be fueling a rising cases of skin cancer, particularly amongst young people, according to some experts. Cases of melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, have risen by 73% over the past 20 years across England, Wales and Scotland. And it's now one of the most common cancers in those aged 15, 10.

according to data from cancer research UK. A study by Teenage Cancer Trust found almost half of 18 to 34 year olds in the UK use sunbeds. That's the highest proportion of any age group. If you have any thoughts about this, maybe there's someone in your family who you know uses sunbeds. We'd like to hear from you. Well, joining me, the Observer journalist, Marine Saint, has been looking into this and joins me now in the studio, along with Rosie Var from the charity Teenage Cancer Trust. Welcome to both of you. And Marine, let's start with you.

Why did you want to look into this? Where did this all start? It really began with my own algorithm. I saw a real wave of content around tan maxing, sunbed use. And it seemed to me important to investigate what were the figures behind this. And I found there were almost 23 million TikTok videos with the tag of sunbeds. And then about 700,000 Instagram posts tagged. with tanning in sunbed. So it really seems that this was something which had entered back into

sort of cultural discourse and was trending online. And then you obviously went off and did some more digging and more research. What did the experts you spoke to say about the link between, as I started talking about, the rise in sunbed use and the rise in melanoma cases? So sunbed use is well known to be attributed to skin cancer and causes skin cancer. So the experts I spoke to were really concerned with the way in which it was being readily discussed on social media and that people were coming into their clinics with skin cancer cases and they had said that they were using sunbeds because of promotion online, because of conversations online,

the fact that sunbeds were trending as a new beauty trend, essentially. And what are they seeing? What are people saying about sunbeds that are promoting them? So online people are saying that sunbeds have health benefits essentially, which contrasts all of the kind of medical research. which we accept online, which we would hope that people would understand the risks that come with using sunbeds. So they were seeing people saying that sunbed use helped them feel confident in their own skin, especially with young women, help them feel like they were glowing, achieving this bronze look,

and that sunbeds were the quickest and cheapest way of doing that. I'm going to bring in a statement here from the Department of Health and Social Care. A spokesperson said there is no safe level of sunbed use. They increased the risk of skin cancer, particularly among younger people. Addressing this is a key part of our national cancer plan. That's why we consulted on strengthening regulation, including mandatory ID checks to stop children accessing them illegally, clearly displayed health warnings and banning misleading health claims.

We've also got a statement from the Sunbed Association, which is a trade body, and they said viral social media posts, sensationalists, online influences, and internet trends have absolutely no connection with the professional regulated tanning sector, regulated high street salons do not endorse, promote or participate in reckless digital fads or extreme sunburn challenges. Rosie, let me bring you in here. The Teenage Cancer Trust, you've carried out your own research into sunbeds. Why? What prompted this?

Yeah, so we looked into this a bit last year and the reason why we first started looking at it is that we as a charity fund frontline staff in the NHS. We fund nurses and youth workers working directly with young people between the ages of 13 and 24 with cancer. And through various different conversations, anecdotally, we were hearing their concerns about a rise in the numbers of young people they were seeing who had either expressed using sunbeds or had expressed knowing that other people of their age were using sunbeds. For us, this was pretty shocking to hear and we wanted to look into and understand some of the kind of stats around it and the reasonings as well, like Marin said. So we did two sets of surveys last year. So we did one in the summer, which looked at kind of overall general sunbed use across different age groups. and between the ages of 18 and 34, 48% of people admitted to using sunbirds. And that was by far the biggest proportion.

It drops drastically in the 35 to 55 age group to 18%. And the reasoning with the summer use of sunbeds was around achieving what they call a base tan. So the idea that you're preparing your skin before you go on holiday to protect against any further burning or sun damage. There is no evidence that base tans are something that protect your skin and there's no safe way of tanning under any UV light, whether that's in a sunbed or outside as well. So that was a really interesting around the summer trend. And then we did a winter survey as well to try and understand. Those are the two peak areas.

The winter sunbed use, the reasoning, as Marines kind of touched on as well, the reasoning was slightly different. So it was the leaning into those wellness trends we see a lot of online as well. The idea that using a sunbed can boost your vitamin D levels or gives you confidence or lets you get a tan during winter when we're seeing less of the sun anyway. or is a mood booster. The vitamin D element is, again, there's no scientific evidence of that. Marine, when you spoke to young people, I'm just, you know, this story is,

I'm sure lots of people will be thinking the same thing that I thought when I read your article, which is how have we gone from the messaging that was so clear, you know, those of a group in the 80s, 90s and the 70s, you know, some beds were sort of no go, really. And actually, people were, I thought the messaging had got through. So what were the young people, telling you about why they decided to start using them. Yes, absolutely. It's really a cyclical trend, 80s, 2000s, now again for the social media generation. And the young people I spoke to were saying it was those arguments again which

you raise. It's the base tan. It's the wellness side of it. It's feeling confident in their skin. They see sunbeds as a way to heal their acne, to feel like they're glowing. And it is essentially it's a beauty trend for them and it's something which lasts longer than bottled tan or a spray tan and which is also promoted online as something which is fun, social and ultimately trending. So it's aesthetic basically. They just want to look sun-kissed and glowie. What are the risks associated with using sunbeds, Rosie? So some beds were classified as carcinogenic so they can cause cancer that's been proven and that was in 2009. So we're now 17 years later, and as you just said, when I was growing up, you couldn't move in a news

agent without seeing headlines around how dangerous sunbeds were. The growing trends online, and we have a real concern around the huge amount of misleading information and the lack of regulation and checking of this information as well, but also the lack of information of the risks of sunbeds. And the risk is that they can cause cancer. And there's a pretty stark stat that illustrates that very well, which is the first use of a sunbed before the age of 35, increases your risk of skin cancer by 59%. The sunbed association, which is a trade body for the industry, say the overwhelming majority of sunburn happens in natural outdoors sunshine,

not within a compliant professional tanning salon. What would you say to that? I would say that there is ways you can protect your skin in a sunbed. If you're going to use sunbeds, we actively advise against any use of sunbeds as an organisation. We would not recommend this to anyone. But going out in the sun, you also need to protect your skin. So that's using an SPF of minimum 50, covering up during the peak hours. So between 11am and 3pm when the sun is at its hottest, wearing sunglasses,

wearing hats, protecting yourself from protecting your skin and understanding what the risks are as well, but also knowing what it is that you need to do. And understanding the risks of sunbeds, I think, is one of the main things for us. And we actively avoid against any use. What did experts tell you, Marine, about what they wanted to see? I mean, what changes did they want to help protect young people, particularly from the dangers? Definitely having firm a public health messaging and understanding that this wave of online content is very much different to the public health line, which is that sunbeds are dangerous for you and can cause skin cancer.

Also firming down regulations on licensing for sunbed shops because we don't actually know the scale of this industry. As whilst there is an industry body, there are countless of other salons which, as they aren't required to operate with a licence, we don't know. where they are, where they're operating. They also want to have firmer ID checks, so the underage users, under 18s, aren't using sunbeds. And it's also thinking about the economic impact of sunbed shops too, because they have a great economic impact on high streets, especially in parts of the UK where we see high use of sunbeds,

the northwest, the northeast, parts of Scotland. And it's important to toe the line between what are the economic impacts on the NHS for skin cancer, cancer cases, but also for these small businesses which rely on their salons being open. Yeah, and often they're run by women as well. Rosie, some people are calling for them to be banned. Yeah. What do you think?

I think that's the decision that only the government can make. Our stance is very much that we would actively advise against any use. The young people that we support, but people generally as well, they have been proven to cause cancer and they sit in the same category of carcinogen as tobacco and asbestos. So it's a very stark warning. We've understood this. We've known this for a very long time. now as well. Our recommendation to young people is always do not use sunbeds when you're

going out in the sun protects your skin and if you have any concerns about your body in any way, you know your body better than anyone else does. Go and see a GP if you're worried and get it checked out. Good advice and maybe if anything on social media comes with something and maxing, just avoid. I don't know. I'm just putting that out there. Marine Saint from the observer and Rosievel from Teenage Cancer Trust. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm going to end with a message that has come in about Esther Ranson and from a listener saying, I met Esther Ransom randomly one day and we just locked eyes and smiled. We said hello and had a lovely chat as if we were old friends. She was so amiable, kind and fun. Moreover, my son was being bullied in school

and he rang child line. He's now a very confident young adults and I've just texted him to tell him who set up childline and more importantly what a dame she was. She will always be a national treasure and that's from Rianne. Do join me tomorrow on Women's Hour when we'll be speaking to farmer and author Helen Rabanks. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Twenty-five years on from the deadliest terror attack in history, why are thousands of grieving families still fighting for answers? In early 2000, two young Saudis arrived in San Diego. They'd never been to America, spoke almost no English, and had no idea how to open a bank account or rent a flat. Within weeks, they'd done all

of it. Twenty months later, they hijacked a plane and crashed it into the Pentagon. Jane McMullen investigates the hidden story of a man who helped two of the hijackers and reveals a story that the U.S. and Saudi governments have fought to keep secret. From Radio 4, this is Intrigue, a 9-11 story. Listen first on BBC Sounds. Is Facebook Dying? I'm Tristan Redmond, hosted the Global Story podcast from the BBC. More than 15 years after the social network, a new movie on the inner workings of Facebook hits cinemas in October.

The journalist who's reporting inspired the film tells us why Facebook stopped being cool and whether meta its parent company can reinvent itself. For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your pods.