The study arose from what was actually essentially a maths problem. It came about in the mid 1980s when HIV AIDS had arisen and was spreading largely among gay men. So they realized that you need to know for the health of the whole society what sex people are having. The whole study arose from that need. And I mean, it's possible to smirk it, Natzana, but when it began in the mid 80s, it was absolutely deadly serious. You sort of forget the shame and stigma that was around both sex and particularly gay sex in that period.
Our correspondent visits town after devastated town. Poorly enforced building codes are one clear factor in the rising death toll—and a political backlash looms. Britain’s productivity problem is at least partly a problem with bad managers; we look at the substantial gains to be had from better-run companies. And the valuable data to come from an ambitious, national-scale sex survey.
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