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Women around the world are being told they can now have an orgasm at the touch of a button. The makers of "Slightest Touch" say their device can give women longer, better and more intense orgasms.

They claim their device can trigger an orgasm without touching a woman's genital area.

According to the manufacturers, Slightest Touch works by stimulating the body's sexual nerve pathway.

'Turned on'

Women start by drinking an electrolyte sports drink 20 minutes before using the device.

They then apply two white electrode pads inside their ankles.

These pads are connected to the Slightest Touch device, which is about the size of a personal stereo.

With the flick of a switch, women can literally get turned on. The device stimulates the nerves sending gentle pulses up the woman's leg for between 10 and 30 minutes leaving women on the verge of climax.

"The Slightest Touch does not provide an orgasm," said Cherisse Davidson, the company's director of customer support.

"It gently stimulates the sexual nerve pathways taking the woman to a pre-orgasmic plateau where she dangles on the edge of orgasm for as long as she wants.

"From there, gentle stimulation can then effect the orgasm."

BBC News Online has been unable to get independent scientific verification that the product works. But Ms Davidson, who first tested the device three years ago, insists it is effective.

"It can be of great benefit to many women," she told BBC News Online. "I've been using mine for three years and I just love it."

She said the product can help women who simply want to improve their sex lives and those who have problems achieving orgasm.

However, the Slightest Touch, which sells for $139.95, is not suitable for everyone.

It is not recommended for women taking anti-depressants, those who are pregnant or those with some underlying medical conditions such as heart problems. The product which was launched in the United States six months ago is now starting to getting attention in Europe.

Ms Davidson said the company had now sold almost 4,000 devices - some to customers in Britain.

However, the UK's FPA, formerly the Family Planning Association, urged women to get professional advice before spending their hard earned cash.

"If women feel they have problems with either sex or relationships, it's better to go and get professional advice about the possible causes, before spending a lot of money on a particular product," said a spokeswoman.

BBC News

Testing for the 'hidden' sexually transmitted infection chlamydia is to be extended, the government has announced.
It has named 16 new areas of England which will be covered in a further move towards a national programme.

Ten areas already provide screening for the disease which often has no symptoms, but which can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility.

Up to one in 10 people are believed to be infected with chlamydia.

MPs are also set to discuss a critical report from the Common's Health Committee last summer which warned the country was on the brink of an "appalling" sexual health crisis.

The committee's report said long-term underfunding had created a position where NHS clinics were unable to cope with demand.

In September the government pledged more than £20 million to help improve sexual health.

'Under-investment'

Health minister Melanie Johnson said the extension of the chlamydia screening programme meant women in a quarter of all primary care trusts in England would now have access to screening.

She said: "Sexual health services suffered from under-investment over many decades by different administrations.

"We've already ploughed in millions of pounds to support the sexual health strategy - the first ever such action plan in this country. But I know we need to do more.

"We're also planning the third phase of the roll-out. However, in areas where the screening programme is not yet in place, chlamydia testing is still available from genito-urinary medicine (GUM) clinics, some community contraceptive clinics and GP surgeries."

She said the government would also be carrying out a review of modernisation in genito-urinary services.

Shadow Health Minister Simon Burns MP said: "The country is facing a sexual health crisis that requires urgent and meaningful government attention.

"Their failure to act properly means that we now face a burgeoning epidemic, that sexual health services are under increasing pressure and that there are dangerously long waits for treatment. "

Paul Burstow MP, Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: "Sexual health services are the Cinderella of the NHS - continually starved of funds to meet government targets or to pay off trust debts.

"Waiting times in GUM clinics are far too long. This is crazy logic."

Priority

The Health Development Agency says better sexual health education will help reduce rates of infection.

Professor Mike Kelly, director of research and information at the HDA, said: "This evidence on what works best to prevent STIs will help us tackle this major public health problem.

"The levels of chlamydia in young people are a particular concern, so the evidence that school-based sex education is effective is encouraging because it helps us to target this age group."

A separate report from the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV welcomed the recent investment into sexual health services, but said clinics needed more money and more staff to cope with demand.

Baroness Joyce Gould, chair of the Independent Advisory Group, HIV, said: "Sexual health and HIV must be explicitly prioritised at both national and local level and we should also be looking at whether we can deliver these services more effectively."

BBC News

Tests in Cornwall have revealed a higher-than-average number of cases of the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia.
Health staff in the county are screening 500 young people a month as part of a government pilot scheme.

Chlamydia, which can be passed on through unprotected sex, can cause infertility.

Nearly 3,500 young people in Cornwall have so far been screened for chlamydia, with 16% testing positive - well above the national average of 10%.

Widespread testing

Cornwall was one of 10 areas chosen by the government for widespread testing.

Health staff have run campaigns to raise awareness of the disease, targeting colleges, pubs and clubs.

Most of the tests are carried out in family planning centres, GP surgeries and clinics.

It is hoped to introduce a testing kit which people in remote rural areas will be able to return by post.

Eventually, it is hoped to screen 12,000 young people a year in Cornwall.

BBC News

A fish factory worker almost died after a Christmas kiss at a works night out provoked a severe allergic reaction. Jamie Stewart, 17, went into anaphylactic shock at the dance in Dingwall in the Scottish Highlands when he kissed his workmate Liza Macfarquharn under the mistletoe.

The teenager has a peanut allergy and Liza had just eaten a bag of nuts.

Jamie's throat began to swell up and he began to go into shock.

Liza, a trained first aider, said she immediately knew that something was wrong and her friend needed hospital treatment. She told BBC Radio Scotland: "It was a Christmas kiss after I had been eating peanuts.

"I realised something was wrong when he asked if I had been eating peanuts and said he was allergic to them.

"His throat started to swell up and I kept his airway open and phoned an ambulance."

Recovery position

Liza said Jamie was still conscious but his lips started going blue.

The former Army cadet kept him in the recovery position until an ambulance arrived at the British Legion club in Dingwall.

Jamie was taken to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness and was able to return to the dance after treatment.

He was even able to walk Liza home after the party.

Jamie was not available for comment.

BBC News

Nearly 9,000 Chileans kissed their way into the record books after smooching simultaneously in a Santiago street. The men and women, most in their 20s, poured into the cordoned-off road in Chile's capital to kiss for at least 10 seconds in their record-breaking bid.

With more than 4,400 kissing couples, they easily beat the current record of 1,588 pairs who puckered up in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, in February 2000.

An event official said two well-known photographers organised Chile's bid.

Chile is one of Latin America's most socially conservative nations.

Yet there are signs things are changing.

Last year, more than 3,000 people turned up on the same street one cold winter morning to be photographed naked.

"You never used to see this kind of thing, people looked down on it," said Fiona Ceballos, 23, after kissing her boyfriend.

"I think Chileans are coming out of the closet," she was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.

BBC News

Gay activists have staged a kiss-in at the offices of the Greek media watchdog to protest against a fine imposed on a TV station for showing two men kissing.

Mega television was fined 100,000 euros (£69,390) for the episode of its drama Close Your Eyes, featuring the kiss.

The National Radio and Television Council which imposed the fine called the scene "vulgar and unacceptable".

About 20 gays and transvestites took part in the kissing protest, describing the fine as "despicable and racist".

"They want to tell us who we can kiss and what time kissing is appropriate," Grigoris Valianatos, a gay community spokesman, said moments before embracing a fellow protester.

"We believe a kiss is an act of love, tenderness and courage."

"This decision is despicable and racist ... what I most hate is the hypocrisy we have to deal with every day," said Marina Galanou, member of Greece's Transsexual and Transvestites' Union.

Homosexuality is generally not discriminated against under Greek law, but gays complain of prejudice shown by employers, while displays of affection by same-sex couples are widely frowned upon.

The country's predominant Orthodox Church also strongly opposes the idea of gay marriage.

Big bother

The National Radio and Television Council ran into controversy in 2002 when it stepped in to a row about the Greek version of Big Brother.

Its president, Vasillis Lambridis, originally pulled the reality TV show off the air claiming it had overstepped the boundaries of public decency.

But he was over-ruled by other members of the television watchdog, and the show was allowed to continue, albeit moved from a 2200 timeslot to past midnight.

In the UK, 21 complaints were received when soap opera Coronation Street recently screened its first gay kiss, but these were rejected by the Independent Television Commission.

BBC News

Singapore is considering decriminalising oral sex between consenting men and women, after a case involving a policeman highlighted a law which many in the city-state consider antiquated.

Junior Home Affairs Minister Ho Peng Kee said the law could be revised in two to three months.

He said that the government is considering decriminalising oral sex between men and women above the age of 16. A ban on homosexual fellatio looks set to stay.

The Singaporean public were outraged by a case involving a 27-year-old policeman who was jailed for two years last November for having oral sex.

Initially it was reported that the girl was 16 years old, and the public seized on the case as evidence that the government was old-fashioned and out of touch.

It later transpired that the girl was in fact 15, and that the man was prosecuted under a different law that prohibits sex with minors.

BBC News

Ministers have been urged against introducing mandatory HIV tests for every immigrant arriving in the UK. The Institute for Public Policy Research, a leading left-wing think tank, says such a move could create more problems than it would solve.

In a report, it warns that testing immigrants could force those most in need of healthcare underground.

A decision on whether mandatory testing should be introduced is expected shortly, after a year-long review.

HIV infection

The review was prompted in part by figures which show that most new cases of HIV in the UK are diagnosed in people who came to the country from abroad.

According to the Health Protection Agency, two out of three heterosexuals who are now diagnosed with the disease contracted it in Africa.

Reports have suggested that ministers have already come down in favour of testing all immigrants and asylum seekers for HIV and other diseases, like tuberculosis, when they arrive in the UK.

The move would bring the UK in line with other countries like Australia and Canada, where everyone seeking permanent residence is screened for HIV.

But in its report, the IPPR says mandatory screening is ineffective, costly and may have negative rather than positive impacts on public health.

It suggests that the public are being misled about the benefits of introducing the tests.

The report, which was written by Dr Richard Coker of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, urges ministers to introduce a "welcome health check" after they arrive in the UK.

It says extra money should also be used to prevent the spread of HIV and TB abroad.

"The compulsory screening of asylum seekers for TB and HIV which is being proposed by some will have a limited impact on the spread of these diseases because screening for TB is ineffective and compulsion may push those carrying infectious disease underground," said Heaven Crawley, associate director of the IPPR.

"There are also ethical and moral implications of returning those diagnosed with HIV back to countries of origin.

"The public association between infectious diseases and immigration is a powerful one and is at the heart of many wider concerns about the impact of migration on Britain.

"The government should avoid the temptation of introducing compulsory screening in order to cool the political heat on this issue because the evidence about the positive benefits of such policies is weak."

A spokesman for the Department of Health said the government was still considering the issue.

"The Cabinet Office is currently co-ordinating work between relevant government departments, including the Department of Health, to review immigration and infectious diseases and access to NHS services," a spokesman said. "The review aims to establish the facts about health and public expenditure impacts and propose solutions should action be required."

BBC News

Couples in Cameroon are in a frisky mood following the end of a two-month strike during which women refused to have sex with their husbands.

The 6,000 women in the north-west of the country were protesting against the destruction of crops by cattle.

Acting through the local women secret society, they also took seven traditional rulers hostage.

The strike was called off after a commission was set up to investigate their grievances and propose solutions.

The BBC's Randy Azeng in Cameroon, says a traditional cleansing ceremony of the village of Aghem, in Wum region, and the village's rulers has been conducted.

"The cleansing ceremony is very important because the gods of our land are angry with the evil that has gripped the village," said Elizabeth Ewi, a spokeswoman from the Ndouh Fumbwi secret society that called the strike.

During the cleansing ceremony, the paramount chief of Aghem, Bah-ambi III, slaughtered specially-bred fowl and invoked the ancestors of Aghem to pour blessings to the village. The women had spent days and nights in the open with their traditional rulers as their prisoners, an act considered to be an abomination in the community.

Men in the village who include the paramount chief have fully resumed their matrimonial obligations after being deprived of sex.

Our correspondent says some men told him they stayed faithful to their wives in fear of contracting HIV.

BBC News

Drinking coffee makes sperm swim faster and could improve male fertility.

The finding was announced by Brazilian scientists at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine meeting in San Antonio, where the effects of drugs on male fertility are under review.

Coffee can do more than just wake you up - it appears that men might also be giving their sperm a kickstart by drinking just a few cups a day.

This, research by a team from Sao Paulo University suggests, increases sperm motility, which could potentially improve the chances of pregnancy.

But caffeine appears to be the only drug that is good for sperm.

Tobacco has no effect on sperm quality but can lead to erectile dysfunction, the same research has found.

Smoking marijuana, though, appears to be bad for sperm and can reduce fertility.

Scientists at Buffalo University found regular smokers had significantly less seminal fluid, and a lower sperm count.

Instead of making sperm slow down and relax, marijuana makes them peak too early: they swim too fast and too soon - they literally burn out before they reach the egg.

By Ania Lichtarowicz
BBC health reporter in San Antonio, Texas
BBC News