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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's Health Ministry has ordered doctors to review how they prescribe a birth control drug, after accusations it was being used to control the population of Ethiopian immigrants. Suspicions that Ethiopian women had been coerced into receiving Depo-Provera arose in Israeli media a few years ago and most recently in a TV documentary linking the community's falling birthrate to over-prescription of the injectable contraceptive. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Buying your own health insurance will never be the same.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama thinks his health care law makes states an offer they can't refuse.

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal health officials say at least 16 people in five states have been sickened by salmonella food poisoning linked to ground beef.

A new study published Friday in The Lancet has cast doubt on the idea that taking folic acid supplements regularly can lead to cancer. The study found that the difference in the overall incidence of cancer among those who consume high amounts of folic acid regularly and those who do not is not statistically significant.

FIRST PERSON | The University of California, San Diego School of Medicine published the results of a recent study that shows a link between low vitamin D serum levels and premenopausal breast cancer. Women with low vitamin D serum levels are at a greatly increased risk for breast cancer. The study looked at 1,200 blood samples before coming to this conclusion. I wish that this information was known several years ago. My vitamin D serum levels were extremely low at the time of my breast cancer diagnosis. It appears that Sharif B. Mohr, Ph. D et al, are onto something.

(Reuters) - Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc said a late-stage trial of its experimental drug for kidney disease met the main study goal of reducing phosphate levels in blood, sending the company's shares up as much as 49 percent. The level of phosphate in blood increases when kidney function declines. Keryx is testing Zerenex as a treatment for elevated serum phosphorus levels, or hyperphosphatemia, in patients with end-stage renal disease on dialysis. The drug showed a statistically significant reduction in patients' blood phosphate level compared with a placebo over a four-week period. ...

BALTIMORE (AP) — A soldier who lost all four limbs in a roadside bomb attack in 2009 in Iraq has received a double-arm transplant in Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Hospital officials said Monday.

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's cancer-stricken president, made his presence felt at a regional summit on Monday with a flowery letter from his sickbed in Cuba that was laced with literary references and calls for Latin American unity. Chavez has not been seen in public since cancer surgery in Cuba in mid-December, missing his own inauguration for a new six-year term this month and fueling uncertainty over the illness jeopardizing his 14-year rule. ...

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria will release funds this week to tackle the world's worst lead poisoning outbreak which has killed at least 400 children, a senator said on Monday, ending months of official inaction in which 1,500 more children were put at risk. In May last year the government pledged 850 million naira ($5.4 million) to help clean up the lead and treat the thousands poisoned by contamination from an artisan gold mine in the Bagega area of northern Zamfara, but medical charity Doctor's Without Borders (MSF) said the money never materialized. ...

What Is Consciousness? Go to the Video!

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission will award a total of 2 billion euros for research into brain disease and into the "miracle material" graphene which could be used to make flexible electronic devices and could lead to superfast Internet speeds. The funding will be distributed over 10 years, with more than half of it coming from the Commission's research funds and the rest from EU member countries and the private sector, officials said on Monday. ...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia warned on Monday it might soon bar imports of U.S. and Canadian beef and pork if producers do not certify them free of the feed additive ractopamine. The potential ban could jeopardize more than $500 million a year of exports to Russia and coincides with mounting U.S.-Russian tensions over trade and human rights. Alexey Alexeyenko, the spokesman for Russia's Veterinary and Phyto-Sanitary Surveillance Service (VPSS), said chilled products could be banned from February 4 and frozen meat by February 11. ...

The Newest Edition of Psychiatry s Bible, the DSM-5, Is Complete

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Moscow court postponed a preliminary hearing on Monday in the posthumous trial of whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, whose death in custody has damaged Russia's image and strained ties with the United States. The court appointed a legal team to defend Magnitsky during the trial after his family and lawyers refused to attend Monday's hearing because they say the case is politically motivated. Magnitsky was 37 when he died after 358 days in jail on suspicion of tax evasion and fraud, during which he said he was denied treatment as his health declined. ...

Study Bolsters Quantum Vibration Scent Theory

(Reuters) - People taking high doses of the B vitamin folic acid are not at an increased risk of cancer, according to an international analysis - easing some concern about the possible side effects of national programs aimed to raise intake of the vitamin. The United States and Canada have required flour to be fortified with folic acid since 1998, after deficiencies of it in pregnant women were tied to brain and spinal cord birth defects in their babies. ...