(Think Progress) A new study out today may hurt efforts by America’s largest biotechnology company, Monsanto, to defeat a California ballot initiative that would require labels on genetically modified foods (GMOs). The French study found that rats who were either fed a lifetime diet of Monsanto’s genetically modified corn or exposed to the company’s popular herbicide, Roundup, developed tumors and organ damage.

(IRIN) - Niger has nearly halved the death rate of children below five years old since 1998, a significant drop highlighting the benefits of free universal health care for children and pregnant women as well as increased donor funding for health, The Lancet said in a study released on 20 September.

(PlusNews) - When the time came for 24-year-old Jane Atieno to deliver her second child, she sought the services of a traditional birth attendant rather than the local clinic so she wouldn't have to be tested for HIV or agonize over how to tell her husband that health workers wanted him to attend her antenatal check-ups.

(The Week) A promising new study shows that a powerful drug can attach directly to tumor cells while leaving healthy cells relatively untouched.

(Today's Zaman) A heated debate over the increasing abortion rates in Turkey and whether a law banning abortion entirely is needed has fired up following a statement of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who said that “every abortion is a murder.”

(BBC) Half a century ago, in the drug industry's golden era, we were bestowed with countless pills to lower blood pressure, control blood sugar and get rid of infections. But today it costs about $1bn to bring a new medicine to market, a process that can take 15 years.

(BBC) A panel of US health experts has for the first time backed a drug to prevent HIV infection in healthy people.

(BBC) A lack of exposure to a "natural environment" could be resulting in more urban dwellers developing allergies and asthma, research has suggested.

(The New York Times) Precancerous growths on the genitals are becoming more common in women, particularly those in their 40s, a medical group said Thursday, reporting a fourfold increase in women over all from 1973 to 2000.

(The New York Times) Two new studies add to the growing body of evidence that taking extra doses of vitamins can do more harm than good.

(health-e.org) Government has slashed the HIV transmission rate from pregnant mothers to their babies to merely 3.5 percent, potentially sparing some 67 000 babies from HIV infection.

(Guardian) If those who test positive can be put on drugs straight away to protect their own lives and that of their partner's, the stigma and fear associated with HIV must begin to lift.

October 15 is Global Handwashing Day!

(NYT) Almost four decades after the federal education law called Title IX opened the door for girls to participate in high school and college athletics, a crucial question has remained unanswered: Do sports make a long-term difference in a woman’s life?

(Baltimore Sun) Racial health disparities cost the United States $229 billion between 2003 and 2006 - money that could help cover an overhaul of the nation's health care system, according to a new report by Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland researchers.

DUBAI (IRIN) Saudi Arabia has the highest number of laboratory confirmed pandemic H1N1 cases in the Eastern Mediterranean Region – 595 – with four out of the eight deaths so far, according to an 8 August World Health Organization (WHO) report.Kuwait comes second with 560 cases, although no deaths, and Egypt third with 314 cases and one death. Lebanon, Qatar and Iraq have each had one fatality.

NAIROBI (IRIN) - World Health Day on 7 April is just another difficult day for medical personnel in Mogadishu, capital of war-torn Somalia, where threats and intimidation are part of their routine.

(BBC) Therapists are still offering treatments for homosexuality despite there being no evidence that such methods work, research suggests.