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U.S. Officials Find New Drugs Tied to Meningitis Outbreak

U.S. health officials identified two new drugs Monday which may have infected patients with meningitis as they investigate a widening outbreak tied to tainted products from a Massachusetts pharmacy.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urged doctors to contact patients who received those and other drugs produced by the firm to warn they are at risk of developing the slow-moving but potentially deadly infection.

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Smoking in Cars Beats U.N. Pollution Threshold

Smoking in cars raises levels of dangerous fine-particle pollutants to many times the limit recommended by the world's health agency, a study published on Monday said.

Doctors in Britain measured concentrations of fine particles in cars driven by 17 people, 14 of them smokers, using an electronic monitor on the back seat.

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Cholera 'Under Control' in Iraqi Kurdistan

Authorities in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region said on Sunday that a fresh outbreak of cholera that left four people dead, the second in five years, has been brought under control.

A total of 272 confirmed cases were diagnosed, including 31 children, with the vast majority of the overall figure in Sulaimaniyah, one of three provinces that make up Iraqi Kurdistan.

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Study: HPV Shots Don't Make Girls Promiscuous

Shots that protect against cervical cancer do not make girls promiscuous, according to the first study to compare medical records for vaccinated and unvaccinated girls.

The researchers didn't ask girls about having sex, but instead looked at "markers" of sexual activity after vaccination against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV. Specifically, they examined up to three years of records on whether girls had sought birth control advice; tests for sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy; or had become pregnant.

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U.S. Meningitis Cases Climb to 205 as Outbreak Worsens

Fungal meningitis tied to a contaminated steroid has affected 205 people in a worsening outbreak of the infection that has killed 15 people in the United States, officials said Sunday.

Fourteen states have been affected by the outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. On Saturday, it had reported 198 cases nationwide.

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At CDC, Scientists Fight to Halt a Deadly Outbreak

Scattered across the carefully landscaped main campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are the staff on the front lines fighting a rare outbreak of fungal meningitis: A scientist in a white lab coat peers through a microscope at fungi on a glass slide. In another room, another researcher uses what looks like a long, pointed eye dropper to suck up DNA samples that will be tested for the suspect fungus.

Not far away in another building is the emergency operations center, which is essentially the war room. There's a low hum of voices as employees work the phones, talking to health officials, doctors and patients who received potentially contaminated pain injections believed to be at the root of the outbreak. Workers sit at rows of computers, gathering data, advising doctors and reaching out to thousands of people who may have been exposed. Overall, dozens of people are working day and night to bring the outbreak under control. More than 200 people in 14 states have been sickened, including 15 who have died.

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Surge in Morocco of Number of Abandoned Babies

Morocco is seeing an alarming rise in the number of babies abandoned by single mothers, activists said on Saturday, blaming social prejudice and outdated legislation for the problem.

"According to the information we have gathered, from people who take care of abandoned children born outside marriage, the numbers are getting much worse," said Omar Kindi, organiser of a conference on violence and discrimination against single mothers and children.

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Dutch Authorities: At Least 1 Salmonella Death

The Dutch public health watchdog says at least one elderly patient has died and more than 500 people have been sickened in a major salmonella outbreak caused by tainted salmon.

The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment said in a statement Saturday tests have confirmed one death and another fatality is under investigation. Both victims were aged over 80.

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Beverage Groups Sue over New York 'Supersize' Ban

A U.S. beverage industry group and other businesses filed a lawsuit Friday against the administration of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg seeking to block restrictions on sales of large soda drinks.

Plaintiffs led by the American Beverage Association and the National Restaurant Association took the city to court over the limited ban, which is due to take effect in March.

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FDA Regulation of Pharmacies has Knotty History

 The deadly meningitis outbreak linked to contaminated pain injections has prompted calls for tighter federal regulation of compounding pharmacies, which have periodically been blamed for crippling and sometimes fatal injuries. But this isn't the first time Congress has pushed for more authority over the industry.

Such efforts stretch back to the 1990s, and after vigorous pushback by compounding pharmacists, they have left a patchwork of incomplete, overlapping laws, contradictory court rulings and overall uncertainty about how much power the Food and Drug Administration has to regulate compounders.

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