Middle-aged white Americans are dying at increasing rates from drug and alcohol use and suicide, in what researchers described Monday as a "epidemic" that raises concern for the future.

Since 1998, the mortality rate among whites aged 45-54 in America has risen steadily, and while the reasons remain unclear experts pointed to increasing availability of prescription painkillers, a subsequent shift toward heroin use, and economic struggles.

A German medical company on Monday rejected claims its product cost 13 Spaniards their sight in one eye as the substance was also linked to medical mishaps in France.

The Spanish and French governments have recalled the compound, Ala Octa, which is used in eye surgery and produced by German company Alamedics.

Ireland aims to become the latest European nation to introduce supervised heroin injecting rooms in a radical overhaul of its approach to substance abuse, the country's drugs minister said on Monday.

Aodhan O Riordain, the minister with responsibility for drugs strategy, told AFP that the government was planning for the legislation to allow such rooms to be enacted by the first quarter of next year.

Iraq is carrying out a major vaccination campaign to combat a cholera outbreak that has infected more than 2,200 people, the health ministry said on Sunday.

The campaign, focused on vaccinating people displaced by conflict including the war with the Islamic State group, began Saturday, health minister Adeela Hammoud Hussein said in a statement.

The death toll in Turkey from drinking bootleg liquor has risen to 23 after 11 more people died in hospital over the past two days, local media said Sunday.

The victims had all consumed raki, a strong aniseed-flavored liquor which is Turkey's national drink, which health authorities believe had been infused with lethal quantities of methyl alcohol.

Nestle said Tuesday it had restarted production of Maggi noodles in India after a government ban was overturned, in a major step towards getting the hugely popular brand back on shelves.

"We have resumed manufacturing of Maggi Noodles at three of our plants, at Nanjangud (Karnataka), Moga (Punjab) and Bicholim (Goa)," the Swiss food giant said in a statement.

One of the world's top meat exporters Australia Tuesday ridiculed a landmark UN report linking sausages and ham to cancer, saying it was "a farce" to suggest they could be as lethal as cigarettes.

The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) analyzed 800 studies from around the world and found that processed meats such as sausages, ham, and hot dogs cause bowel cancer, and red meat "probably" does too.

At Rio de Janeiro's famed Churrascaria Palace restaurant, the sizzling of steaks, the swish of carving knives and sighs of satisfied diners drowned out a U.N. warning Monday that meat can cause cancer.

Finishing an all-you-can-eat lunch, Gilson Gregoris, 59, said not even the United Nations could change his favorite menu.

Britain will lobby the European Union and its member states to stop taxing tampons and women's sanitary products as luxury items, rather than necessities, a junior finance minister promised on Monday.

The vow came after a petition called "Stop taxing periods. Period." reached 252,000 signatures and a parliamentary debate revealed wide political support for making sanitary products exempt from value added tax (VAT), called a sales tax in some countries.

Eating sausages, ham and other processed meats causes colon cancer, and red meat "probably" does too, an arm of the World Health Organization said Monday.

The findings support "recommendations to limit intake of meat," said the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which compiled a review of more than 800 studies on the link between a meat diet and cancer.