Big anti-smoking messages on the front of cigarette packets may help deter youngsters tempted by tobacco but have little effect when they are on the back of the pack, research has found.

Touching on a subject that has stirred controversy in countries where pro- and anti-tobacco lobbies are fighting over smoking controls, investigators looked at data from a large survey among British teenagers.

The use of illegal drugs among Americans in general is holding steady, but it's surging among middle-aged baby boomers, according to report released Wednesday.

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health indicated that 9.2 percent of Americans aged 12 and over, or 23.9 million, were current consumers of illicit substances.

Global health experts have warned against giving iron supplements in areas where malaria is rampant, but a study Tuesday found no rise in cases of the mosquito-borne disease among children who took iron.

However, hospital visits for severe diarrhea episodes were significantly higher among children in Ghana given extra iron, raising questions about its safety, experts said.

A follow-up probe into the use of circumcision to thwart the AIDS virus has confirmed that foreskin removal greatly reduces the risk of HIV infection for men.

So say a team led by French researcher Bertran Auvert, whose pioneering work, unveiled in 2006, helped unleash a circumcision campaign in AIDS-hit sub-Saharan Africa.

Almost 12 percent of adults in China had diabetes in 2010, with economic prosperity driving the disease to slightly higher proportions than in the United States, researchers said Tuesday.

The overall prevalence of diabetes in China in 2010 was found to be 11.6 percent of adults -- 12.1 percent in men, and 11 percent in women, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

A woman has died in Qatar after contracting the MERS coronavirus, becoming the first recorded fatality from the SARS-like virus in the Gulf state, local press reported on Wednesday.

The 56-year-old Qatari victim, who already had chronic illnesses, died on August 31, a week after she was admitted to intensive care at a Doha hospital, newspapers quoted the emirate's Supreme Council of Health as saying.

Japanese cosmetics company Kanebo on Tuesday admitted it had continued shipping products blamed for skin blotches for a week after deciding to recall them, saying it wanted to avoid causing "confusion".

Kanebo decided to recall the products on June 28, with managers at the parent company Kao endorsing their decision on July 2, a Kanebo spokesman said.

One of the largest genetic investigations into the microbe which causes TB shows the germ followed early humans out of Africa at least 70,000 years ago, scientists say.

In a parallel probe, investigators also said they had identified 39 new genes that drive dangerous drug resistance in this germ, Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Professional cycling has a reputation for premature deaths, either from tragic crashes on the road or from dangerous performance-boosting substances.

But a new study, based on French participants in the Tour de France, says that male pro cyclists are likelier to live longer than their counterparts in the general public -- a whopping 6.3 years more, on average.

Syed Wali desperately wants to immunize his three young children against polio but fears the Islamic militants who banned the vaccine from this remote area in northwest Pakistan will catch him if he tries to smuggle it in.

"I can afford to bring the vaccine for my children, but what answer will I give the Taliban if they recover the vaccine bag from my possession?" Wali asked.