France insisted Friday on restricting the prescription of newer-generation birth control pills even as Europe's medicines watchdog declared there was no evidence to merit a health warning.

Citing concerns over risks of blood clots from the so-called 3rd- and 4th-generation pills, France said it would limit prescriptions of these contraceptives and urged the European Union (EU) to follow suit.

The United States was in the grip Thursday of a deadly influenza outbreak that has hit harder and earlier than in previous years, and has claimed the lives of at least 18 children.

"It looks like the worst year we've had since 2003-2004," said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

When Margaux Stelman began modeling a few months ago, she always had her sister Aline in mind.

Aline was an ex-model who died three years ago after a long battle with anorexia, a common affliction of models trying to look thinner and thinner — and girls trying to look like them.

Indonesia has issued regulations that will require cigarette packets to bear graphic photographic warnings, a long-delayed measure in a country with one of the highest rates of smoking in the world.

The regulations were watered down following opposition by tobacco farmers and cigarette companies, and fall far short of those in many Western countries and other Asian markets. Billboard and television advertising remains widespread, as is sponsorship of sports and pop music events.

With an app, a game or a gadget, technology startups and major companies across all sectors are trying to tackle some of the thorniest problems in health and medicine.

The Consumer Electronics Show is filled with new gadgets to monitor fitness, detect problems and find solutions to health issues ranging from obesity to diabetes to rare medical conditions.

Breakthrough research mapping how insulin works at a molecular level could lead to new diabetes treatments and end daily needle jabs, helping hundreds of millions of sufferers, scientists said Thursday.

A joint U.S.-Australian team said it has been able to lay out for the first time in atomic detail how the insulin hormone binds to the surface of cells, triggering the passage of glucose from the bloodstream to be stored as energy.

Americans are in worse health, die earlier and suffer from more disease than residents of other wealthy nations, according to a new study out Wednesday.

The disadvantage spans all ages from birth to 75, said the report, conducted jointly by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine.

For years, doctors have lamented that there is no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported a tantalizing hint that one day, there might be.

Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.

The Supreme Court unanimously decided Tuesday that mentally ill death row inmates should not receive unlimited suspensions of their post-conviction challenges.

The nation's highest court decided that such suspensions make sense on a case-by-case basis, but should be left to the discretion of individual judges, and not be automatic.

Reducing the use of wood-burning stoves in an Australian city led to a sharp fall in deaths from respiratory diseases and heart failure, a study published on Tuesday said.

The paper, published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), highlights the pollution risks from inefficient biomass burning, used by billions of people for heating and cooking.