A new study may reassure some women considering short-term use of hormones to relieve hot flashes and other menopause symptoms. Starting low-dose treatment early in menopause made women feel better and did not seem to raise heart risks during the four-year study.

However, the research didn't address the risk of breast cancer, perhaps the biggest fear women have about hormones since a landmark study a decade ago. The new one was too small and too short for that.

Dozens of weight loss and immune system supplements on the market are illegally labeled and lack the recommended scientific evidence to back up their purported health claims,government investigators warn in a new review of the $20 billion supplement industry.

The report, being released Wednesday by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general, found that 20 percent of the 127 weight loss and immune-boosting supplements investigators purchased online and in retail stores across the country carried labels that made illegal claims to cure or treat disease.

France on Monday unveiled a package of reforms designed to increase access to abortion, including 100 percent reimbursement of medical costs by the state social security system.

At present French women are only able to claim back between 70 and 80 percent of the costs, which average between 200 and 450 euros depending on whether the abortion is induced by medication taken at home or carried out by surgical procedure in a clinic.

Just after 10 p.m., when most people their age are going to sleep, a group of elderly folks suffering from dementia are just getting started, dancing and shaking tambourines and maracas in a raucous version of "La Bamba."

"It's a party," says an 81-year-old woman, among dozens of patients brought to a Bronx nursing home every night for a structured series of singalongs, crafts and therapy sessions that lasts until dawn.

Hundreds of consumers in the Netherlands and the United States have been sickened by salmonella after eating smoked salmon produced at a Dutch fish factory, health authorities said Monday.

In the Netherlands "some 200 people have fallen ill through contaminated salmon" while in the U.S. about 100 people were infected "by the same type of salmonella", said the National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) in the Netherlands.

Saudi Arabia has taken measures to deal with any epidemic that may break out during the annual hajj pilgrimage, a minister said in remarks published Monday, stressing that the spread of a mystery illness from the same family as the deadly SARS virus was "limited."

The kingdom has taken "preventive measures towards pilgrims ... and has made practical and scientific arrangements to deal with any epidemic that might be discovered," Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabeeah was quoted as saying in Al-Hayat daily.

An outbreak of Ebola fever in the Democratic Republic of Congo may have killed up to 36 people, out of 81 suspected cases, according to a new death toll released by the health ministry on Monday.

The ministry said that 20 confirmed cases have been recorded, as well as 32 likely and 29 suspected as of September 29.

California has become the first state to ban a controversial form of psychotherapy aimed at making gay teenagers straight.

Gov. Jerry Brown announced Sunday that he had signed SB1172 by Democratic Senator Ted Lieu of Torrance. The law, which prohibits sexual orientation change efforts for anyone under 18, will stop children from being psychologically abused, Lieu said.

A deadly version of an intestinal germ has spread through sub-Saharan Africa, helped by genetic mutation and diseases such as HIV that weaken the immune system and expose the body to infection, researchers said Sunday.

The finding comes in a genetic comparison of variants of Salmonella Typhimurium, one of the Salmonella family of stomach bugs.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched a national campaign Friday alerting consumers to the risks of phony web pharmacies.

The warning comes as nearly one in four people who shop online say they have bought prescription drugs on the Internet, according to the FDA.