For Jennifer Stella, it's a question of informed consent. Her son had a seizure after getting childhood vaccinations and her daughter suffered a "head-to-toe" eczema outbreak; she says parents should research the risks and benefits of immunizations and decide which ones are appropriate.

For Jill Olson, a mother of two, it's a matter of trusting the experts. "There's not really any way that as an individual I can do more scientific study and research than the American Academy of Pediatrics or the Centers for Disease Control."

Asian outbreaks of a notorious antibiotic-resistant super-germ are being driven by a gene that helps the bug colonize the nostrils, lungs and skin and evade the immune defenses, scientists said on Sunday.

So-called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a major worry for hospitals because of its ability to hole up in wounds, tubes and surgical devices, infecting patients whose immune system is already weak.

Regulators are proposing that food companies that want to use tiny engineered particles in their packaging may have to provide extra testing data to show the products are safe.

The Food and Drug Administration issued tentative guidelines Friday for food and cosmetic companies interested in using nanoparticles, which are measured in billionths of a meter. Nanoscale materials are generally less than 100 nanometers in diameter. A sheet of paper, in comparison, is 100,000 nanometers thick. A human hair is 80,000 nanometers thick.

It was in the mid-2000s when South Korean plastic surgeon Joo Kwon noticed a trickle of Chinese women walking into his clinic, even though he hadn't advertised overseas.

"They somehow found a way to the clinic... and nearly all of them said they want the face of Lee Young-Ae," Joo said, referring to a top South Korean actress who starred in the pan-Asian hit drama "Jewel in the Palace".

Canadian police and doctors on Thursday reported a rash of pharmacy robberies and a rise in overdoses after the prescription drug OxyContin was pulled from circulation last month.

Addicts and drug dealers stepped up raids on drug stores at gunpoint in search of the last doses of the painkiller or turned to alternative mind benders with sometimes deadly results.

An Australian girl who suffered severe brain damage and was left paralyzed by food poisoning won a court case against fast food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken, in a judgment published Saturday.

Monika Samaan was seven years old when she suffered salmonella encephalopathy -- a brain injury linked to food poisoning that also left her with a blood infection and septic shock -- in October 2005.

Thousands of women arrive at health clinics across the United States every year, facing the heavy burden of ending pregnancies that were unplanned and unwanted.

But in a growing number of states, before being allowed to have an abortion, women are compelled to undergo a procedure that lets a medical professional hear the fetus's beating heart and describe details about its development.

Vietnam has asked international health experts to help investigate a mystery illness that has killed 19 people and sickened 171 others in an impoverished district in central Vietnam, an official said Friday.

The infection has mostly affected children and young people. It begins with a high fever, loss of appetite and a rash that covers the hands and feet. Patients who are not treated early can develop liver problems and eventually multi-organ failure, said Le Han Phong, chairman of the People's Committee in Ba To District in Quang Ngai province.

A computer game designed to lift teenagers out of depression is as effective as one-on-one counseling, New Zealand doctors reported on Thursday in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Researchers at the University of Auckland tested an interactive 3-D fantasy game called SPARX on a 94 youngsters diagnosed with depression whose average age was 15 and a half.

A new digital media service will foster the global collaboration of physicians and help them to share the latest advances in AIDS and other virus research, according to its Canadian promoters.

The new bilingual French and English service, "viroXchange," is funded by large pharmaceutical companies but will provide "independent" reporting on the latest medical breakthroughs for healthcare professionals, they said.