In this June 5, 2008 file photo, chickens look out of their pen in a downtown neighborhood in Jakarta, Indonesia. When Indonesia’s health minister stopped sending bird flu viruses to a research laboratory in the U.S. out of fear Washington could use them to make biological weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates laughed and called [...]

Patients at the Al-Rashad mental asylum in Baghdad. Iraqs mentally ill, their numbers swollen by the trauma of living under Saddam Hussein, remain sadly neglected despite many promises of help by US representatives(AFP/Ali Yussef)

BAGHDAD (AFP) -
Baghdad's mentally ill people, their numbers swollen by the trauma of living under Saddam Hussein, remain sadly neglected despite many [...]

Angelina Jolie (R) holds hands with Brad Pitt after the screening of ‘The Exchange’ by U.S. director Clint Eastwood at the 61st Cannes Film Festival in this file photo from May 20, 2008. (Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -
A magazine cover photo of Angelina Jolie breast-feeding one of her newborn twins may have turned the superstar [...]

- (HealthDay News) — Here are the latest clinical trials, courtesy
of CenterWatch:

Influenza

If you are 65 or older, available to attend at least
one-to-three clinic visits, and have not received a flu vaccine since
February 2008 or an experimental drug or vaccine with in the past 30 days,
you may qualify for this study.

The research [...]

- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,
compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Pregnancy Doesn't Cause Memory
Problems

There's no evidence to suggest that pregnancy affects a woman's
cognitive abilities, says an Australian study that challenges the
widespread belief that pregnant women suffer memory problems.

The Australian National University study included 2,500 women aged 20
to 24 when [...]

- FRIDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) — Blacks and the poor have
worse outcomes when it comes to head and neck cancer, researchers say.

In a new study, published in the Nov. 15 issue of Cancer,
researchers examined the data on diagnosis, coexisting conditions, and
procedures performed among 20,915 cases of head and neck cancer.

The found a worse [...]

- FRIDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) — Tamoxifen, the drug used for more
than 30 years to treat breast cancer, reduces the risk of
osteoporosis-related fractures, a new study shows.

“The effects are almost instantaneous,” said study author Dr. Andrew
Cooke, head of radiation oncology at CancerCare Manitoba in Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada.

However, he added, “The fracture risk goes right [...]

- FRIDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) — In a group of Medicare
beneficiaries who have diabetes, being depressed was associated with a
higher death rate, according to a new study.

Publishing in the October issue of the Journal of General Internal
Medicine, researchers from the University of Washington tracked 10,704
Medicare beneficiaries (average age of 75.6 years) [...]

- FRIDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) — Using chemotherapy alone, and
delaying or avoiding radiation altogether, may be effective in treating
children with inoperable or progressive low-grade glioma brain tumors,
according to a multi-institutional study.

Low-grade glioma is the most common brain tumor in children. If surgery
can be performed, the survival rate for patients is 95 percent. But
prognosis [...]

- FRIDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) — Patients coping with
metabolic syndrome have a 75 percent higher risk for developing colorectal
cancer sometime in their lives, a new study suggests.

“Metabolic syndrome is a conglomeration of three or four diseases, that
together can portend a worse prognosis for certain illnesses, including a
number of cancers,” said study co-author Dr. [...]