Children's kidney and thyroid cancers have increased in recent years, and though the diseases are rare, experts wonder if the rising rates could be related to obesity.

The rate for all childhood cancers combined, 171 cases per million children, remained stable from 2000 to 2009 although slight increases were seen in blacks and adolescents, according to a report from researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

African Union chiefs held an emergency meeting Monday to hammer out a continent-wide strategy to deal with the Ebola epidemic, which has killed over 2,000 people in west Africa.

"Fighting Ebola must be done in a manner that doesn't fuel isolation or lead to the stigmatisation of victims, communities and countries," AU commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, speaking at the opening of the meeting.

Pineapple buns and dumplings have been pulled from the shelves in Hong Kong as authorities investigate whether they contain gutter oil from Taiwan, where concerns are growing over a food safety scare, officials said Monday.

An investigation has been launched after oil from a Taiwanese company accused of using illegally recycled products -- including fat collected from grease traps -- was exported to the southern Chinese city.

The National Institutes of Health said it has uncovered a nearly century-old container of ricin and a handful of other forgotten samples of dangerous pathogens as it combs its laboratories for improperly stored hazardous materials.

The agency began an intensive investigation of all its facilities after a scientist in July found vials of smallpox dating from the 1950s, along with other contagious viruses and bacteria that had been stored and forgotten in one lab on the NIH's campus.

Medical workers, members of the Liberian Red Cross, adjust their protective suits upon arrival in Banjol, on September 4, 2014

An Ebola vaccine could be available by November for health workers, hard-hit by the killer disease, with testing of two candidate vaccines under way, the World Health Organization said Friday.

Ecuador plans to impose a "junk food tax" on fast food restaurants, and will use the revenues to address the negative health effects on its citizens of diets laden with salt and fat.

"We are moving past poverty-related problems since the country is progressing a lot, and moving on to problems of affluence," President Rafael Correa said Thursday.

The European Union on Friday announced 140 million euros ($183 million) in funds to fight the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa, a sharp increase over its previous aid as the outbreak worsens.

The commission said the aid was necessary to boost measures to stop the "worst ever outbreak of the epidemic" from ravaging Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.

Health experts fearing a clampdown on e-cigarettes said Friday a U.N. report on the device had exaggerated their health risk and underplayed their role as a safe alternative to tobacco.

The August 26 report by the U.N.'s World Health Organisation (WHO) said governments should ban the sale of so-called electronic cigarettes to minors, warning they posed a "serious threat" to unborn babies and young people.

Merck & Co. on Thursday won the first U.S. approval for a new kind of cancer drug with big advantages over chemotherapy and other older cancer treatments.

The Food and Drug Administration said it has granted accelerated approval to Merck's Keytruda, for treating melanoma that's spread or can't be surgically removed, in patients previously treated with another melanoma drug called Yervoy.

World health experts will meet in Geneva on Friday for the second day of urgent talks on fast-tracking experimental Ebola drugs as doctors in the worst-hit countries pleaded to be given the serums.

With no fully tested treatments for Ebola, the World Health Organization has endorsed potential cures like ZMapp to be rushed out.