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SARS-Like Tests in Italy Were False Positives

Eight people initially thought to have contracted a SARS-like virus in Italy tested negative on Tuesday after a second round of controls, according to Italy's Superior Health Institute (ISS).

An infectious diseases clinic in Florence on Monday said around 10 people had tested positive for the virus, but added that the results would have to be double checked at the Health Institute.

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Study: More Proof Needed for Weight-Loss Surgery

A gastric bypass or other type of weight-loss surgery can help diabetics who are moderately obese but more proof is needed before promoting them on a wider scale, a study said Tuesday.

"Bariatric surgery for diabetic people who are not severely obese has shown promising results in controlling glucose," said Melinda Maggard-Gibbons, the study's lead author and a surgeon at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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Sunscreen Slows Skin Aging, if Used Often Enough

New research from sunny Australia provides some of the strongest evidence to date that near-daily sunscreen use can slow the aging of skin.

Ultraviolet rays that spur wrinkles and other signs of aging can quietly build up damage pretty much anytime a person is in the sun — a lunchtime stroll, school recess, walking the dog — and they even penetrate car windows.

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Ill Salvadoran Woman Denied Abortion has C-Section

A seriously ill woman denied a medical abortion has had a successful cesarean section to deliver a baby that doctors have given little chance of surviving, El Salvador's Health Ministry announced late Monday.

The 22-year-old woman, known only as Beatriz for privacy reasons, underwent the operation in the afternoon after 27 weeks of pregnancy, the ministry said. Her baby girl was born without a brain.

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Hong Kong Battles to Kick the Ketamine Habit

Hidden away from the prying eyes of crowded Hong Kong, in school toilets, karaoke bars and public parks, young people are snorting a powerful and addictive drug -- ketamine.

Cheap and abundant, with a supply flooding across the border from the mainland, abuse reached such levels in the late 2000s that the city was dubbed the ketamine capital of the world.

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Report: 10 Test Positive for SARS-Like Virus in Italy

Around 10 people in Italy have tested positive for a SARS-like virus but have presented no symptoms and have not been quarantined, an infectious diseases specialist told the ANSA news agency on Monday.

"They have not been isolated because they are not presenting with any symptoms," Alessandro Bartoloni of the Infectious Diseases clinic at Careggi hospital in Florence was quoted as saying.

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Sanofi Abandons 2 Drugs after Trial Failures

Drugmaker Sanofi is abandoning two drugs in the late stages of development after trials revealed they weren't more effective than other therapies.

One drug, iniparib, was given to lung cancer patients in combination with chemotherapy and compared to treatments of chemotherapy alone. The company said Monday iniparib did not improve the patients' survival rate.

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New Drug Extends Advanced Lung Cancer Survival

A new drug can help advanced lung cancer patients live longer and may aid in treating other kinds of cancer, researchers said Monday.

If the initial results are confirmed in a Phase III study already underway, it would be the first treatment developed in the past decade that can improve outcomes for patients with late-stage lung cancer.

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Health Officials Rule out Ebola Outbreak in DR Congo

A senior health ministry official in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday ruled out an Ebola outbreak in the northeast of the country, after possible cases were reported by United Nations staff.

"There were six cases, including four children under five and two adults, who suffered from fever and haemorrhagic symptoms. We have carried out analysis at the INRB (National Institute of Biomedical Research) and the results are negative... It's not Ebola," Benoit Kabela Ilunga, who runs the contagious diseases department at the ministry, told Agence France Presse.

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Sick Workers Pay Price for Chinese Growth

As China boomed around 200 men set out from Shuangxi's rural idyll to build its infrastructure and skyscrapers. Now lung disease from dust has killed a quarter of them and 100 more are waiting to die.

Back home amid rice paddies and forested hills, Xu Zuoqing walks outside and his face contorts in pain from the effort. As he struggles to breathe, his wife rushes over a stool so he can recuperate.

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