Japanese health authorities said on Wednesday that they will soon make a decision on a possible penalty against the local unit of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis for failing to report drug side effects.

That followed media reports which said regulators would slap a 15-day suspension order on the firm, meaning the company could not sell most of its drugs during the two-week period -- a first for a pharmaceutical firm operating in Japan.

Colorado lawmakers struggling to make sense of incomplete scientific evidence about marijuana use by pregnant and nursing women have scrapped a bill to add warnings in pot shops about maternal marijuana use.

Lawmakers rejected a bill that would have required dispensaries to post signs warning about "dangers to fetuses caused by smoking or ingesting marijuana while pregnant." They heard testimony from women who used marijuana to treat nausea during pregnancy, but also from doctors who called for additional warnings.

Britain's Wellcome Trust said that clinical trials it was funding for a new Ebola treatment in Liberia were halted on Tuesday due to a fall in new cases.

"The current position is that there is no realistic prospect of the trial enrolling sufficient patients to be able to reach a conclusion about the efficacy of the drug," the Wellcome Trust, Britain's biggest scientific research charity, said in a statement.

Bottles of Walmart-brand echinacea, an herb said to ward off colds, were found to contain no echinacea at all. GNC-brand bottles of St. John's wort, touted as a cure for depression, held rice, garlic and a tropical houseplant, but not a trace of the herb.

In fact, DNA testing on hundreds of bottles of store-brand herbal supplements sold as treatments for everything from memory loss to prostate trouble found that four out of five contained none of the herbs on the label. Instead, they were packed with cheap fillers such as wheat, rice, beans or houseplants.

Britain on Tuesday became the first country in the world to allow the creation of babies with DNA from three people after MPs voted for the controversial procedure.

Lawmakers at the House Commons voted by 382 to 128 in favor of allowing the creation of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) babies with DNA from three people, a move aimed at preventing serious inherited diseases being passed on from mother to child.

Britain could become the first country in the world to allow the creation of babies with DNA from three parents on Tuesday in a move that has divided Britons and pitted campaigners against religious leaders.

Lawmakers in parliament are set to vote on mitochondrial DNA donation techniques for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) aimed at preventing serious inherited diseases being passed on from mother to son.

The British city of Bristol has become the country's first to test smoke-free zones in outdoor public places, without imposing an outright ban, officials said Monday.

The southwestern English city, named Europe's Green Capital for 2015, is running a pilot scheme in two squares.

Vigorous exercise such as fast running might be harmful to your health over time, according to a Danish study Monday that found light jogging is best for longevity.

People who did not jog at all were just as likely to die as people who jogged strenuously and often, according to the 12-year study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Tests have confirmed an outbreak of avian flu in chickens at a farm in southern England but officials described it as a "low severity" strain of the disease on Monday.

Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said there was no link with a separate outbreak of bird flu detected at a duck breeding farm in November.

Parents have long suspected it, but now doctors have proof: the more time teenagers spend on computers or mobile phones, the less they sleep -- especially if the gadget is used just before bedtime.

The evidence is so strong, the experts said, that health watchdogs should overhaul guidelines for electronic device use by youngsters.