Laws in New York and Chicago making electronic cigarettes subject to the same regulations as tobacco are taking effect, and their sellers and users are steadfast in their opposition.

The New York ban — along with the measure in Chicago, one that previously went into effect in Los Angeles and federal regulations proposed last week — are keeping debate smoldering among public health officials, the e-cigarette industry and users.

U.S. scientists say they have made progress toward developing treatments for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), after the death toll from the newly emerged and often fatal disease topped 100 in Saudi Arabia.

There are currently no vaccines or antiviral treatments for MERS, a severe respiratory disease with a mortality rate of more than 40 percent that was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and which experts are still struggling to understand.

Scientists said Monday they had used cloning technology to make embryonic stem cells that carry a diabetic woman's genes, and turned them into insulin-producing beta cells that may one day cure her disease.

The team reported clearing an important hurdle in the quest to make "personalized stem cells" for use in disease therapy, but a bioethicist said the breakthrough also highlighted the need for better regulation of lab-grown embryos.

The World Health Organization announced on Monday that it had convened emergency talks amid rising concern over polio after cases were discovered in Afghanistan, Iraq and Equatorial Guinea.

The U.N. health agency said that following several days of closed-door discussions, it would decide whether to declare the new spread of polio a "public health emergency of international concern" that could require measures such as travel restrictions.

Better help, including treatment, could finally be in sight for as many as 250,000 U.S. veterans thought to be suffering a range of debilitating symptoms associated with "Gulf War syndrome."

More progress has been made toward understanding the physiological mechanisms that underline the illness and identifying possible treatments, according to a report released Monday by a congressionally-mandated panel of experts and veterans.

The doctor has beaten the odds and survived Ebola, but he still has one more problem: The stigma carried by the deadly disease.

Even though he is completely healthy, people are afraid to come near him or to have anything to do with him.

The MERS death toll in Saudi Arabia topped 100 on Sunday as the authorities scrambled to reassure an increasingly edgy population in the country worst-hit by the infectious coronavirus.

Public fears have been fueled by a rapid rise in the number of fatalities from the respiratory infection, with 39 people dying this month -- well over a third of the 102 deaths registered since the virus emerged in April 2012.

Egypt recorded its first MERS infection after a person who arrived from Saudi Arabia tested positive for the virus, state media reported on Saturday.

MERS infections have killed 92 people in Saudi Arabia, where the coronavirus was first detected in humans in 2012.

Ten years of U.S. data suggest cholesterol-lowering statins are giving patients a license to pig out.

Calorie and fat intake increased among statin users during the decade — an indication that many patients might be abandoning heart-healthy lifestyles and assuming that drugs alone will do the trick, the study authors said.

Brazil is probing a suspected case of "atypical" mad cow disease detected in the country, one of the world's biggest beef exporters, authorities said Friday.

The Agriculture Ministry said in a statement to Agence France Presse that the alleged case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was found during a routine inspection of a slaughterhouse in the state of Mato Grosso.