China has reportedly downgraded H7N9 bird flu in humans, dropping its description as "infectious" in new guidelines on how to deal with the disease, even as new cases spike with the onset of winter.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission described it as a "communicable acute respiratory disease" in its 2014 diagnosis and treatment protocols.

Global medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres slammed Friday a statement by Bayer's chief executive that the giant German firm only developed its cancer drug Nexavar for people who could afford the medicine, not "for Indians".

India's controller general of patents angered Bayer in March 2012 when he authorized a local drugmaker to produce a generic copy of Nexavar, saying the German company charged a price that was too costly for most Indians.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has called for a scientifically backed international effort to weigh the consequences of legalizing marijuana, urging a coherent joint policy to tackle the scourge of drugs.

"We must approach this problem internationally, otherwise we'll take it from one place to another," Santos said, speaking Thursday at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos.

In Jordan, a country where smoking is so popular that motorists can be seen puffing away on miniature water pipes in traffic, the kingdom's government now wants to enforce a Western-style smoking ban in restaurants, cafes and other public places.

The ban, coming from a law passed in 2008 but not full enforced, also would see the government revoke the licenses of all 6,000 coffee shops that serve shisha by the end of this year.

A U.S. judge ordered a Texas hospital Friday to pull the plug on a brain-dead, pregnant woman it had kept on life support against the family's wishes.

Texas is among 12 U.S. states that have adopted strict laws requiring that a woman be kept alive if pregnant, regardless of the stage of her pregnancy.

An "isolated" lapse in the manufacture of intravenous nutrient bags likely caused the deaths of up to five babies at a French hospital, the health minister said Friday.

"The most probable hypothesis is an isolated accident in the production stage on November 28 at the laboratoire Marette," Marisol Touraine told reporters.

Lingonberries, a fruit common in Scandinavian cuisine, may be able to help prevent weight gain and high sugar and cholesterol levels, Swedish scientists said Thursday of a new study.

In the study, which was conducted by researchers at Lund University using mice with a tendency to store fat as a model for overweight humans, the animals were fed a high-fat diet and different types of berries during three months.

Vitamin D supplements have no significant effect on preventing heart attack, stroke, cancer or bone fractures, according to a review of scientific evidence published Friday.

Researchers led by Mark Bolland of the University of Auckland in New Zealand looked at 40 high-quality trials to see if supplements met a benchmark of reducing risk of these problems by 15 percent or more.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says there's no reason to believe that the coloring added to sodas is unsafe. But the agency is taking another look just to make sure.

The agency's announcement comes in response to a study by Consumer Reports that shows 12 brands of soda have varying levels of 4-methylimidazole — an impurity found in some caramel coloring.

Schizophrenia is caused by a large number of rare genetic mutations rather than a few, easily-identifiable faulty genes, said scientists who compiled the world's largest database on the debilitating disorder.

Two studies published Wednesday in the journal Nature said the genetic triggers for the mental illness that affects about one in 100 people were far more complex than previously thought.