Mexico's health authorities say cholera has killed one person and sickened at least another nine in central Mexico.

Mexico's Health Department says two cases were detected in Mexico City and the rest in the nearby state of Hidalgo, where one person died.

The potential use of propofol in a Missouri execution next month is raising concerns that the anti-death penalty European Union could limit its export, endangering the supply of the vital anesthetic to thousands of hospitals and clinics across the United States.

Convicted killer Allen Nicklasson is scheduled to die by injection one minute after midnight on Oct. 23. Missouri changed its execution procedure last year to include propofol as the lethal drug. Nicklasson's execution will be the first to use propofol.

Poland's parliament on Friday abandoned a proposal to restrict abortion in the case of congenital disorders in the heavily Catholic country.

Four hundred thousand Poles signed a petition demanding the move, but lawmakers rejected it on the first reading with 233 votes against, 182 in favor and six abstentions in the 460-seat parliament.

Brazilian scientists will next month begin clinical tests on humans of a new vaccine against dengue fever, a leading Sao Paulo-based biomedical research institute said Thursday.

The vaccine is being developed to combat the four closely related strains of dengue viruses that have been identified around the world, the Butantan institute said in a statement.

An Australian teenager Friday lost his court battle to refuse life-saving medical treatment because he is a Jehovah's Witness, with a court upholding an earlier judgement permitting a blood transfusion.

The 17-year-old, who suffers from an aggressive cancer, lost his case against Sydney Children's Hospital in March in which he had argued that treating him with blood products or a transfusion would breach his relationship with God.

Japanese authorities are preparing to raid the local arm of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis over data fabrication claims, reports said Friday.

A health ministry panel of experts has concluded that Novartis Pharma KK should be held responsible for studies at various universities that used manipulated data on a popular blood pressure drug, the Asahi Shimbun and other media said.

Myanmar's tallest man -- "Big Zaw" -- has returned from Singapore where doctors said he underwent successful brain surgery to remove a tumor responsible for his excessive growth.

Win Zaw Oo, who stands seven feet eight inches tall (233 centimeters) arrived in Yangon on Thursday from the city-state where specialists carried out the life-saving eight-hour operation.

Surgeons in Afghanistan have carried out a life-saving operation on a baby girl born with an extra head, doctors and relatives said Thursday.

The girl -- named Asree Gul (new flower) and one of a pair of twins -- was admitted to a hospital in the eastern city of Jalalabad with an extra head attached to her scalp, chief surgeon Ahmad Obaid Mojadidi told Agence France Presse.

It may be one of the most recognizable Irish brands but a national celebration of all things Guinness on Thursday has not gone down as smoothly as the drinks company might have hoped.

The spike in alcohol consumption that accompanied previous "Arthur's Day" celebrations has rekindled concerns about Ireland's relationship with alcohol, and sparked calls for a boycott.

"No more Hiroshimas!" ''No more Fukushimas!" Those slogans are chanted together at rallies by Japanese who want both an end to nuclear power in the island nation and an end to nuclear weapons around the world. But many in this city, where the world's first atomic-bomb attack killed tens of thousands, are distressed by efforts to connect their suffering to the tsunami-triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

Like the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima Aug. 6, 1945, the March 2011 Fukushima disaster unleashed radiation that will affect the region's health for decades. Hiroshima medical experts, the world's most renowned on radiation-related sicknesses, are being called on for advice on how the meltdowns may have harmed people who lived near the power plant along the northeastern coast of Japan.