An experimental therapy that uses Listeria bacteria to infect pancreatic cancer cells and deliver tumor-killing drugs has shown promise in lab animal research, U.S. scientists said Monday.

While it remains unknown whether the method might work in people, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York said they are encouraged by its ability to halt cancer's spread, known as metastasis.

The U.S. Supreme Court wrestled Monday with the constitutional implications of a policy that forces private health organizations to denounce prostitution as a condition to get AIDS funding.

The court appeared divided, and not along ideological lines, in an argument over whether the anti-prostitution pledge violates the health groups' constitutional rights to free speech.

What if hospitals were run like a mix of Wal-Mart and a low-cost airline? The result might be something like the chain of "no-frills" Narayana Hrudayalaya clinics in southern India.

Using pre-fabricated buildings, stripping out air-conditioning and even training visitors to help with post-operative care, the group believes it can cut the cost of heart surgery to an astonishing 800 dollars.

Don't take the cinnamon challenge. That's the advice from doctors in a new report about a dangerous prank depicted in popular YouTube videos which has led to hospitalizations and a surge in calls to U.S. poison centers.

The fad involves daring someone to swallow a spoonful of ground cinnamon in 60 seconds without water. But the spice is caustic, and trying to gulp it down can cause choking, throat irritation, breathing trouble and even collapsed lungs, the report said.

Thousands of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers, many wearing white lab coats, and their supporters marched in Madrid Sunday to protest against government spending cuts and plans to partly privatize medical services.

The demonstrators blew whistles and chanted "nothing for the private sector" as they marched from leading hospitals in Madrid to the landmark Plaza de Sol square in the center of the Spanish capital.

A World Health Organisation team was due Monday to wrap up a trip to Shanghai, center of China's bird flu outbreak which has killed 20 people, as part of an investigation into how the virus is spreading.

Since announcing on March 31 that H7N9 had been found in humans for the first time, China had confirmed a total of 102 cases in Shanghai and the capital Beijing as well as four provinces, the health ministry said Sunday.

There's no evidence a new bird flu strain is spreading easily among people in China even though there may be sporadic cases of the virus spreading to people who have close contacts with patients, the World Health Organization said Friday.

Fifteen global and Chinese health experts are on a mission in Beijing and Shanghai to learn more about the H7N9 bird flu virus that has killed 17 people and sickened 70 others, said Dr. Michael O'Leary, head of WHO's office in China.

Indian doctors on Friday began draining excess fluid from the head of a baby suffering from a rare disorder that caused her skull to swell to nearly double its size, a neurosurgeon told Agence France Presse.

Roona Begum, who was born with hydrocephalus, a condition that results in a build-up of cerebrospinal fluid on the brain, was found earlier this month living with her parents who are too poor to pay for life-saving treatment.

In the garden of the cannabis smoking club in the town of Mogan on Spain's Canary Islands, lush green marijuana leaves with serrated edges bask in the sun before being harvested, dried and processed to be consumed on site.

Several members of the club located on the southwest coast of the island of Gran Canaria calmly roll a joint or smoke a water pipe while one man dissects fragrant dried marijuana flowers before storing them in a jar.

The founder of a firm whose faulty breast implants sparked a global health scare told a French court Friday he had not put any lives at risk, as other defendants described him as a controlling "know-it-all".

Jean-Claude Mas made his much-anticipated first statement on the third day of one of France's biggest trials, which sees Mas and four others face charges of aggravated fraud for using non-authorized silicone gel in implants.