Denis Vipret moves around the circle of 20 people waiting for his healing touch, touching their shoulders and pumping his right hand lightly to transfer its energy to each patient.

Vipret is a star among a soaring number of healers in Switzerland, and during his lightning visit to Geneva he expects to treat some 300 people eager to experience the "magic" in his hands.

Almost three weeks after China reported finding a new strain of bird flu in humans, experts are still stumped by how people are becoming infected when many appear to have had no recent contact with live fowl and the virus isn't supposed to pass from person to person.

The uncertainty adds to challenges the Chinese government is facing in trying to control the spread of the H7N9 bird flu virus that has already killed 17 people and infected 70 others in the country, mostly along the eastern seaboard.

A Dutch court on Thursday rejected a bid by a meat wholesaler to quash an order recalling 50,000 tonnes of beef potentially contaminated with horsemeat.

"The court rejects the request for a preliminary injunction," on Dutch food authority NVWA's recall of meat handled by Willy Selten, judge Reinier van Zutphen said at the commercial court in The Hague.

U.S. regulators have ruled that any generic forms of OxyContin must include the abuse-curbing properties of a reformulated version of the highly addictive painkiller released two and a half years ago.

Manufacturer Perdue Pharma discontinued original OxyContin (oxycodone hydrochloride) in 2010 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new version of the drug that is more difficult to snort or inject.

French researchers dealt a blow to folklore that says mothers are better than fathers in recognizing their baby's cry.

The "maternal instinct" notion gained scientific backing more than three decades ago through two experiments, one of which found that women were nearly twice as accurate as men in identifying the cry of their offspring.

Hundreds of women who received faulty breast implants are gathering in the south of France for the fraud trial of five executives accused of using cheap industrial silicone to fill tens of thousands of implants around the world.

Jean-Claude Mas, who founded and ran implant-maker Poly Implant Prothese, is among those on trial beginning Wednesday in the southern city of Marseille. The now-defunct company had claimed exports to more than 60 countries and was one of the world's leading implant makers.

Three scientists at universities in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Oregon whose research has helped transform cancer treatment will share one of the richest prizes in medicine and biomedical research.

Dr. Peter Nowell of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Janet Rowley of the University of Chicago and Dr. Brian Druker of Oregon Health and Science University will receive the $500,000 annual Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research next month, the medical center announced Tuesday. The prize, one of the largest in medicine and science in the United States, is awarded to those who have changed the course of medical research.

H7N9 bird flu has claimed two more lives in Shanghai, Chinese state media said on Tuesday, bringing the death toll from the disease to 16.

China has confirmed 77 human cases of H7N9 avian influenza since announcing two weeks ago that it had found the strain in people for the first time.

U.S. hospitals face a disincentive to improve care because they make drastically more money when surgery goes wrong than when a patient is discharged with no complications, a study published Tuesday found.

"We found clear evidence that reducing harm and improving quality is perversely penalized in our current health care system," said study author Sunil Eappen, chief medical officer of Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

Thousands of DNA tests on beef products across the European Union found the meals contained up to 5.0 percent of horsemeat, the European Commission said Tuesday.

The EU on February 15 ordered 2,250 DNA tests on prepared meals said to contain beef in the wake of a horsemeat scandal that hugely undermined consumer confidence in the food industry.