As Lebanon continues to overlook the potential to turn its cannabis cultivation problem into a profitable project that can improve the living conditions of farmers in the Bekaa region, many farms in Israel are challenging the illegality of marijuana in the state to test and promote its medical advantages.

“Situated in the Galilee hills in northern Israel is a government-approved medical marijuana farm that among its strain of growing plants there is one that is believed to have the strongest psychoactive effect of any cannabis in the world. Another, rich in anti-inflammatory properties, will not get you high at all,” the New York Times reported.

The distributor of the top-selling energy “shot,” 5-Hour Energy, has long claimed on product labels, in promotions and in television advertisements that the concentrated caffeine drink produced “no crash later” -- the type of letdown that consumers of energy drinks often feel when the beverages’ effects wear off.

But an advertising watchdog group based in the U.S. and Canada said on Wednesday that it had told the company five years ago that the claim was unfounded and had urged it then to stop making it.

The head of the German doctors' lobby and politicians called Thursday for swift action to root out corruption following a scandal over preferential treatment for organ transplants.

The president of the German Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, said physicians taking bribes in life-or-death cases would shatter the hard-earned faith that Germans have in them.

A team of Spanish researchers say they have developed a therapeutic vaccine that can temporarily brake growth of the HIV virus in infected patients.

The vaccine, based on immune cells exposed to HIV that had been inactivated with heat, was tested on a group of 36 people carrying the virus and the results were the best yet recorded for such a treatment, the team said.

Sunny with a chance of flu? That's what some health scientists are thinking, as they study the weather for clues about how to predict disease outbreaks.

A growing wave of computer models factor in rainfall, temperature or other weather conditions to forecast disease. In one recent study, scientists said they could predict more than seven weeks in advance when flu season was going to peak in New York City.

Australian supermarkets and pharmacies were running out of popular baby formula Thursday after unprecedented sales reportedly due to Chinese customers trying to secure supplies.

Nutricia, supplier of top-selling formula brand Karicare, said there had been a sudden surge in demand for its products which had seen stocks plummet and left shelves empty.

A Catholic couple has asked the Philippines' top court to stop a historic birth control law, their lawyer said Thursday, in the first of many legal challenges church leaders have vowed against the measure.

The petition was filed Wednesday at the Supreme Court by lawyer James Imbong and his wife, who claim the law signed by President Benigno Aquino two weeks ago was unconstitutional.

India's Supreme Court said Thursday that unregulated clinical trials of new drugs were causing "havoc" in the country as it ordered the health ministry to monitor any new applications for tests.

The comments were made during a hearing on a petition detailing deaths and health problems caused by clinical trials carried out on Indians, often without their knowledge or consent.

Turns out a few extra pounds may not be such a bad thing, according to a new analysis of nearly three million adults that showed people who are overweight or slightly obese may live longer.

But experts were quick to caution that the possible benefits dropped off when the "few" extra pounds turned into many.

Cholera has broken out in northern Zambia this week, with at least 30 cases recorded in the past three days, a health official said Wednesday.

"We have so far 30 suspected cases of cholera admitted at Mambilima Mission hospital," regional medical officer Lackson Ndhlovu told public radio station Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC).