Amid Italy's biting economic crisis, 23 entrepreneurs have committed suicide so far this year, a small-business association said on Saturday.

Nine suicides were reported in Veneto, the northeastern region where the Italian General Confederation of Artisan Firms (CGIA) is based. There were three suicides each in Puglia, Tuscany and Sicily and another five elsewhere.

The Texas Medical Board on Friday approved new rules on experimental stem cell therapies such as the one Gov. Rick Perry underwent during back surgery last year, despite objections they don't do enough to protect patients and could lead to an explosion of doctors promoting unproven, expensive treatments.

The rules require patients to give their consent, and a review board must approve the procedure before doctors use stem cell treatments.

A yellowfin tuna product used to make dishes like sushi and sashimi sold at restaurants and grocery stores has been linked with an outbreak of salmonella that has sickened more than 100 people in 20 states and the District of Columbia, federal health authorities said Friday.

The Food and Drug Administration said 116 illnesses have been reported, including 12 people who have been hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.

Two Merck drugs for treating male baldness and enlarged prostate will now carry extended labels to add more possible sexual side effects, U.S. regulators said.

The changes involve Propecia and Proscar, both of which contain the active ingredient finasteride, after patients reported additional adverse effects that were not apparent at the time of the drugs' approval, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday.

Some nail polishes commonly found in California salons and advertised as free of a so-called "toxic trio" of chemicals actually have high levels of agents linked to birth defects, state regulators said Tuesday.

A Department of Toxic Substances Control report determined that the mislabeled nail products have the potential to harm thousands of workers in more than 48,000 nail salons in California, and their customers.

More than three decades after Britain produced the world's first test-tube baby, Europe is a patchwork of restrictions for people who need help having a child.

Many countries have strict rules on who is allowed to get fertility treatments. And recent court rulings suggest nothing's likely to change anytime soon.

A host of potential toxins, allergens and traces of endangered animals showed up in DNA sequencing tests on 15 Chinese traditional medicines, researchers said on Thursday.

Such therapies have been used in China for more than 3,000 years, but have risen in popularity outside Asia in recent decades and now amount to a global industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to the study in PLoS Genetics.

Brazil's Supreme Court on Thursday declared abortion legal in cases of fetuses without brains, a decision that ends a debate started eight years ago amid protests from religious groups.

By a vote of 8-to-2, the Supreme Court said forcing women to maintain their pregnancies when their fetuses have been diagnosed with anencephaly creates a risk to their physical and psychological health.

The European Union and the UN's food agency announced an agreement on Thursday to manage vast stocks of obsolete pesticides in the former Soviet Union, warning they had become a "serious threat".

The EU and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will spend seven million euros ($9.1 million) over the next four years to help contain the risks in 12 countries in the region, spanning Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The number of people with dementia is expected to almost double to 65.7 million by 2030 as the world population ages, according to a World Health Organization report published Wednesday.

And by 2050 the number of sufferers could be more than three times the current figure of 35.6 million, the U.N. body said.