Clemenceau Medical Center (CMC) affiliated with Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHMI) hosted on Wednesday and Thursday October the 2011 Johns Hopkins Partners Forum entitled “The Power of a Global Network in Today’s Healthcare Landscape”.

The forum took place at CMC and was attended by all of Johns Hopkins international affiliates along with international and regional speakers and journalists.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Saturday and Sunday supported the clean-up of the Ghzayyel River, organized and supervised by Operation Big Blue Association.

The Ghzayyel River’s upstream course has clear waters, but the banks and river bed are littered with trash.

A U.S. man spoke Friday of his happiness at the prospect of touching his young grandchildren for the first time, following a rare double hand transplant at a Boston hospital.

Richard Mangino, 65, lost his arms below the elbows and his lower legs from an infection in 2002. After a 12-hour operation by a 40-strong surgical team at Brigham and Women's Hospital -- best known for pioneering face transplants -- he got donated hands.

An independent British medical watchdog says the first treatment proven to help people with the deadliest form of skin cancer live longer is too expensive.

In draft advice issued Friday, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence said Bristol-Meyers Squibb's Yervoy, "could not be considered a cost-effective use" of health funds. A final decision is expected next month after a public consultation.

The use of condoms among teenagers in the United States has "increased significantly" in less than a decade, an in-depth survey on the sexual conduct of American adolescents said Wednesday.

Eighty percent of male teens used a condom the first time they had sex in the 2006-2010 survey period, up from 71 percent in 2002, said the study from the Centers for Disease Control, a U.S. government agency.

Huge, slimy snails from Africa have overrun a Miami-area town and the U.S. government said Tuesday a potent pesticide is the best way to get rid of their exploding numbers.

Thousands of the four-to-eight inch (10-20 centimeter) giant African snails have been collected in Coral Gables, a town in Miami-Dade County, since the infestation was first discovered in September, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Women who take the Pill tend to choose as partners men who are less attractive and worse in bed but a sounder bet for a long-term relationship, according to an unusual study published on Tuesday.

Probing the effect of contraceptive hormones on mating choice, researchers questioned 2,519 women in the United States, Czech Republic, Britain and Canada who had had at least one child.

U.S. researchers warned Tuesday of an alarming link between vitamin E supplements and a 17 percent increased risk of prostate cancer, describing the findings as an "important public health concern."

Ten years after the start of a randomized trial of more than 35,000 men, researchers discovered the spike in prostate cancer among those assigned to take vitamin E rather than selenium or a placebo.

The percentage of Americans who are overweight or obese fell slightly in the third quarter of this year, but they still make up a majority of the population, a Gallup poll showed Friday.

Some 36.6 percent were a normal weight, up a percentage point from a year earlier, while 35.8 percent were overweight, down from 36.0 percent, and 25.8 percent were obese, down from 26.6 percent.

Routine screening for prostate cancer does not help save the lives of healthy men and often triggers the need for more tests and treatments, a U.S. government health panel said Friday.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's draft recommendations, which will be open to public comment on Tuesday, are likely to face a pushback from advocates of the PSA blood test, as well as from drugmakers and doctors who benefit from the now-lucrative screening industry.