The Food and Drug Administration is considering the use of leeches and maggots in more medical procedures.

Lisa Darmo, of Carolina Biological Supply in Burlington, says special leeches for medical use only are imported from England and shipped to hospitals across the country.

Chiron Corp. says on Wednesday that it expects to provide a vaccine for the 2005-2006 flu season after a recent favorable inspection of the plant by U.S. regulators, reports Reuters

The company had to postpone U.S. sales of its flu vaccine last year due to contamination problems at its plant in England, which led to the withdrawal of its manufacturing license for Fluvirin last October.

A survey of 19 public health clinics describes a wide variety of response times and medical advice given its researchers, who posed as doctors in telephone calls to clinics across the country in a test that stretched over nine months.

One health clinic officer told a caller describing botulism symptoms to go back to bed. Another told a caller describing signs of bubonic plague not to worry. And not one of the public health clinic surveyed by the RAND Corporation suggested isolating a patient whose face, arms and legs were said to be covered with pustules or other smallpox symptoms, reports The Associated Press.

Drugs being developed to treat cancer may also help children with a disease called progeria, according to U.S. researchers.

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome or HGPS accelerates aging and often kills patients when they are in their teens.

A Study suggests women are nearly twice as likely as men to die from complications of heart bypass surgery.

In a review of records for 15,440 patients who had undergone coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), researchers found that 4.24-percent of women died during or immediately after surgery, versus 2.23-percent of men, a statistically significant difference.