A human trial of a large-scale experimental AIDS vaccine has been cancelled following advice by a top scientist that it was unlikely to give useful results, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said Thursday.

The vaccine trial, similar to a failed Merck and Co. product, was developed by the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. In a study called PAVE 100, the agency planned to include 2,400 men in the United States.

The Clinton Foundation has forged a deal with six drug makers to sell anti-malaria medicine at a fixed lower price to make it globally affordable to poor patients suffering the disease.

The charity formed by former U.S. President Bill Clinton announced the deal Thursday with two Chinese suppliers of artemisinin and four Indian firms that process the anti-malaria drug ingredient into finished products.

Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic here have pioneered surgery to remove donor kidneys through a single incision in a bellybutton.

Dr. Inderbir S. Gill and colleagues believe that since the procedure has a reduced recovery time, it will encourage more donors to donate kidney.

A 23-year-old man from New Delhi who was admitted to an Indian hospital after a five-feet-long iron rod went through his chest has survived the accident.

Calling it the "rarest of the rare surgeries," doctors of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) saved the life of a young executive, Supratim Dutta, whose chest, lungs, stomach and liver were pierced by an iron bar.

Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama lead the nation in the percentage of obese adults, according to survey results released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that self-reported obesity rates in these states were over 30 percent. Mississippi respondents reported the highest rate of obesity, at 32 percent, and Tennessee had the third-highest rate at 30.1 percent. Colorado had the lowest rate of obesity at 18.7 percent.