Health officials said Monday they have ruled out the abortion pill RU-486 in one of two deaths in women who had taken the drug. The second remains under investigation.

Earlier four women have died of a rare but deadly infection by Clostridium sordellii after undergoing pill-triggered abortions. FDA has warned doctors to watch for infection by the bug. However, the drug, also called Mifeprex or mifepristone, has not been proved to be the cause in any of those cases, the FDA said

Colorado State Senators passed a bill that allows women to get emergency contraception directly from a pharmacist without a doctor's prescription.

The bill now moves onto Governor Owens to await his signature. But Owens has expressed reservations about signing the bill saying teenage girls could get the pill without consulting their doctor. Owens has ten days to sign the legislation

Government policies in Burma that restrict public health and humanitarian aid have enabled some of the world's deadly diseases to spread unchecked. According to a report by Johns Hopkins, AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria and bird flu (H5N1) are spreading at alarming rates.

The findings show that the spread of these infectious diseases, if left unchecked, could pose a serious health threat to other Southeast Asian nations and the world. Health professionals believe international cooperation and policies are needed to restore humanitarian assistance to the Burmese people, but warn that new government legislation imposed by the military junta are making those efforts increasingly difficult

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has signed a legislation that allows abortion clinics to perform ultrasounds for women considering abortion procedures.

The law doesn't require clinics to do the imaging, but gives them the option. Before this law was signed into effect, clinics were allowed to give women a chance to review diagrams of a developing fetus, but not their own

A new legislative directive is threatening the future of cancer research in Europe. The EU clinical trials directive, enacted in 2004, aimed at protecting patients and improve research standards - seems to be having the opposite effect.

However, investigators initially were concerned the labor intensive, bureaucratic, and expensive endeavor of conducting a clinical trial would become worse under the new rules