With the clock ticking down on his administration it looks likely that President George W. Bush will use his clout to introduce a new rule that will make it easier for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care workers to refuse to participate in any medical procedure they view as morally "objectionable."

If President Bush approves the new rule by Dec. 20, it will be final when the Obama administration takes office at noon Jan. 20 and require a new rule-making procedure to overturn it.

With more Americans foregoing needed medical care because they lack health insurance, or the money to use it if they have it, the call for health care reform is high and it is one of the key areas that President Elect Barack Obama has promised to focus on.

And reforming the nation's health care system should result in more people getting better care at a reduced cost because there is so much waste in the health care system critics say.

Questions on the safety of sweeteners other than sugar may finally be put to a close with the expected approval soon by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of the stevia shrub as natural sweetener with zero calories.

Although the FDA had long declared aspartame, saccharin, sucralose and other artificial sweeteners safe, it has been hounded by bad press as cancer-causing agents. While federal laws permit companies to issue on their own safety certifications for ingredients they use, major American beverage companies like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Company are waiting for the green light so they will not be forced to pull out light drinks if the FDA disapproves stevia.

A new University of Toronto study has found that gay men who don't feel attractive are more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors, which might explain why gay and bisexual men in Massachusetts continue to be hard hit by AIDs.

Massachusetts Department of Public Health released figures Sunday revealing that the state has had less success in battling AIDs among gay and bisexual men than it has in combating the disease among drug users and heterosexual men and women.

Most parts of Zimbabwe's capital city, Harare, did not have water on Sunday after officials ran out of purification chemicals and stopped pumping water in the midst of the nation's cholera outbreak.

Zimbabwe Health minister David Parirenyatwa insisted Sunday that the country's deteriorating health care system was capable of handling the cholera outbreak, even as he was announcing that more than 1,000 new cases have been reported.