Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Abortion Foe Reappointed to Key FDA Panel

Amid loud objections from abortion rights activists, a staunch abortion foe has been reappointed to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel that advises the agency on reproductive health matters.

The Washington Post reports that W. David Hager, an obstetrician from Kentucky, will serve at least one more year on the FDA's Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs. Hager, who promotes religious healing and asked the FDA to rescind its approval of the abortion pill RU486, has been on the committee since 2002. He was in a small minority of committee members who voted against allowing nonprescription sales of Plan B, the emergency contraceptive.

A bipartisan group of abortion rights supporters in Congress wrote a letter opposing the reappointment, saying that Hager "allowed his personal views to overshadow his duty" to both the FDA and to Americans, the Post reported.

"Dr. Hager's blatant opposition to so many safe and legal options makes him unfit to serve on this key advisory committee," said the letter, signed by Reps. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.), and James Greenwood (R-Penn.).

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Medical Debt a Burden for 20 Million U.S. Families

Medical debt is a problem for nearly 20 million American families -- 43 million people -- and many of them have to choose between paying health bills and paying for food and shelter, says a new study.

The report, released Wednesday by the Center for Studying Health System Change, found that families without health insurance were most likely to face problems keeping up with medical bills. But it also found that about two-thirds (13.5 million) of the families burdened with medical debt do have health insurance.

Of the nearly 20 million families experiencing difficulty, about two-thirds said they had trouble paying for other basic necessities, such as food, rent, mortgage, and transportation.

These families also reported that they had a much more difficult time finding medical care because of cost concerns. One in eight of the people in these families went without needed medical care, one in four delayed care, and one in three did not get a prescription drug.

In a related study released Wednesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more children than ever before were covered by health insurance in 2003.

But the study also found that more working-age adults lacked health insurance and that minority populations were especially affected. Overall, the percentage of Americans who had no health insurance -- 15.2 percent, or 43.6 million people -- remained unchanged in 2003 from 1997.

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More Troops to Get Smallpox, Anthrax Shots

The Pentagon announced Wednesday that tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the Pacific and the Middle East will receive vaccines to protect them against smallpox and anthrax.

This expanded vaccination program is not being done in response to a perceived threat to those troops. It's simply a matter of an increased supply of the vaccines, the Associated Press reported.

Some U.S. troops deployed in the Middle East have already received the vaccines. The expanded program covers troops in South Korea and those who would go to Korea early in a crisis. It also covers troops in an area stretching from Pakistan to North Africa.

All troops covered by the expanded vaccine program will be required to take the vaccines unless it's determined that they're at risk from the jabs.

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Reproductive Cloning Too Dangerous for Humans

Cornell University scientists say that reproductive cloning causes potentially dangerous abnormalities in embryos and should not be used in humans.

The scientists said their research identified major developmental problems in cloned mice embryos. There were far fewer abnormalities in mice embryos that were fertilized using conventional methods of assisted reproduction, such as in vitro fertilization, BBC News Online reported.

The results provide further proof that reproductive cloning is dangerous, the scientists told the European Fertility Conference in Berlin.

"We found significantly impaired development in the cloned embryos compared with those derived from more conventional ART [assisted reproduction technologies] techniques, and this has made us more convinced that reproductive cloning is unsafe and should not be applied to humans," lead researcher Dr. Takumi Takeuchi said.

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Another Possible Mad Cow Case Identified

For the second time in five days, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced an "inconclusive" result on a preliminary screening test for mad cow disease.

Tuesday's announcement means there could be two newly identified cases of the brain-wasting disease, depending on results of more sophisticated testing on tissue from both animals that's under way. Those results for the presence of mad cow, medically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), are expected within four to seven days, the department said in a statement. The carcasses of both animals have been accounted for and neither entered the food supply, USDA officials said.

The officials also cautioned that the preliminary test doesn't mean the animals were sick, because the test is designed to be super-sensitive to catch any possible case of the disease.

The first announcement of an inconclusive preliminary test came last weekend. In neither case has the animal's location been identified.

The expanded screening program was begun following the first-ever U.S. diagnosis of BSE in a Washington state cow -- imported from Canada -- last December.

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Counties in 22 States Flunk Air-Quality Tests

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has informed 22 states that at least some of their counties have flunked new standards designed to protect Americans from soot -- formally known as fine air particulate.

Largely caused by power plant and automobile emissions, the tiny particles -- about 1/30th the size of a human hair -- have been linked to heart and lung diseases, including chronic bronchitis and asthma, the agency said in a statement.

Most of the states that failed are in the eastern third of the country. Under guidelines first proposed in 1997 but long delayed by litigation, states will have until 2010 or 2015 to clean up their air, depending on the severity of the problem, according to the Associated Press. In November, the agency will reveal the final list of counties that didn't meet the new standard.

EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt, in revealing the preliminary results, said airborne soot causes 15,000 deaths, 95,000 cases of bronchitis, and thousands of hospital admissions each year, the AP reported. Children, the elderly, and people with respiratory conditions are most susceptible, he said.

Last Updated: Jun-30-2004