A group which advises the US government on biosecurity has explained why it wants two research papers on H5N1 bird flu to be censored.
Two scientific research teams have modified influenza strains to create mutant avian influenza viruses that can be transmitted efficiently between mammals. In one case, the virus remained highly pathogenic.
After more than a decade of waiting, the first results of a trial involving human embryonic stem cells have been published in a medical journal.
The Lancet reports how two women in the USA with eye disease were injected with stem cells and both apparently showed some slight improvement in vision. The company Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) says the patients are doing well four months on from the trial.
More evidence has emerged of the conflicting benefits and risks of aspirin.
An analysis of nine medical trials involving over 100,000 people without a history of cardiovascular disease found that aspirin was more likely to do them harm than good.
Now that the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has ordered a review of the safety data on the banned PIP breast implants, we may be closer to solving a puzzle.
The puzzle is this - why did the French medical watchdog find that the implants have a 5% rupture rate, whereas the equivalent body here, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), found a 1% rupture rate - no worse than other makes?
There will be many women left confused and worried about latest developments over French breast implants.
The implants by French firm Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) were banned last year when it emerged the company had used a non-medical grade silicone filler.
In a darkened conference room in Malta in September, a Dutch scientist announced to a virology meeting that he had created a mutated strain of H5N1 bird flu which had the potential to spread between humans.
Dr Ron Fouchier, from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, said his team had introduced a number of genetic variations - around five - which had enabled the virus to pass between ferrets - the best animal model we have for testing whether the virus will infect humans.
We all like reports of dramatic medical and scientific breakthroughs but the reality is that most developments are incremental. As a result, important issues can get overlooked.
Take malaria. Deaths from the parasitic infection - which is spread by the bites of infected mosquitoes - have been falling steadily since around 2004. Only a few years ago it was said that the disease killed one child every 30 seconds. I remember using this figure on a trip to Ghana in 2006. By 2009 the estimate was down to one child dying every 45 seconds.
There has been widespread speculation about how David Cameron plans to accelerate drug development for NHS patients.
One newspaper headline talked of plans to share patient records with private health care companies, "including some that use animals in clinical tests". It spoke to an unnamed senior executive of a drugs company which it described as "well-known for animal testing".
A severely disabled 57 year old man is to ask a High Court judge to allow a doctor to end his life. Tony Nicklinson issued proceedings in a case which will challenge the law on murder.
Mr Nicklinson was paralysed from the neck down following a stroke in 2005 and left with "locked-in syndrome". He is unable to speak and communicates by nodding his head at letters on a board or by using a computer which responds to eye movements.
The Department of Health has decided to change the vaccine it uses to protect girls against cervical cancer throughout the UK.
From September next year it will use the Gardasil jab, which also offers protection against genital warts - one of the most common sexually transmitted infections.
Ever since I've been reporting on science and health, there have been dire warnings of a return to the pre-antibiotic era.
"Resistance to antibiotics and other anti-infective agents constitutes a major threat to public health, and ought to be recognised as such more widely than it is at present."
The thought of being trapped in a lifeless body, unable to communicate, is a terrifying prospect. It happened to Roy Hayim, a surveyor, who became dangerously ill after eating an airline meal.
Mr Hayim contracted botulism, a rare bacterial infection.
Fergus began working for the BBC in 1984 and has reported on health, science and medicine for nearly twenty years.
He has reported for the BBC from around the world on topics such as stem cells, obesity, HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, polio and swine flu.
Fergus has had all his genes sequenced, his heart, brain and other body parts scanned, as well as being vaccinated against bird flu for TV news reports.
He appeared in a BBC TV drama with Julie Walters. He didnt win any awards for his acting, but has won several for his journalism.
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