More U.S. counties to see Obamacare marketplace monopoly: analysis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly a third of U.S. counties will likely be served by only one insurer that participates in an Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace in 2017, according to an analysis published Sunday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Italy's quake survivors fear family villages will become ghost towns

By Steve Scherer SANT'ANGELO, Italy (Reuters) - Tiny villages that dot the valley around the town of Amatrice, which was leveled by Wednesday's earthquake, were home to generations of families who once farmed the land, but later moved to cities for work and now return for the holidays. "The fear is that they will now be abandoned," said Giancarla Celli, 50, standing outside the 300-year-old family villa that withstood the quake, but which has been badly damaged and is now unsafe, cracks zigzagging up its walls. Most of the other homes in the hamlet of Sant'Angelo, where more than 100 people pass the hot summer months but which is sparsely populated in winter, have been reduced to rubble.

FDA recommends Zika testing for all blood donated in U.S.

CHICAGO/TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended on Friday that all blood donated in the United States and its territories be tested for Zika virus, as it moves to prevent transmission of the virus through the blood supply.

Florida governor complains U.S. not doing enough to fight Zika

CHICAGO/MIAMI (Reuters) - Florida Governor Rick Scott said on Wednesday the federal government had so far not delivered all the Zika antibody tests and laboratory support he had requested as the state battles the spread of the virus. On Wednesday, the Florida Department of Health reported a second non-travel related case of Zika in Palm Beach County, bringing the state's total to 43. Health officials warned pregnant women last week not to travel to Miami Beach after Florida confirmed the mosquito-borne Zika virus was active there, becoming the second area in Miami to be affected after Wynwood.

Fists not football: Brain injuries seen in domestic assaults

CHICAGO (AP) - There are no bomb blasts or collisions with burly linemen in Susan Contreras' past. Her headaches, memory loss and bouts of confused thinking were a mystery until doctors suggested a probable cause: domestic violence.

Most antipsychotic drugs not tied to birth defects

(Reuters Health) - Pregnant women on antipsychotic drugs can continue taking most of those medications without worrying the pills will increase the risk of their newborns having birth defects, a new study suggests.

Ex-Insys employees plead not guilty in U.S. drug-kickback case

Two former Insys Therapeutics Inc employees pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges that they engaged in a scheme to pay doctors kickbacks including speaker fees to prescribe a drug containing the opioid fentanyl. Jonathan Roper, a former Insys district sales manager, and Fernando Serrano, a former sales representative, entered their pleas in Manhattan federal court to charges including that they violated the federal Anti-Kickback Statute. Insys, based in Arizona, is not identified by name in the indictment against Roper, of Commack, New York, and Serrano, of Manalapan, New Jersey.

Undermining China: towns sink after mines close

By David Stanway HELIN, China (Reuters) - Deep in the coal heartlands of northern Shanxi province, people in Helin village are fighting a losing battle as the ground beneath them crumbles: patching up cracks, rebuilding walls and filling in sinkholes caused by decades of coal mining. Around 100 pits in Helin - buried in the hilly rural outskirts of the city of Xiaoyi - have been exhausted, and cluttered hamlets totter precariously on the brittle slopes of mines. It's scary, but what can we do?" Mines that burrowed under villages and towns during China's three-decade coal boom have left the authorities with the need to evacuate hundreds of communities in danger of sinking.

McDonald's pressured to serve up global antibiotics ban

A new online campaign is putting pressure on fast food giant McDonald's to impose a global ban on products from animals treated with antibiotics.

More than a third of female students 'have mental health problems'

A survey suggests one in three female students has a mental health problem.

Doctors at top Indian hospital charged in kidney harvesting racket

By Nita Bhalla NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The chief executive, medical director and three other doctors at a prestigious Indian hospital have been charged with offences related to illegal organ transplants after a kidney trafficking racket was uncovered, a police spokesman said. Operating out of the private L.H. Hiranandani Hospital in Mumbai, the organ harvesting ring was busted by police in July following a tip-off that poor villagers were being paid to sell their kidneys to recipients via a network of agents. Mumbai Deputy Police Commissioner Ashok Dudhe said the five doctors were arrested late on Tuesday after police had examined the findings of a government inquiry into the case.