For parents worried about how to treat children's colds now that some medicines have been called into question, the answer may be a dose of salt water.

Setbacks for several large drug makers last week underscored the risks of the pharmaceutical sector, but they failed to spook stock investors who see the industry as a safer bet in rocky economic times.

In a space littered with failure, tiny BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc believes it can succeed in finally bringing a treatment for female sexual dysfunction to the U.S. market.

For parents worried about how to treat children's colds now that some medicines have been called into question, the answer may be a dose of salt water.

Setbacks for several large drug makers last week underscored the risks of the pharmaceutical sector, but they failed to spook stock investors who see the industry as a safer bet in rocky economic times.

Piles of trash building up in Naples have filled the air with a putrid stench and spoiled the view for tourists, but the city's waste crisis may also be killing its people. Standing at the barricades erected by local people to stop the authorities reopening an old landfill in the Pianura neighbourhood, Salvatore Mele, whose son died of cancer, believes the illness was caused by pollution from trash.

Health insurers, which took a major role in Medicare under Republican U.S. President George W. Bush, will likely remain a mainstay in the program for years to come, even if a Democrat wins the White House.

A California company said on Thursday it used cloning technology to make five human embryos, with the eventual hope of making matched stem cells for patients. Stemagen Corp. in La Jolla, California, destroyed the embryos while testing to make sure they were true clones. But the researchers, based at a fertility center, said they believed their ready source of new human eggs would make their venture a success.

A small California company set up by an unnamed investor and a top fertility doctor burst into the stem cell field on Thursday with a report that it is the first lab to clone human embryos and prove it.

Setbacks for several large drug makers last week underscored the risks of the pharmaceutical sector, but they failed to spook stock investors who see the industry as a safer bet in rocky economic times.