WASHINGTON (AP) -- There's good news for most companies that provide health benefits for their employees: America's slowdown in medical costs may be turning into a trend, rather than a mere pause.

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- When the time came to vaccinate her 4-year-old daughter, Yelena Hlushko hesitated, spooked by widespread fears in Ukraine about vaccines and by a boil her older child developed after an immunization shot. Eventually she decided to follow the government's recommendation -- only to find her local health clinic was out of the vaccine.

ISLAMABAD (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) -- Two volunteers working for a polio vaccination campaign were shot dead Sunday by unidentified gunmen in Pakistan's north-western province of Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa, officials said.

NEW YORK (AP) -- President Barack Obama's administration can go forward with its new plan to make the morning-after pill available to buyers of any age without prescriptions, but it needs to do it promptly or face potential sanctions in the long-running dispute over access to the emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

BANGKOK (Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa)) -- Health officials in the US and Europe may soon be visiting South-East Asia for updates on the most effective means of fighting dengue fever, traditionally a poor countries' disease.

ATLANTA (AP) -- U.S. health officials say doctors should consider giving a daily AIDS drug to another high risk group to prevent infection -- people who shoot heroin, methamphetamines or other injection drugs.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's a life or death matter: Who gets the next scarce donated organ? In an unprecedented challenge to the nation's transplant system, a federal judge has allowed one dying child -- and a day later another -- to essentially jump the line in rulings that could have ramifications for thousands of people awaiting new organs.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Generic versions of emergency contraception can be sold without a prescription or age restrictions while the federal government appeals a judge's ruling allowing the sales, a federal appeals court said Wednesday.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Obesity surgery worked much better at reducing and even reversing diabetes than medication and lifestyle changes in one of the most rigorous studies of its kind. But the researchers and others warn that possible serious complications need to be considered.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- If worry about skin cancer doesn't make you slather on sunscreen, maybe vanity will: New research provides some of the strongest evidence to date that near-daily sunscreen use can slow the aging of your skin.

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) -- Thirteen years ago, voters amended the Nevada Constitution to legalize the use of medical marijuana, but there has been no way of legally getting the drug in the state aside from growing it at home. The Legislature acted to change that Monday, advancing a proposal that would pave the way for dispensaries.

LONDON (AP) -- For decades, health officials have battled malaria with insecticides, bed nets and drugs. Now, scientists say there might be a potent new tool to fight the deadly mosquito-borne disease: the stench of human feet.

MUMBAI, India (AP) -- A simple vinegar test slashed cervical cancer death rates by one-third in a remarkable study of 150,000 women in the slums of India, where the disease is the top cancer killer of women.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Monday called for a more robust national discussion on mental illness, saying the time had come to bring the issue "out of the shadows."

CHICAGO (AP) -- New research raises fresh questions about which cancer patients benefit from Avastin, a drug that lost its approval for treating breast cancer nearly two years ago.

(Associated Press) -- Is there a doctor on board? Surprisingly often, there is -- in half of in-flight medical emergencies -- and sick airline passengers almost always survive, a new study finds.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Infections in U.S. hospitals kill tens of thousands of people each year, and many institutions fight back by screening new patients to see if they carry a dangerous germ, and isolating those who do. But a big study suggests a far more effective approach: Decontaminating every patient in intensive care.

DAYTON, Ohio (The New York Times News Service) -- Margarette Shegog knows she won't be "making the big bucks" as a primary care doctor working in an underserved minority community, but that's exactly what she plans to do after graduating from Wright State University's Boonshoft School of Medicine.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistani authorities suspended a four-day polio vaccination program Tuesday after gunmen shot dead a female polio worker and wounded another, officials said, in a blow to the U.N.-backed campaign aimed at eradicating the crippling disease from this violence-torn country.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Obese mothers tend to have kids who become obese. Now provocative research suggests weight-loss surgery may help break that unhealthy cycle in an unexpected way -- by affecting how their children's genes behave.

DENVER (AP) -- In the most prominent challenge of its kind, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. is asking a federal appeals court Thursday for an exemption from part of the federal health care law that requires it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill.

(Associated Press) -- In a medical first, doctors used plastic particles and a 3-D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of a baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The mayor of Portland, Ore., has conceded defeat in an effort to add fluoride to the city's drinking water.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The American Cancer Society -- one of the nation's best known and influential health advocacy groups -- is 100 years old this week.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The decade-old law that transformed the battle against HIV and AIDS in developing countries is at a crossroads. The dream of future generations freed from epidemic is running up against an era of economic recovery and harsh budget cuts.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- New research is challenging medical guidelines that say people with a heart-zapping device in their chests should avoid intense sports like basketball and soccer in favor of golf or bowling.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- While soaking up the rays in what's been an unusually sunny season, Portlanders have broken away from their polite chatter about food, wine and outdoor adventure to fight about whether to fluoridate the water supply.

ISLAMABAD (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) -- At least one tribal policeman was killed when unknown gunmen attacked a polio-vaccination team in north-western Pakistan's Monday, officials said.

LONDON (AP) -- More than a decade ago, British parents refused to give measles shots to at least a million children because of a vaccine scare that raised the specter of autism. Now, health officials are scrambling to catch up and stop a growing epidemic of the contagious disease.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sunbathers headed to the beach this summer will find new sunscreen labels on store shelves that are designed to make the products more effective and easier to use. But despite those long-awaited changes, many sunscreens continue to carry SPF ratings that some experts consider misleading and potentially dangerous, according to a consumer watchdog group.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) -- Do your kids love chocolate milk? It may have more calories on average than you thought.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Los Angeles politicians have struggled for more than five years to regulate medical marijuana, trying to balance the needs of the sick against neighborhood concerns that pot shops attract crime.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- Kinky sex has been admitted to Harvard.