Washington -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new drug, rufinamide -- marketed as Banzel -- to treat severe epilepsy.

The drug is to be used as an adjunctive treatment for seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

"This approval offers another treatment option for patients who suffer from these debilitating, severe seizures," Dr. Russell Katz of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said Thursday in a statement.

Lennox-Gastaut syndrome is a severe form of epilepsy that usually begins before age 4. The FDA said most children with the syndrome experience some degree of impaired intellectual functioning or information processing.

A 4-month clinical trial studying patients ages 4 to 30 found approximately a 41 percent reduction of tonic and atonic seizure frequency and a 20 percent reduction of total seizure frequency.

Beijing, November 20, 2008- China is the country where first foreign branch of Food and Drug Administration, an organization of the United States Department of Health and Human Services has been opened.

A lot of food manufactured outside the U.S. is exported to the U.S., the new FDA branches which the United States Department of Health and Human Services plans to open in various countries will help in keeping a check on food manufactured by a number of countries.

Washington -- The U.S. Environmental Agency is seeking public review and comment on a petition asking the agency to classify nanoscale silver as a pesticide.

The petition, filed by the International Center for Technology Assessment and others, also calls on the EPA to require formal pesticide registration of all products containing nanoscale silver, analyze the potential human health and environmental risks of the tiny germ-killing particles, and take regulatory action against existing products that contain the material.

The center said manufacturers are infusing products with nanoscale silver for its enhanced anti-microbial abilities. There are more than 260 nanosilver products currently on the market, including household appliances and cleaners, clothing, cutlery, children's toys and personal care products.

New York -- The herbal supplement ginkgo biloba, popular among U.S. adults hoping to improve their memory, doesn't appear to delay or prevent dementia, a study indicates.

The longest and largest trial to date on the compound indicates Americans may have wasted $250 million spent on ginkgo annually, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

"This is going to be a wake-up call to people who are blindly taking over-the-counter brain boosters, thinking if it's being sold in a reputable store it's effective," P. Murali Doraiswamy, a memory expert at Duke University not involved in the study, told the Journal.

The study tracked 3,069 adults age 75 and older -- nearly evenly divided between those with normal cognitive function and those with a mild impairment -- for an average of nearly six years. One group received a twice-daily dose of ginkgo and the other received a placebo.

United States, November 19: Nestle Prepared Foods Co. has recalled 900,000 Pounds of Lean Cuisine frozen meals after seven consumers reported that they found small bits of blue plastic in their Lean Cuisine dinners. One consumer also reported an injury.

Santiago, Chile -- Chile's health minister said the country's public and private health systems failed to notify nearly 2,000 people they were infected with HIV.

Health Minister Alvaro Erazo said there was no attempt, in about half of the cases, to reach the patients, the New York Times reported Friday.

Erazo's predecessor Maria Soledad Barria was forced to resign recently when initial allegations about HIV notification surfaced. Erazo told Chile's Congress that the problem partially resulted from a lack of coordination between the National AIDS Commission and the Health Ministry.

The head of the School of Medicine at the University of Chile estimates about 40,000 people in Chile do not know that they are infected with HIV, the newspaper said.

Stockholm, Sweden -- A Swedish study said violent video games can cause irregular heart rates in children.

Researchers from Stockholm University, Uppsala University and the Karolinska Institute tested 19 boys aged 12 to 15 while playing one violent and one non-violent video game.

Lead researcher Frank Lindblad of Stockholm University said the study found the boys had irregular heart rates after they were finished playing the violent game, The Local newspaper reported Friday.

"What we saw was irregular rhythms with variations in the distances between beats," Lindblad told the newspaper.

He said the findings suggest violent video games have a marked influence on the nervous system of young gamers and raises concerns about the effect on their central physiological systems.

Sunrise, Fla. -- A Florida company is billing its product, a battery powered device that looks like a cigarette, as a "healthier way to smoke."

The company, Smoking Everywhere, said the Smoking Everywhere E-Cigarette contains no fire, tobacco or smoke but it does release a jolt of nicotine with every drag to satisfy people with the addiction, WFAA-TV, Fort Worth, Texas, reported Thursday.

The company's Web site describes the fake cigarette as "the healthier way to smoke."

"With this device, you can actually enjoy smoking without the bad parts of the cigarette," said Ohad Naim, Smoking Everywhere's franchise owner and operator at the Grapevine Mills Mall in Fort Worth, Texas. "There is no tar, no tobacco (and) no bad chemicals that can cause you cancer."

Washington -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the recall of brands of acne cream because of possible contamination.

The FDA said the manufacturer, CSI USA Inc. of Gallatin, Tenn., issued a voluntary nationwide recall of all lots of 1 ounce tubes of 10 percent benzoyl peroxide acne cream after some of the lots were found to contain bacteria identified as Burkholderia Cepacia, formerly known as Pseudomonas Cepacia, which poses a health hazard for some people.

The medication is sold as "DG Maximum Strength Acne Medicated Gel" at Dollar General stores, Kroger Acne Gel 10 percent Benzoyl Peroxide Acne Medication at Kroger Co. outlets and Equate: Medicated Acne Gel at Wal-Mart stores.

Consumers can obtain a refund by mailing the tube, or proof of purchase, to CSI USA, Inc., 170 Commerce Way, Gallatin, Tenn., 37066, Attn: Acne Cream Recall.

The rate of premature birth in the U.S. has escalated to a worrisome 12.7 percent, which translates into many negative effects on the health and well-being of the newborns. This new number was far above the 7.6 percent rise that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had predicted.