Recent study has shown that intake of methamphetamine during pregnancy can lead to brain abnormalities in children. Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant that is injected, snorted, smoked or swallowed by the people.

Research team led by Dr. Linda Chang of the University of Hawaii compared data collected from 29 3- and 4-year-olds whose mothers used methamphetamine during pregnancy with 37 children of the same ages whose mothers did not use the drug.

After a stern reprimand from the Supreme Court for the seeming indifference regarding warnings on cigarette packs, the Central government said that the statutory pictorial warning on cigarette and tobacco products will be displayed from May 30 onwards.

With the NGO Health for Millions' senior counsel, Indira Jaisingh, alleging that the Centre was unnecessarily prolonging the issue, the Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium assured the requisite government action, to a bench headed by Justice B N Aggarwal.

Come May 30, cigarette and tobacco makers have to flaunt the legislative pictorial warning on the packs of their products as the Centre promised to put into effect the rule making the provision obligatory in a month’s time.

Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium gave the word to a bench led by Justice B.N. Aggarwal after senior counsel Indira Jaisingh, appearing for NGO Health for Millions, alleged the Centre was dragging its feet on the subject.

Jaisingh charged the administration of crumpling under the force from the tobacco lobby.

On Thursday, Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston witnessed the second face transplant operation performed in the United States and the seventh in the world.

The surgeon who led this surgery said that he and his team are "cautiously optimistic" over the recovery of the patient.

"So far he is doing very, very well," said Dr. Bohdan Pomahac.

In another case of racial discrimination, a study revealed that black patients with lung cancer were less likely than white patients to receive recommended chemotherapy and surgery.

The study said that disparity in lung cancer treatments were as large in 2002 as they were back in the early 1990s, despite efforts to decrease those inequalities in treatment.

According to researchers, depression in heart patients can in most probability lead to heart failure despite the usage of anti depressants.

"Our data suggest that depression is an important and emerging risk factor for heart failure among patients with coronary heart disease," Heidi May of Intermountain Medical Center in Utah, whose study appears in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, said in a statement.