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On late Monday, the Missouri Department of Agriculture announced that avian influenza has been found at turkey farm in central Missouri's Moniteau County that has 21,000 turkeys.

On Sunday, the state stated that avian flu has been confirmed at a turkey farm in Jasper County in southwest Missouri. Concerns have been raised after the flu has been confirmed at the second turkey farm. Agriculture leaders are taking steps to stop the spread of the virus.

Tests have been carried out as per which the strain of flu in Jasper County is H5N2. The same strain has been confirmed in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Minnesota. On Tuesday, agricultural officials affirmed that testing of the strain at the Moniteau County is not complete.

An announcement has been made by Merck that its anti-PD-1 therapy, pembrolizumab is the first treatment to be approved under the UK's new Early Access to Medicines Scheme (EAMS).

It has been informed that Merck is known as MSD outside the US and Canada. According to Merck, its anti-PD-1 therapy, pembrolizumab is marketed in the United States under the name KEYTRUDA. According to experts, pembrolizumab received acceptance under the scheme for the treatment of advanced melanoma that was based on the importance of the early study results and unmet medical requirement.

According to a study, people who take psychedelic drugs do not have higher risk of developing mental health problems. The study has been published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. In an earlier study, the scientists made efforts to find links between mental health problems and psychedelic drug use; however, they didn't reach any conclusion.

The new study was conducted on 135,095 randomly-selected adults from the US National Health Survey (2008-2011), out of which 19,299 of the participants were using psychedelic drugs. Clinical psychologists Teri Suzanne Krebs and Pål-Orjan Johansen from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology located in Trondheim analyzed the answers of the respondents.

The FDA has altered the label on the quit-smoking drug Chantix for creating awareness and address the concern over its potential to lower one’s tolerance level on alcohol and association with an annual risk of seizures.

The FDA warns, “Until patients know how Chantix affects their ability to tolerate alcohol, they should decrease the amount of alcohol they drink. Patients who have a seizure while taking Chantix should stop the medicine and seek medical attention immediately”.

The information provided by Chantix maker Pfizer and cases in the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System database served the basis of developing the new label.

According to a government report released on Tuesday, almost 8 million people can lose up to $24 billion per year in health insurance subsidies due to a Supreme Court case threatening President Barack Obama's law.

As per estimates given by The Associated Press, the health overhaul opponents argue that subsidies are illegal in those states where the federal government has taken complete charge of running the health insurance marketplace, or exchanges.

Several justices heard arguments in the past week over the issue. There is higher possibility that the final result over the issue would come in late June.

Scientists have made the first exoplanet discovered in 2007 in a habitable or ‘Goldilocks Zone’, a prime candidate in the search for alien life.

The exoplanet Gliese 581d is located only 20 million light years from Earth. Following its discovery, it was named as ‘super-Earth’ as it holds the possibility of supporting liquid water and microbial life on its possibly rocky surface. The mass of the planet is around seven times that of the Earth.

Gliese 581d orbits around Gliese 581, a red dwarf star in the constellation Libra. It is in the ‘Goldilocks Zone’, known technically as the ‘Circumstellar Habitable Zone’ or simply the ‘Habitable Zone’ as it’s the zone around a star within which a planet could have sufficient atmospheric pressure and liquid water to support life.