Brussels - A week after a leak from a nearby nuclear facility, residents of Lambusart village near the Belgian town of Fleurus were told Sunday they will be given medical tests, starting with children and pregnant women. The aim was to restore full ...

MONTREAL, Quebec (AP) -- A provincial health official says that an unusually high number of people have fallen ill with salmonella food poisoning across Quebec.

Horacio Arruda, a director with Quebec's public health department, said Friday that 87 cases of salmonellosis have been reported and one death has been linked to the outbreak.

He said that there were as many cases in one week this month in the eastern province than there are during the average year.

The bacteria can cause diarrhea, fever and vomiting. The Food and Agriculture Ministry has issued recalls of some brands of cheese that are a suspected source of the outbreak.

The Food and Agriculture Ministry has issued recalls of three different types of cheese throughout the province that are a suspected source of the salmonella outbreak. Spokesman Guy Auclair said the salmonella outbreak is not connected to a recent listeria outbreak in Canada linked to the 15 deaths.

A recent salmonella outbreak in the United States sickened at least 1,440 people.

© 2008 The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease, a federal appeals court said Friday.

The dispute pits the Agriculture Department, which tests about 1 percent of cows for the potentially deadly disease, against a Kansas meat packer that wants to test all its animals.

Larger meat packers opposed such testing. If Creekstone Farms Premium Beef began advertising that its cows have all been tested, other companies fear they too will have to conduct the expensive tests.

The Bush administration says the low level of testing reflects the rareness of the disease. Mad cow disease has been linked to more than 150 human deaths worldwide, mostly in Great Britain. Only three cases have been reported in the U.S., all involving cows, not humans.

A federal judge ruled last year that Creekstone must be allowed to conduct the test because the Agriculture Department can only regulate disease "treatment." Since there is no cure for mad cow disease and the test is performed on dead animals, the judge ruled, the test is not a treatment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned that ruling, saying diagnosis can be considered part of treatment.

"And we owe USDA a considerable degree of deference in its interpretation of the term," Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote.

The case was sent back to the district court, where Creekstone can make other arguments.

© 2008 The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Drunken-driving deaths fell in 32 states in 2007, the government reported Thursday, but alcohol-related fatalities increased among motorcycle riders in half the states.

Nearly 13,000 people were killed in crashes in which the driver had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08, the legal limit in the United States, or at higher levels.

Overall, alcohol deaths were down nearly 4 percent compared with 2006, when nearly 13,500 people died on the highway.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said she was disappointed by the increase in deaths involving drunk motorcycle riders. A total of 1,621 motorcyclists were killed in alcohol-impaired crashes in 2007, an increase of 7.5 percent.

Motorcycle riders have been featured in the government's $13 million advertising campaign surrounding the Labor Day holiday. Law enforcement agencies are increasing their enforcement against drunken driving during the end of the summer.

Dean Thompson, a spokesman for the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, said riders who conduct training courses always stress the dangers involved in drinking alcohol before riding.

"The skill set you need in terms of the coordination and balance and things like that, you cannot choose to drink and ride. It's just the wrong choice to make," he said.

Among the states, California had 117 fewer alcohol-impaired driving deaths last year, the largest decrease in the nation. Texas had 108 fewer deaths and Arizona's fatalities dropped by 63 deaths.

California conducted more than 1,000 sobriety checkpoints during the year and encouraged motorists to dial 911 on their cell phones if they spot a potentially drunken driver, said Christopher Murphy, who leads the state's traffic safety office.

"Our vision is really toward zero deaths - everyone counts, so we're not exactly celebrating these numbers," said Murphy, who leads the Governors Highway Safety Association.

North Carolina had 66 more deaths, the most among states, followed by South Carolina with 44 fatalities.

In addition to North Carolina and South Carolina, alcohol-impaired deaths increased in Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

The latest data followed calls from dozens of college presidents to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, arguing that the laws lead to binge drinking on campus.

Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Thursday he opposed the administrators' effort.

"Age 21 drinking laws have been proven time and again effective in preventing deaths and injuries," Rosenker said. "Repealing them is a terrible idea."

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On the Net:

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov

© 2008 The Associated Press.

Singapore - The head of a transplant society in Singapore said he has been cleared in a scheme to illegally buy a kidney and continues to practise medicine. The authorities have investigated the case, and I have not been implicated, Dr Lye Wai Choo...