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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Illinois to Let Residents Buy Prescription Drugs Abroad

In his latest move to get cheaper prescription drugs for Illinois residents, Governor Rod Blagojevich plans to establish access to an online network of pharmacies in the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as Canada.

Illinois residents will be able to buy certain prescription drugs from those online pharmacies. The state won't actually import the drugs from the foreign pharmacies.

"We've seen the pharmaceutical companies start to limit supplies in Canada and try to shut off that option for consumers. We recognize that Canada alone can't be relied upon to provide affordable drugs for Illinois," Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff told the Associated Press.

Like Illinois, some other states have established Web sites to help their residents purchase prescription drugs from Canada. But Illinois would be the first to set up this overseas option. The plan was expected to be announced Tuesday.

Earlier this year, a delegation from Illinois went to Europe to study the prescription drug system there.

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Statins May Help Fight HIV

Statins -- drugs used to treat high cholesterol -- may also prove effective against HIV, according to Spanish researchers.

They gave statins to six HIV-positive patients for a month and found that virus levels decreased in the patients while they were taking the drugs. Virus levels increased again when the patients stopped taking the statins, BBC News Online reported.

The results suggest that statins could offer a new and fairly inexpensive way to fight HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It appears that statins stop the HIV virus from infecting healthy cells.

The research appears in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

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Utah Schools Asked to Track Vending Machine Sales

The Utah Department of Health has asked some school districts to track and compare vending machine sales of healthy snacks and junk food snacks.

The request was made to determine if there's any evidence to confirm the fears of some school districts that selling only healthy snacks to students would reduce vending machine revenues received by school districts, the Associated Press reported..

Utah schools rely on vending machines to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars of much-needed revenue. Most school districts have strongly opposed efforts to regulate vending machine sales, the AP said.

One in four children in the state is overweight and nearly 12 percent are obese, according to the Utah Department of Health.

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Hospitalist Care Reduces Hospital Stays and Costs

Being treated by hospitalists -- doctors who work at hospitals -- leads to shorter and cheaper hospital stays for patients compared to treatment by clinic-based doctors, says a study by researchers at the University of Iowa and Department of Veterans Affairs Iowa City Health Care System.

Patients who received treatment from hospitalists had an average hospital stay of 5.5 days compared to 6.5 days for patients treated by non-hospitalist doctors, the Associated Press reported.

Hospital care was an average of $917 (10 percent) cheaper for patients treated by hospitalists, the study found.

Previous research found that hospitalists offer improved efficiency of care. This is the first study to identify where the most significant cost savings occur when patients are treated by hospitalists.

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Anthrax Scare at U.S. Embassy in Malaysia

A suspicious powder mailed to the United States Embassy in Malaysia sparked an anthrax scare, officials said Monday.

The powder is being tested to determine if it contains anthrax spores or any other dangerous substances. It was mailed to the embassy in a leaflet from an unknown group demanding that the U.S. remove its troops from Iraq, CBS News reported.

Three embassy staff members were exposed to a yellowish substance when they opened the envelope. They were briefly detained for a medical checkup, which determined that they were well.

This is the second such incident in Asia within a week. The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka was closed last week after suspicious powder was found in mail sent to the embassy. Tests concluded the powder was harmless.

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Iacocca Launches Campaign to Fund Diabetes Research

Lee Iacocca has launched a new campaign to raise money to support clinical tests of a potential new cure for Type I diabetes.

The former auto executive said Monday that he wants one million Americans to donate $10 each to fund a three-year study at Massachusetts General Hospital. Iacocca has pledged $1 million for the research, the Associated Press reported.

The research will focus on the use of healthy spleen cells to block the development of Type I diabetes in humans. A study that appeared late last year in the journal Science said this method had been successful in mice.

Iococca's wife, Mary, died of Type I diabetes 21 years ago. After her death, Lee Iococca founded the Iococca Foundation, which has provided about $30 million for diabetes research, the news agency said.

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