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

New Drug Helps Alcoholics Stay Sober

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first new drug to treat alcohol abuse in a decade.

Campral (acamprosate) is meant to prevent relapses among alcoholics who have stopped drinking. The agency warned the drug may not work in people who are actively drinking at the start of treatment, or who are abusing other substances in addition to alcohol.

Exactly how the drug works isn't fully understood, the agency said. The medication is thought to act on the brain pathways that help foster alcohol abuse. In clinical trials, Campral proved "superior" to a non-medicinal placebo in keeping recovering alcoholics from taking a drink, the agency said in a statement.

Common side effects noted during clinical studies included headache, diarrhea, flatulence, and nausea. The drug is produced by Lipha Pharmaceuticals of France.

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Anti-Cholesterol Drug Goes Over-the-Counter in Britain

Britain is the world's first country to sell an anti-cholesterol drug without a prescription.

Johnson & Johnson's statin medication Zocor Heart-Pro (simvastatin) went over-the-counter on Thursday, to the delight of some health-care experts who said the move allowed Britons to better protect their health. But the action wasn't without its critics, reported the Herald of Scotland, which cited experts who feared not enough was known about the powerful drug to allow anyone to use it freely without a doctor's advice.

Earlier this year, the British medical journal The Lancet accused the government of using the public as human guinea pigs in an implied effort to save money, the Herald reported.

Johnson & Johnson has tried to calm such fears, noting that pharmacists would carefully advise patients on whether the drug was appropriate before allowing it to be sold, according to the newspaper.

A four-week OTC supply of Zocor -- intended for people at moderate risk of heart disease -- sells for 12.99, roughly $23 U.S.

Studies have shown that a 10 mg. daily dose of simvastatin lowers the average user's "bad" LDL cholesterol level by 27 percent after four weeks, the Herald reported.

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Scientists Create Mad Cow-Like Protein

University of California researchers have created a synthetic protein that produces a deadly infectious disease in mice that's similar to mad cow disease. The findings are reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The artificially created prion, or misfolded protein, provides strong evidence that such proteins by themselves can lead to infectious diseases without the help of genetic components like DNA and RNA, The New York Times reported.

That notion has been controversial since being introduced more than 20 years ago by University of California neurology professor Dr. Stanley Prusiner. Critics of Prusiner's hypothesis contend that only bacteria and viruses containing genetic matter can spread infectious disease, the newspaper said.

Proteins fold into distinct shapes to carry out various bodily functions. While it isn't understood what makes them fold incorrectly, experts speculate that when one misfolded protein encounters other prions, they too misfold -- thus spreading disease, according to the Times.

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Francis Crick, Co-Discoverer of DNA, Dead at 88

Francis H.C. Crick, who co-discovered the structure of DNA, the genetic blueprint for all life, died Wednesday at a San Diego hospital. He was 88 and had battled colon cancer for many years.

In 1953, when he was just 36, Crick and his 24-year-old colleague, James Watson, cracked the genetic code of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, clearing the way for such present-day realities as DNA blood tests, the biotechnology industry, and the Human Genome Project.

Building on the work of Crick and Watson and others over the years, scientists are now able to alter genes to breed out disease and breed in "desired" traits, HealthDay reported.

"Francis Crick was one of the dominant figures in biomedical science of the past century," Dr. Edward Holmes, dean of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, said in a statement. "His insights and discoveries transformed the way we think about heredity and paved the way for the genome revolution," a foundation block for biomedical science in the 21st century.

Crick joined the Salk Institute in 1976.

In 1962, he and Watson earned the Nobel Prize for their discovery.

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U.S. Infant Death Rate Declines

The number of deaths of U.S. babies less than a month old declined by about 25 percent during the last decade, according to a federal report released Thursday.

So-called neonatal mortality declined from six per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 4.5 in 2001, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Sixty-six percent of these deaths were in premature babies, according to the report.

Advances in lung treatments for premature infants, and greater use of folic acid among pregnant women to prevent brain and spinal defects apparently contributed to the decline in deaths, the report said.

The death rate remained highest among black infants -- 11.5 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1989, compared to 8.9 per 1,000 births in 2001.

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