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

FDA Nixes Plan to Bring Back Silicone Breast Implants

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has quashed -- at least temporarily -- a California company's bid to bring silicone breast implants back to the market, CNN reports.

The agency sent a "non-approvable" letter to Santa Barbara-based Inamed, saying the company had to provide more information before further review of its approval application could go forward.

The FDA's move came three months after an advisory panel narrowly recommended allowing the implants to return to the market. The devices were banned in 1992, following scores of complaints that they leaked and caused painful autoimmune conditions in some recipients.

In voting 9-6 last fall to reauthorize distribution of the implants, the FDA panel required that biopsies be conducted in the event that the implants caused problems. If the devices were found to have ruptured, the panel required that they immediately be removed, CNN reports.

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China Identifies Second Suspected SARS Case

On the same day that China's first recent victim of SARS was released from the hospital, health officials have identified a second suspected case: a 20-year old waitress in the southern city of Guangzhou, the Associated Press reports.

The young woman, hospitalized Dec. 31, works at a restaurant that is said to serve civet cat, a Chinese delicacy that may be responsible for passing SARS to humans. In response to the nation's first case of severe acute respiratory syndrome in seven months -- involving a 32-year-old male television producer -- Chinese authorities have begun slaughtering thousands of the animals held in captivity. This despite the fact that the man insists he has never eaten civet.

About 50 people who have come in contact with the newly suspected case have been quarantined as a precaution, the AP reports. None has shown any symptoms of the highly contagious disease, which has an incubation period of about 10 days.

On a positive note, the Philippines government says that a woman recently quarantined as a suspected SARS case does not have the disease. She had recently visited Hong Kong and showed symptoms of SARS upon her return. Philippines officials say tests have determined that she is actually suffering from pneumonia.

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New Drug Said to Work Better for Cardiac Arrest

A naturally occurring hormone called vasopressin appears to be better than the century-old standard -- epinephrine -- in treating the worst cases of cardiac arrest, HealthDay reports.

A European study found vasopressin raised the odds of surviving cardiac arrest in those cases by as much as 50 percent when compared to epinephrine. The findings appear in the Jan. 8 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Some 600,000 people die from sudden death every year in North America and Europe, according to the study. The American Heart Association (AHA) estimates that 95 percent of people who have cardiac arrest die before they even get to the hospital. Those lucky enough to be treated with a defibrillator in the first five to seven minutes fare considerably better, but still more than half will die, according to the AHA.

For the study, nearly 1,200 people in cardiac arrest were randomly selected to be treated either with vasopressin, an antidiuretic hormone, or with epinephrine, which has been the standard treatment for roughly a century. Of those, 589 were given vasopressin and 597 received epinephrine.

In an accompanying editorial in the journal, Dr. Kevin McIntyre from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston calls this study "an important breakthrough in the science of resuscitation," and says new guidelines for treating cardiac arrest should be developed based on this research.

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Pentagon Can Resume Mandatory Anthrax Shots

A federal judge on Wednesday lifted his order banning the Pentagon from forcing military personnel to receive an anthrax shot against their will.

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller told the Associated Press that U.S. District Judge Emmitt Sullivan delivered his order from the bench in Washington, D.C. He had halted the shots in a Dec. 22 ruling.

The lift enables the Pentagon to resume its anthrax vaccination program except for the six plaintiffs who originally filed the lawsuit, according to the AP. The military has not said whether it intends to continue the vaccinations, the wire service reported.

Sullivan said in his original ruling that military personnel should not be used as "guinea pigs" for what he called an experimental vaccine. He said the vaccine was not proven to be effective against inhalation anthrax.

The U.S. government has maintained for years that the vaccine is not experimental. That was reinforced on Dec. 30, when the Food and Drug Administration said again that anthrax shots are safe and effective. The Justice Department, citing the FDA determination, asked Sullivan to lift his order, according to the AP.

Some 900,000 personnel have received the shot since 1998, but hundreds have also been punished for refusing, the AP reports.

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HMO to Routinely Screen for Cervical Cancer

Kaiser Permanente will become the first health care organization in the country to begin routinely screen women for cervical cancer by using a newly approved test for a virus commonly linked to the disease.

The test looks for the DNA presence of human papillomavirus (HPV), which has been associated with almost all cases of cervical cancer. The test will be given to all women over 30 in Kaiser Permanente's Northern California region, along with a Pap smear, during routine checkups, the company announced Wednesday.

"Cervical cancer is one of the few cancers we know how to prevent," Dr. Walter Kinney, a gynecologist with Kaiser, said in a statement. "This enhanced testing enables us to more accurately predict which women are at risk of cervical cancer and which women can be spared unnecessary invasive procedures."

Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer in women, and one that can be easily treated if caught early. HPV, a sexually transmitted virus, is found in 99.7 percent of cervical cancer cases.

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CDC Says Flu Season Still Hasn't Peaked

U.S. health officials don't believe the already harsh flu season has reached its peak.

Forty-two states still report widespread flu activity, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

"If you look at overall data from nationwide surveillance, it doesn't look like it's peaked yet," CDC flu expert Dr. Scott Harper tells the Associated Press.

This year's season began unusually early, and seems to have hit children particularly hard. The CDC's most current figures show 42 child deaths from flu so far this season -- about half of them under age 5. An average of 92 children die from the virus during a typical season, the CDC says.

As proof that the nationwide outbreak may not be ebbing, a new federal survey of 122 cities shows flu and pneumonia combined for 9 percent of all deaths last week. That's up from 7.8 percent the prior week, the AP reports.

On a positive note, five states are no longer reporting widespread flu activity: Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Washington state, and West Vi

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