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

Bush Administration Nixes Wider Mad Cow Testing

The Bush Administration says it has no plans to expand testing of cattle for mad cow disease, citing -- in the words of unnamed administration officials -- the "gargantuan" cost of testing the 35 million cattle slaughtered each year in the United States, the McClatchy newspaper chain reports.

The administration says it will test 40,000 cattle for the disease in fiscal year 2005 -- the same as this past year. But the new budget will include $47 million more to bolster federal meat-inspection programs and fund a national animal identification system, according to the report published in Friday's Sacramento Bee.

Some Democrats and many consumer groups have called for expanded mad cow testing since a lone Holstein was diagnosed last month with the disease in Washington state. That would cost about $50 for each additional animal tested, the report says.

Administration critics say not every animal would need to be tested, just those over 30 months old that are more prone to the disease -- up to 4 million animals annually. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., notes that "in the first seven months of 2003, not a single cow was tested [for mad cow] in Washington state."

U.S. Agriculture Department officials aren't ruling out the possibility of expanding the testing program later if a team of international experts reviewing the current safeguards recommends doing so, the news report says.

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Medicare May Balk at Paying for Pricey Cancer Drugs

U.S. Medicare officials are close to a decision on whether to deny payment for unapproved uses of expensive cancer drugs, The New York Times reports.

Officials are initially looking at just four drugs -- for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or colorectal cancer. But if they decide to curb paying for unapproved uses of these drugs, their review may expand to other medications with similarly high price tags.

Once a drug has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, doctors may prescribe them for any purpose -- even those beyond conditions sanctioned by the FDA. If Medicare were to stop paying for these so-called "off-label" prescriptions, the cost savings could run into billions of dollars, the Times reports.

But groups representing cancer doctors and patients say they're concerned about limiting access to drugs that, although experimental, may represent a patient's only chance of survival, the report adds.

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Conjoined Twins Allowed to Die

Seven-month-old conjoined twins, removed from their respirators, have died at a San Antonio hospital after doctors told their parents there was little chance they could be saved, the Associated Press reports.

Dawn and Matt Smith made the decision to allow daughters Brynleigh and Victoria to die after doctors informed the parents the twins couldn't be separated and probably would never leave the hospital.

The girls had been hospitalized and on respirators since their birth on July 25. They were connected at the chest, face to face, with their arms curved around each other. The pair shared a heart, liver, diaphragm and portions of their intestines.

The parents have decided to donate the twins' organs to The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a center for conjoined twins study, the AP reports.

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Cinnamon May Have Medicinal Use: Study

Want to add a little spice to your health? Try a daily sprinkle of cinnamon, new research suggests.

Cinnamon appears to lower blood sugar, triglycerides and cholesterol, and improves insulin function -- especially in type 2 diabetics, according to a Human Nutrition Research Center study cited by the Los Angeles Times.

Among 30 patients who took 1 to 6 grams of cinnamon extract for 40 days, average glucose levels fell 18 percent to 29 percent, triglycerides 25 percent to 30 percent, and total cholesterol 12 percent to 26 percent, the Times reports.

The scientists say as little as half a teaspoon of cinnamon appeared to provide benefits that in some cases are nearly as dramatic as those produced by statins -- the cholesterol-lowering drugs that are taken by millions of Americans.

The Beltsville, Md., Center, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says bigger human trials are needed to confirm the findings. Their research appears in the journal Diabetes Care.

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Scientists Trace Transformation of SARS Virus

Scientists have traced the exact genetic changes that turned SARS from a virus that infected only animals to one that struck thousands of people around the globe.

The findings strengthen the argument that SARS originated in animals and gradually became acclimated to human hosts, says a paper appearing in the Jan. 30 issue of Science.

Perhaps most surprising was the speed with which SARS became comfortable in humans, HealthDay reports.

"I'm an evolutionist and I usually deal with evolution over the span of anywhere from 1 million to 30 million years. Usually in the span of 10 million years, you get a number of changes [in organisms] that give you enough information about the dynamics," says Chung-I Wu, one of the 51 authors of the study and chairman of the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago. "The SARS virus does that in a span of three to four months."

The researchers found that the initial human outbreak of SARS began when 11 people were apparently independently infected in the Pearl River Delta area in China's Guangdong Province in November 2002. Viral samples taken from those people seem identical to samples taken from captive civets.

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Canned Chili May Contain Bits of Electronic Calculator

Hormel Foods is recalling 104,000 pounds of canned chili that may contain plastic bits and other material from an electronic calculator, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) says.

The cans of Stagg Chili Steak House Reserve chili with beans, hearty beef with a kick of green chilies were sold six to a case. They bear the following date codes: "S112434", "S112435", or "S112436", and the establishment number "Est. 199C" inside the USDA mark of inspection.

The chili was produced Nov. 24, 2003 and distributed to retail stores in Arizona, California, Colorado, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wisconsin.

For more information, contact Hormel at 800-611-9778.

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