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

Mixed Reviews for U.S. Mad Cow Testing Plan

Mixed responses are greeting this week's announcement that the U.S. Agriculture Department plans to sharply increase testing for mad cow disease.

The plan proposes testing half of the nation's 446,000 "downer" cows, along with 20,000 older, apparently healthy cows at slaughter. A downer cow is an animal that cannot walk or that shows signs of nervous system disorders. Downer cows are deemed to have a higher risk of mad cow disease.

The goal of the new plan is to reassure consumers, the meat industry and trading-partner countries that cows in the United States are being properly tested for mad cow, The New York Times reports.

Some experts in risk analysis praised the plan, saying it's an excellent method of assessing potential problems. But the plan failed to impress some consumer groups and trading partners.

Japan, for example, says it will continue its ban on American beef until every cow slaughtered in the United States is tested for mad cow. The Organic Consumers Association, based in Little Marais, Minn., also says the new plan doesn't go far enough.

Last December, the first and only case of mad cow disease in the United States was discovered in a Holstein in Washington state. The animal had been imported from a cattle farm in Alberta, Canada.

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Las Vegas Hotel Guests Catch Contagious Stomach Virus

More than 1,100 people have become sick after catching the highly contagious Norwalk-like virus while staying in downtown Las Vegas hotels during the past four months.

The city's downtown hotels are trying to contain the virus by stepping up their sanitation efforts. Most of the people who've contracted the Norwalk virus are Hawaii residents who stayed at Boyd Gaming Corp. hotels in downtown Las Vegas, the Associated Press reports.

The virus, which is spread through food, water, and close contact with infected people or things touched by infected people, can cause stomach pain, diarrhea and vomiting for 24 to 48 hours.

Health officials say the number of reported new cases seems to be declining. As of Monday, the total number of reported cases was 1,174.

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FDA Advisers Study Temporary Artificial Heart

U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisers are to discuss today whether a temporary artificial heart works well enough to be approved for sale in the United States.

The CardioWest Total Artificial Heart is being promoted by manufacturer SynCardia Systems Inc. as a way to help keep congestive heart failure patients alive long enough to receive a heart transplant, the Associated Press reports.

The CardioWest is essentially the same as the device used 22 years ago in Barney Clark, the first recipient of a permanent artificial heart. The device, then called the Jarvik-7, kept Clark alive for 112 days.

In a study, 79 percent of 81 patients receiving the CardioWest lived long enough to undergo a heart transplant.

But FDA experts say the study was done in a way that makes it impossible to adequately compare the patients who received the CardioWest with those who didn't. That makes it more difficult to assess the effectiveness of the device, the experts say.

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Drug-Resistant TB Called a Growing Global Problem

Tuberculosis is becoming more and more resistant worldwide to antibiotics, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

As many as 300,000 new cases of drug-resistant TB are reported each year around the world, and about eight of 10 cases are "superstrains" resistant to three of the four first-line antibiotics, according to an analysis of the WHO survey by The New York Times.

The problem is particularly acute in the former Soviet Union, where infected people are 10 times as likely to have drug-resistant strains of TB than anywhere else, the WHO reports.

And the survey's authors say the problem may be even worse than measured, since statistics were difficult to come by in places like Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria.

One expert tells the Times the last new TB drug was introduced in 1963, and newer medications are urgently needed. Shortages often force patients to cut back on medications, allowing the TB bacterium to mutate into forms that are resistant to the drugs.

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Acupuncture Soothes Headaches

Acupuncture provides effective treatment for chronic headaches, British experts say in a study published in the British Medical Journal.

The researchers analyzed 401 people who suffered several days of severe headaches each week. Some received up to 12 acupuncture treatments over three months while those in the control group received other forms of treatment, such as medication, BBC News Online reports.

All of the study participants kept a diary of their headache and medication use and recorded the severity of their headaches on a six-point scale.

The people who received acupuncture had an average of 22 fewer days of headaches per year, made 25 percent fewer visits to the doctor, used 15 percent less medication, and were off work 15 percent less than those in the control group.

"[The study] is very positive for us. This should help to lift acupuncture out of what is seen to be alternative to mainstream medicine," Dr. Mike Cummings, medical director of the British Medical Acupuncture Society, told BBC News.

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Britain Bans Thousands from Donating Blood

Thousands of people in Great Britain have been banned from donating blood due to fears about the human form of mad cow disease.

The ban, which applies to all people who have had blood transfusions since 1980, comes three months after it was revealed that a British man who died from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) may have been infected with the disease when he received a blood transfusion.

The man received the blood in 1997 and developed vCJD six years later, BBC News Online reports.

This is the first reported case of possible vCJD transmission through blood. There is no proof that the man was infected via the blood transfusion but a possible link can't be ruled out.

Health Secretary John Reid described the ban as a "precautionary measure" and says it was about "balancing risks."

The United States, France and a number of other countries already ban blood donations from people who have lived in Great Britain.

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