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

Food Labels Must List Allergenic Ingredients

A new U.S. law that takes effect Jan. 1 requires food product labels to clearly inform consumers whether the products contain any ingredients that could affect people with food allergies.

Food labels will have to list ingredients made from any of the eight major allergenic foods — eggs, fish, milk, peanuts, shellfish, soybeans, tree nuts and wheat, the Associated Press reported.

These ingredients account for 90 percent of food allergies, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The law was created in response to concerns that many food product ingredient labels didn’t list allergens or listed them using names that might not be recognizable to consumers, the AP reported.

About 2 percent of adults and 5 percent of children in the United States have food allergies, the FDA said. Each year in the United States, about 30,000 people require emergency department treatment for food allergies and about 150 people die.

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U.S. Establishes Umbilical Cord Blood Databank

President George W. Bush signed legislation Tuesday to establish a U.S. national databank of umbilical cord blood and bone marrow.

The databank is designed to help doctors quickly find a match for patients who need a transplant, the Associated Press reported. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives in May and by the Senate on Dec. 16.

The law will give $79 million in federal funding to increase the number of cord blood units available for transplant matches. The goal is to have 150,000 cord blood units. That would be enough to provide more than 90 percent of patients needing them with a match, the AP reported.

The law also reauthorizes the U.S. national bone marrow transplant system, which is combined with the cord blood in the same database.

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Lawsuit Targets Illinois Law on Emergency Contraceptive

The seo tips American Center for Law and Justice, founded by evangelist Pat Robertson, has filed a lawsuit to stop Illinois from requiring pharmacies to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception.

The lawsuit claims that the Illinois law violates a pharmacist’s right to refuse to provide the contraceptive on religious and moral grounds, the Associated Press reported.

The Illinois law, which took effect in April, says pharmacies that sell federally approved contraceptives must immediately fill prescriptions for emergency birth control if they have the contraceptives in stock. If the contraceptive is not in stock, the pharmacy must order it or transfer the prescription to a pharmacy selected by the patient.

If a druggist refuses to fill the prescription on moral grounds, another pharmacist must be available to fill the prescription.

The seo services legal challenge to the Illinois law is being launched on behalf of five Walgreen Co. pharmacists who were suspended by the company for refusing to dispense the emergency contraceptive. The lawsuit also includes two other pharmacists who fear they may be hit with similar disciplinary action for refusing to dispense the medication, the AP reported.

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U.S. Women Having More ‘Unwanted’ Babies

More American women are having “unwanted” babies, says a survey released Monday by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.

The 2002 survey of 7,643 women, ages 15 to 44, found that 14 percent of their recent births were unwanted at the time of conception, compared to nine percent in a 1995 survey, the Associated Press reported.

Researchers said they don’t know if the increase refle