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

U.S. Researchers Develop Avian Flu Vaccine

U.S. health officials say they have successfully tested a vaccine in human trials that they believe can protect against the strain of avian flu that many experts fear could be the source of the next influenza pandemic, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that even though the vaccine has only undergone preliminary testing, it could be used on an emergency basis if a pandemic developed. Still, it will be several months before the vaccine is tested further and, if licensed, offered to the public on a large scale, the newspaper said.

“It’s good news,” Fauci said. “We have a vaccine.”

The bad news, Fauci added, is that “we don’t have all the vaccine we need to meet the possible demand. The critical issue now is, ‘Can we make enough vaccine, given the well-known inability of the vaccine industry to make enough vaccine.’ ”

Researchers in countries including Australia, Canada, France and Japan have been racing to develop a vaccine against the A(H5N1) strain that is spreading among birds throughout Asia and Russia. Infectious-disease experts worry that if the strain mutates and combines with a human flu virus to create a new virus, it could potentially kill tens of millions of people worldwide. The last great pandemic, the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918-19, killed an estimated 50 million people around the world.

Tens of millions of birds have already died from infection with the avian flu virus as well as culling to prevent the virus’ spread. About 100 people have been infected, and about 50 have died from the bird flu strain. So far there has been no sustained human-to-human transmission, the Times reported.

As of Friday night, according to the World Health Organization, the avian strain had killed 57 of the 112 people it had been known to infect in four countries. They are Cambodia (four cases), Indonesia (one case), Thailand (17 cases), and Vietnam (90 cases), according to the newspaper.

U.S. government researchers and others developed the new vaccine, which is produced by the French drug company Sanofi-Pasteur. The federal government could decide to release the vaccine under emergency conditions if an avian flu pandemic struck before the testing process was complete, the Times said.

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FDA Adopts a More Cautious Approach: Report

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is issuing twice as many advisories about potential risks posed by drugs and five times as many black-box warnings — its highest alert — as it did a year ago. And approval times for new drugs is nearly twice as slow, The New York Times reported Saturday.

This seo services new caution comes in the wake of sharp criticism from some members of Congress and consumer advocates who said the agency was doing a poor job of protecting the public from risks posed by drugs.

Much of the criticism followed the revelation last year that certain powerful painkillers called cox-2 inhibitors could increase heart attack and stroke risks. The popular medicines Vioxx and Bextra were subsequently pulled from the market, and another, Celebrex, now carries a warning that it should be prescribed at the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time.

The FDA’s new conservative approach has failed to appease federal lawmakers and upset some doctors, who say the agency’s vague warnings and confusing advice mean that physicians aren’t getting the information they need to avoid health problems but will get blamed for them anyway. And drug makers contend the new wave of warnings is scaring patients wh