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

Schiavo's Parents File More Court Appeals

The parents of Terri Schiavo made two last-ditch appeals to save their daughter's life on Friday, pleading with an appellate court in Atlanta to restore her feeding tube despite the court's refusal twice earlier this week to do so.

And in a late-afternoon filing with the presiding judge in the case for the last several years, they asked Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer to order the reinsertion of a feeding tube, claiming Terri Schiavo tried to say "I want to live" when the tube was removed a week earlier.

Bob Schindler visited his daughter for about 15 minutes Friday morning. "Terri is weakening; she's down to her last hours," he told the Associated Press. "So something has to be done, and it has to be done quick."

Earlier Friday, U.S. District Judge James Whittemore ruled against Schindler and his wife, Mary, who had asked him to grant their emergency request to restore the feeding tube while he considered a lawsuit they had filed, the AP reported.

Schiavo, 41, has been without food or water for more than seven days at her Pinellas Park, Fla., hospice and was showing signs of dehydration -- flaky skin, dry tongue and lips, and sunken eyes, according to attorneys and friends of the Schindlers. Doctors have said she would probably die within a week or two of the tube's removal, AP reported.

"Absent a kidnapping, Terri Schiavo is going to remain in the hospice," said George Felos, the attorney for Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, who has maintained that his wife would not want to live in her current condition.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court and a Florida state court refused to intervene in the case, rejecting emergency appeals to keep her alive.

Schiavo suffered what court-appointed doctors have called irreversible brain damage 15 years ago when her heart stopped due to a chemical imbalance, believed to have been caused by an eating disorder. The legal showdown has spanned more than seven years, with more than 20 different state and federal courts making rulings.

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2 More Victims Found With Deadly Kidney Condition

Two more people have been diagnosed with a potentially deadly kidney condition as authorities in Florida continue to probe a possible link to local petting zoos, the Orlando Sentinel reported Friday.

That brings to nine -- eight children and one adult -- the number of people confirmed to have the rare ailment, called hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which attacks and shuts down the kidneys. All but one of the cases involve people living in central Florida. The other is a Wisconsin child who recently visited the Orlando area.

Five of the children are in critical condition and one is listed as serious. The condition of four of the children had deteriorated to the point where they need dialysis, the newspaper said.

Investigators are checking to see if the victims were sickened by bacteria that can be found in animal feces. Many of the children recently touched animals at local area fairs held at the beginning of March. But sources other than petting zoos also are being investigated, including exposure to contaminated food or beverages.

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Abbott Labs to Pull Controversial ADHD Drug

A day after the consumer group Public Citizen petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug Cylert (pemoline), maker Abbott Laboratories said Friday that it had already planned to discontinue the medication because of declining sales.

Public Citizen petitioned the FDA on Thursday, citing reported cases of liver failure among Cylert users. The drug had been used to treat the disorder for some 30 years, the Associated Press reported.

The consumer group cited 193 adverse reactions to the drug from its approval in 1975 to 1996, including 13 cases of acute liver failure.

The company said letters advising doctors of the drug's withdrawal will be mailed within two months, the wire service said.

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FDA Approves Monthly Drug for Osteoporosis

A once-a-month pill to combat the bone-weakening condition osteoporosis was approved Thursday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Boniva (ibandronate sodium), produced and sold by drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and Roche, is the first monthly bone density-building drug, the companies said in a statement. They estimate that some 44 million Americans over age 50 -- mostly women -- are at risk for the disease.

The bone-weakening effects of osteoporosis can lead to severe pain, fractures, deformity, hospitalization, and even death, the companies said.

The safety and effectiveness of Boniva were established during clinical trials involving 1,602 women with postmenopausal osteoporosis, the companies said. The most common side effects included high blood pressure, abdominal pain, upset stomach, nausea, and diarrhea.

The prescription medication is expected to be available in the United States sometime in April, the drugmakers said.

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The 'Pill' May Lower Breast Cancer Risk: Study

Young women with a family history of breast cancer may significantly lower their risk of the disease by taking the contraceptive pill, Australian researchers concluded in a new study.

The research involved 2,000 women with a genetic mutation in the BRCA1 gene that significantly raised their risk of breast cancer, scientists at the University of Melbourne said.

Study participants who took the pill lowered their risk of developing the disease from up to 80 percent to up to 20 percent, the Agence-France Presse wire service reported. Results were the same among participants in Australia, the United States and Canada, the scientists said.

The researchers said they had expected the pill's hormonal components to do just the opposite and increase a woman's risk of breast cancer. They conceded that they couldn't explain the findings, AFP reported.

The study was published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

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EPA Criticized on Bioterror Preparedness

Many U.S. cities aren't getting the early warning protections ordered by the White House last year to detect a bioterror attack, according to a report released Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency's Inspector General's office.

The report by the EPA's internal watchdog found that the agency has failed to ensure the reliability, timeliness and efficiency of air sampling that's supposed to be included in the $129 million BioWatch early warning system run by the Homeland Security Department, the Associated Press reported.

Among the EPA failures: sensors have sometimes been located too far apart; sensors aren't always in secure locations; and the agency sometimes failed to factor in seasonal wind patterns and topography when locating sensors in certain cities, the AP reported.