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

Light Drinking May Harm Fetus: Study

Small amounts of alcohol consumed during pregnancy could harm a woman's fetus, scientists from Detroit's Wayne State University have concluded from new research.

Prior studies have focused on moderate-to-heavy drinking as a source of birth defects collectively known as fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), according to a report in London's Daily Mail newspaper. But even light drinking by a pregnant woman may affect her child's cognitive abilities, including memory and problem solving, the Michigan researchers found.

The study involved 337 African-American children, all aged 7 1/2, who were exposed to alcohol in the womb. The children were able to solve simple memory and math problems as well as average children, but their responses slowed significantly when asked to perform more complex tasks, the newspaper said.

Results of the study appear in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

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5 Idaho Women Have Died From Rare Brain Disorder

Last week's death of a 72-year-old woman from Twin Falls County, Idaho, was the state's fifth fatality since January from a rare, degenerative brain disorder called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), the Idaho Times News reports.

All but one of the women were from Twin Falls County. Brain tissue from some of the victims has been sent to Case Western Research University researchers in Cleveland to be studied for a possible common link, the newspaper said.

This rare form of CJD occurs naturally, and is not the same as variant CJD, which people acquire from eating beef tainted with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly called mad cow disease.

CJD is characterized by abnormally folded proteins in the brain, leading to progressive brain damage. Victims typically die within five months of the disease's onset, the newspaper said, citing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Normally, CJD affects just one person per 1 million people worldwide annually, the Times-News said. The United States normally reports fewer than 300 cases per year, the newspaper said, again citing the CDC.

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No Safety Caps Required for Gasoline Cans

While gasoline is among the most dangerous substances stored at many homes, there's no law requiring child-proof caps on gas containers, according to CBS News.

While a 1970 law called the Poison Prevention Packaging Act requires child-proof caps on everything from pesticides to children's vitamins, gas can makers have argued that they are exempt from the law because they are producing nothing but empty cans, the network reported.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which the network said allows gas can makers to be exempt from the law, at least 19 children have burned to death over the past decade from gas can fires. The agency estimates that there are nearly 80 million gas cans in households nationwide.

Consumer groups, including Public Citizen, have been calling for a new federal standard that would require child-proof caps on all gas cans, so far with no success, the network said.

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Rulings Block Court Action by Medicaid Recipients

A series of recent rulings by U.S. federal judges restrict the ability of low-income Americans to take court action to seek Medicaid benefits that those recipients believe they should receive, according to The New York Times.

The rulings say the courts can't be used by Medicaid recipients to enforce a provision of the law that says recipients should have the same access to health care as the general population.

Similar rulings have been made by judges in more than a dozen cases. The decisions affect millions of people and cover many kinds of health-care services, including home health visits, nursing home care, and preventive care for children, the Times reported.

These court decisions are sparking concerns about the value of having health insurance if the terms of coverage can't be enforced. The judges are making their rulings based on guidance from the Supreme Court, the newspaper said.

More than 50 million low-income Americans are enrolled in Medicaid.

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Bird Flu Spreads to Another Region in Russia

Bird flu has spread to the Chelyabinsk area of the Ural mountains in Russia, the sixth region in that country to be affected by the disease.

The Ural mountains separate Europe and Asia. This latest outbreak in Russia has triggered the slaughter of hundreds more birds, BBC News reported.

The Chelyabinsk area is a major industrial center in Russia. The other five areas in the country affected by bird flu are largely rural.

Officials aren't yet certain if the latest cases in Chelyabinsk were caused by the bird flu strain that's dangerous to humans. A quarantine has been imposed in several villages in Chelyabinsk, BBC News reported.

Bird flu has killed at least 57 people in Southeast Asia since 2003. It's believed that migratory birds carried the virus from Asia to Russia. Health experts worry that bird flu could mix with a flu strain that affects human, potentially leading to a pandemic.

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Indonesia Reports 14 New Polio Cases

There have been 14 new reported cases in the polio outbreak in Indonesia, bringing the total number of cases to 219, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday.

All of the new cases of the crippling disease involve children who haven't received vaccinations to protect against polio, said WHO spokeswoman Sari Setiogi.

"Again, I should stress that vaccination is the only way to prevent a child from being paralyzed," Setiogi told the Associated Press.

This is the first polio outbreak in Indonesia in 10 years. In response, officials launched a vaccination program for up to 6.5 million children. However, about 700,000 children missed out on the vaccine because their parents heard incorrect media reports that the vaccine caused the death of some children, the AP reported.