First they began offering salad, then they added fruit. On Wednesday, McDonald's announced it would put something else on its menu to help customers watching their waistlines: calorie counts.

The fast food giant said that starting next week, it will begin listing calorie information at its more than 14,000 restaurants and drive-through windows across the United States.

U.S. lawmakers called Wednesday for pressure on China to stop the use of organs from executed inmates, as experts charged that transplants had become a business that may target prisoners of conscience.

At a congressional hearing, experts said the United States could act by restricting its citizens from seeking suspicious transplants overseas and by pressing Chinese doctors through international professional organizations.

Deaths linked to the West Nile virus jumped 35 percent in the United States over the past week, amid one of the worst U.S. outbreaks of the mosquito-borne disease, officials said Wednesday.

As of Tuesday, a total of 118 fatalities have been blamed on West Nile virus infections since the beginning of the year, up from 87 on September 2, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The number of cases rose to 2,636 from 1,993 during the same time frame, a 32 percent increase.

The U.S. government has fined a private school for refusing to accept a 13-year-old with HIV, saying it violated a federal anti-discrimination law, the Justice Department said.

The charity-funded school in Pennsylvania said it had "discontinued processing" Abraham Smith's application when it learned he had the virus that causes AIDS, according to a copy of the legal settlement released Wednesday.

Australia slammed as a "sick joke" Wednesday new cigarette packs on sale as part of the national phase-in to plain packaging which play on drab branding and claim it's "what's on the inside that counts."

Tobacco products in Australia will have to be sold in drab, uniform khaki packaging with graphic health warnings from December 1 under a new anti-smoking policy upheld last month by the nation's highest court.

U.S. regulators accused French cosmetics giant L'Oreal of misleading claims in marketing its Lancome line of anti-aging products, according to a letter released Tuesday.

In the letter, addressed to the president of L'Oreal-owned Lancome USA, the Food and Drug Administration said some Lancome products advertised online carry claims that "are intended to affect the structure or any function of the human body, rendering them drugs" under U.S. law.

Asthma patients may not need daily doses of inhaled steroids according to a study out Tuesday, a finding that could alter treatment for millions suffering from the respiratory ailment.

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston found that people who use corticosteroids every day to control mild asthma do no better than those who use them only when they have symptoms.

Omega-3 fatty acids, hailed by some for properties said to enhance heart health, were found to have no effect in reducing the risk of stroke, heart attack or death, according to a study released Tuesday.

The study, which followed nearly 70,000 patients at a hospital in Greece who were given supplements of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, is published in the September 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Acupuncture gets a thumbs-up for helping relieve pain from chronic headaches, backaches and arthritis in a review of more than two dozen studies — the latest analysis of an often-studied therapy that has as many fans as critics.

Some believe its only powers are a psychological, placebo effect. But some doctors believe even if that's the explanation for acupuncture's effectiveness, there's no reason not to offer it if it makes people feel better.

A prototype vaccine for dengue notched up the best success yet against the disease but failed to protect against all its viral strains, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Tested among just over 4,000 children in rural Thailand who were badly exposed to the mosquito-borne fever, the vaccine had no side effects but only worked against three out of the four dengue strains.