Health Highlights: July 30, 2008

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

Salmonella Found at 2nd Mexican Farm

The strain of salmonella that has been linked to more than 1,300 illnesses in the United States has been found on a second farm in Mexico, theAssociated Pressreported Wednesday.

"We have a smoking gun, it appears," Lonnie King, the chief of the Centers for Disease Control's center for foodborne illnesses, told theAP.

But health officials cautioned that the investigation wasn't over and that contamination of several different types of produce was still possible.

The latest farm to have contamination, in this case tainted irrigation water and a contaminated serrano pepper, was identified in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, theAPreported. Previously, contamination of a sample of jalapeno peppers was identified at another Mexican farm in a different part of the country.

Fresh tomatoes had been the suspected source of the nationwide outbreak that began in April. But two weeks ago, U.S. health officials cleared the current crop for consumers. And at the start of last week, they found the first tainted pepper. And by the end of last week, they had narrowed the source to crops in Mexico, not the United States.

Meanwhile, in British Columbia, Canadian health officials were struggling with their own salmonella outbreak, which apparently has sickened hundreds, according to theGlobe and Mail.

The bacteria strain of isSalmonella enteritidis, health officials said, which is linked to poultry and egg products.

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Alzheimer's Drug Shows No Benefit in Most Patients

The experimental Alzheimer's drug bapineuzumab showed no benefit for most patients and was linked to a brain-swelling condition called vasogenic edema, says a study presented Tuesday at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Chicago.