For years, California law required psychotherapists to report any patient who admitted developing, duplicating, printing or exchanging material depicting an obscene act involving a child. The therapists accepted that requirement. They regarded it as an obligation to report producers and distributors of child pornography. But when the Legislature amended the law in 2014 to reflect new technology, many therapists balked, complaining the new wording required them to inform on patients who posed no threat to others.

The new owner of a consumer DNA database that has powered a revolution in forensics vowed to resist attempts by police to circumvent the site’s privacy rules.

The use of a unique set of cells — human fetal tissue cells — has led to immense medical breakthroughs, but President Donald Trump, to the delight of many anti-abortion groups, has thwarted any such future scientific advances by placing an additional layer of scrutiny on National Institutes of Health (NIH) research proposals that would use these cells.

The French ban on direct-to-consumer genetic testing is part of the country’s bioethics laws, which legislators are supposed to revise every seven years. When those discussions got under way earlier this year, some geneticists expected the National Assembly to relax the rules about commercial DNA analysis. It didn’t.

Unwed pregnant women in China face a legal gray zone where they are unable to access public services for themselves and their children.

The state of California will pay $3.85 million to researchers at the University of California, Davis, to develop the nation’s first program to train health care professionals to help their patients reduce firearm-related injury and death, university officials announced Tuesday.

Last March, Canada’s department of health changed the way it handles the huge amount of data that companies submit when seeking approval for a new drug, biological treatment, or medical device — or a new use for an existing one. For the first time, Health Canada is making large chunks of this information publicly available after it approves or rejects applications.

The agency sent a warning letter to the company. In a separate letter, it also requested more information about the company’s outreach to students, health insurers, employers and Native American tribes.

Religious exemptions for vaccinations are no longer available. With the start of the school year, some parents face a reckoning.

Responding to the agency’s stern rebuke, Vas Narasimhan, the company’s executive, tried to reassure investors that Novartis did not intentionally deceive the F.D.A. while seeking approval for its $2.1 million gene therapy.