Pregnant women taking a drug used to treat epilepsy may be increasing their child’s chance of developing autism, research suggested today.

EIGHTEEN pork plant workers in Minnesota, at least five in Indiana and one in Nebraska have come down with a mysterious neurological condition they appear to have contracted while removing brains from slaughtered pigs, US researchers and health officials said.

Antioxidant drugs may help prevent disabling dementia caused by the Aids virus, scientists have discovered.