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

Terri Schiavo Given Last Rites

Terri Schiavo received last rites on Easter Sunday, and one of two priests who visited her said the brain-damaged woman's death is "imminent."

An Associated Press report said the 41-year-old woman, who is now in her 10th day without food or water, also received communion wine after her husband allowed her to receive the sacrament.

As her brother, sister and brother-in-law looked on in the Pinellas Park, Fla., hospice, the Rev. Thaddeus Malanowski held Schiavo's right hand as he and hospice priest Rev. Joseph Braun placed the droplet on her tongue. Malanowski also anointed her with holy oil, offered a blessing and absolved her of sin.

"She received the blood of Christ," said Malanowski, according the wire service report. He added that he could not give her a fleck of communion bread because her tongue was too dry.

Her parents, their legal options apparently exhausted on Saturday, had asked supporters to return home to spend Easter Sunday with their families.

But four supporters were arrested outside the hospice Sunday morning, and about a half-dozen people in wheelchairs later got out of them and lay in the driveway, shouting "We're not dead yet!" the AP said.

On Saturday, the Florida judge who ordered the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube again rejected her parents' plea for its reinstatement.

With that ruling, made by Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer shortly after noon, the legal battle for the life of the dying woman apparently ended.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta Friday night had declined Bob and Mary Schindler's request to overturn a federal judge's decision. According to attorney Barbara Weller, the couple would take the federal fight no further.

But Saturday afternoon, the parents' attorney appealed the state ruling to the Florida Supreme Court, which had refused earlier in the week to consider the case, CNN reported. Late Saturday, the state Supreme Court turned aside their petition, according to wire reports.

In his ruling Saturday, Greer rejected arguments by Schiavo's parents that their daughter tried to say "I want to live" before her feeding tube was removed March 18.

Greer, who has presided over the case for several years and whose rulings have been consistently upheld on appeal, said that "all of the credible medical evidence this court has received over the last five years" suggests Schiavo's behavior is not a product of cognitive awareness. Doctors have said Schiavo's past utterances were involuntary moans consistent with someone in a persistent vegetative state, AP reported.

"Any fair observer would say that the legal struggle is over here," said George Felos, the attorney for Schiavo's husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, during a media briefing Saturday.

Through a series of legal battles up to the U.S. Supreme Court and back, Michael Schiavo has maintained that his wife would not want to live in her current condition.

Terri Schiavo suffered what court-appointed doctors have called irreversible brain damage 15 years ago when her heart stopped due to a chemical imbalance, believed to have been caused by an eating disorder. The legal showdown has spanned more than seven years, with rulings by more than 20 different state and federal courts.

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Pope Misses Easter Monday Blessing

Pope John Paul II failed to appear Monday at the traditional day-after Easter blessing, raising speculation about his health.

The pope traditionally appears at high noon at his window overlooking St. Peter's Square, marking the end of Holy Week.

On Easter Sunday, the frail pope blessed tens of thousands of pilgrims and tourists who filled the square in Rome.

The 84-year-old pontiff, who is recovering from two recent hospitalizations for breathing crises, made the sign of the cross with his hand, but was unable to speak. His aides had prepared a microphone, and the pope seemed to try to say a few words from his studio window. He remained at the window for 12 minutes, the Associated Press reported.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who presided over Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square, read the pope's message as the pontiff followed the text from his studio. It was the first time since his papacy began in 1978 that Easter Sunday Mass at the Vatican began without the pope, the AP said.

John Paul did not participate in any of the major Holy Week services, a clear sign of his weakened condition, the news service said.

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Some Pharmacists Refusing Birth Control Prescriptions: Report

Claiming that filling birth control prescriptions would violate their religious beliefs, some pharmacists across the United States are balking at the practice, the Washington Post reported Monday.

"No one knows exactly how often that is happening," the newspaper said, while citing publicized cases in California, Washington, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Texas, New Hampshire, Ohio, and North Carolina. But advocates on both sides say the practice appears to be spreading, the Post reported.

The burgeoning controversy has sparked statehouse debates nationwide as politicians move to pass laws either protecting the pharmacists' rights or forcing them to carry out their duties, the newspaper said.

Pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions often face dismissal or other disciplinary action. On the other side are teenage girls and woman who desperately call their doctors after being turned away by druggists, some of whom cite religious doctrine, the newspaper said.

The issue, the Post said, is likely to intensify if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves over-the-counter sales of the so-called "Plan B" morning-after pill. The plan to sell Plan B this way would make pharmacists the gatekeeper, the newspaper said.

The American Pharmacists Association recently reaffirmed its policy that pharmacists can refuse to fill prescriptions only if customers can get their medications by some other method, the Post said.

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New Therapy Seems to Block Cat Allergies

By fusing a human immune system chemical with the allergen that makes some people sensitive to feline dander, California scientists say they've figured out a way to block cat allergies, according to a report in the April edition of the journal Nature Medicine.

This novel approach may ultimately benefit people with severe food allergies as well, wrote the researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Allergy experts estimate that 14 percent of children 6 to 9 years old are allergic to cats, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which participated in the research.

The treatment involves an engineered molecule that fuses the feline protein Fel d1 that causes the misery among allergy sufferers, along with a piece of a human immunoglobulin (IgG) protein that blocks allergic reactions.

The resulting molecule labeled GFD was tested in mice that had been bred to be allergic to cats. Once injected, the mice reacted to cat dander much like mice that had never been allergic, the scientists said.