Today's Globe: egg and sperm donations, seat belts, scabies outbreak, health insurance fraud suit, Levy-led bloggers' rally, obesity in children, Alzheimer's and driving, itch, poverty and children's brains, interrogations, VA patient's HIV

Charitable donations may be down because of the recession, but another type of donation is up for the very same reason: egg and sperm.

Massachusetts ranked last among the states in its rate of seat belt use last year, extending a dismal trend that has prompted renewed calls for a tougher seat belt law.

City health workers are investigating a scabies outbreak at an East Boston day-care center.

Attorney General Martha Coakley's office yesterday sued three individuals and two companies from New Jersey, alleging that they marketed and sold fraudulent health insurance to hundreds of Massachusetts residents (fifth item).

Nearly 20 bloggers launched a "blog rally," organized by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CEO Paul Levy, to support The Boston Globe and seek ideas to help the financially struggling newspaper, threatened with a shutdown by its owner, The New York Times Co.

A striking new study says almost one in five American 4-year-olds is obese, and the rate is alarmingly higher among American Indian children, with nearly one-third of them obese.

Scientists are creating tests to show when it is time for people with early Alzheimer's disease to stop driving.

Neuroscientists at the University of Minnesota report that specialized cells in the spinal cord appear to be critically involved in producing the sensation of itch and the feeling of relief after the application of fingernails, at least in healthy individuals.

Chronic stress from growing up poor appears to have a direct impact on the brain, leaving children with impairment in at least one key area - working memory.

Medical personnel were deeply involved in the abusive interrogation of terrorist suspects held overseas by the CIA, including torture, and their participation was a "gross breach of medical ethics," a long-secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross has concluded.

A Veterans Affairs patient who was among thousands treated with unsterilized equipment has tested positive for HIV, the first such case reported since the department warned veterans they could have been exposed to infectious diseases.