Journal Gazette from Mattoon, Illinois • Page 10

STATENATION MID-ILLINOIS NEWSPAPERS AlO WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2001 Thc Fed slashes rates a half-point In an effort to keep the struggling economy afloat, the Federal Reserve cut the federal funds rate Tuesday by a half-point. Federal Reserve provides fifth half-point interest rale cut to spur economy i 1 Federal funds rate 4.0 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 '01 Commercial banks are cutting their prime rate effective Wednesday. Note: In months in which a rate was changed several times, the last change of the month is shown. By The Associated Press WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve, still trying to resuscitate the weak economy, cut interest rates a half point further on Tuesday, pushing borrowing costs for millions of Americans to the lowest level in seven years. It was the Fed's fifth half-point reduction this year, extending a rapid-fire string of moves in its most aggressive easing campaign under Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Since the first of the year the central bank has pushed its target for the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other, from 6.5 percent down to 4 percent. Economists said the Fed clearly signaled in a brief statement that it was prepared to cut rates even further, Many predicted another reduction at the next meeting on June 26-27. "The Fed is worried that we are not out of the woods yet in terms of avoiding a recession," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard Poor's in New York. "Greenspan does not want another recession on his watch." The nation's commercial banks quickly followed the Fed's mid-afternoon announcement by cutting their prime lending rate, the benchmark for millions of short-term consumer and business loans, from 7.5 percent to 7 percent, the lowest since April 1994. In contrast to the rapid pace of the Fed's rate cuts this year, which have lowered interest rates by 2.5 percentage points in 4.5 months, it took the agency 14 months to accomplish the same amount of credit easing during the 1990-91 recession, the nation's only downturn since Greenspan took over as Federal Reserve chief in 1987.

"It is clear that the Fed is going to do everything it can to make sure the economy does not slip any further," said Martin Regalia, chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Wall Street, where the rate cut had been widely anticipated, took Tuesday's announcement in stride. The Dow Jones industrial average finished the day down 4.36 points at 10,873. The muted reaction was in sharp contrast to the 399-point rally triggered by the Fed's last rate move on April 18, which caught investors by sur-prise.

In its statement Tuesday, Federal Reserve policy-makers expressed continued worries about sagging corporate profits and business plans to slash spending on new plants and equipment, a driving force in the current expansion. "The erosion in current and prospective profitability, in combination with considerable uncertainty about the busjness outlook, seems likely to hold down capital spending going forward," the Federal Reserve said in its Significantly, according to ana lysts, the Fed did not express worries that the recent jump in energy prices could lead to a wider breakout of inflation pressures, something that would restrain its ability to lower rates. "With pressures on labor and product markets easing, inflation is expected to remain contained," the Fed said. The policy-makers said they remained convinced that the balance of risks remained weighted toward "economic weakness." While retail sales posted a surprisingly strong rebound in April, after two monthly declines, the current fear is that the rising unemployment rate could shake Americans' confidence and cause a big cutback in consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of economic activity. The jobless rate jumped to 4.5 percent in April as businesses slashed payrolls by the largest amount in a decade, reflecting continued big layoffs in manufactur- AP avoid a recession, but many also said a significant rebound is not likely until the final quarter of this While some analysts predicted that the Fed's funds rate would be cut by another half-point to 3.5 percent at the June meeting, other analysts said the central bank may choose to revert back to its more normal quarter-point cuts at both the June and August meetings.

Nllrl calls for more aggressive treatment of high cholesterol i 1 associatkd press photo John Hosfeld, a CSX official, prepares to board a runaway train south of Kenton, Ohio, in this image from television Tuesday. A runaway freight, train carrying hazardous materials rolled for miles through Ohio Tuesday at speeds close to 50 mph with no one aboard. The CSX train of about 40 cars carried some rand of combustible material, the Hancock County Sheriffs Department said. Authorities could not identify the material. Runaway train stopped after rolling nearly 70 miles with hazardous materials SOURCE: Federal Reserve ing.

Jerry Jasinowski, the president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said the Fed's latest rate cut should jump-start growth by late this year. He urged Congress to do its part to stimulate the economy by passing President Bush's tax cut program. Most forecasters said they believe the country will be able to counties, passing through farm fields, several villages and the cities of Bowling Green and Findlay. It also ran parallel to Interstate 75 at times. "CSX brought a catch engine in behind the train, and hooked it on the back of the train to slow it down," said Hardin County sheriffs Sgt.

Dennis Alexander. When the train slowed to about 10 mph near Kenton, Jon Hosfeld, a 31-year employee of CSX, ran alongside the train, grabbed a railing on the locomotive, pulled himself up and stopped it, authorities said. CSX said there was minor damage to some cars. The train carried weed killer The Harvard researchers ques tioned 15,341 children ages 9 to 14 and their mothers in 1996 and 1997. Youngsters who were breast-fed more than formula-fed were about 20 percent less likely to be overweight than children fed only or mostly formula.

The link was weakened slightly when mothers' weight was factored in. Lead author Dr. Matthew Gillman theorized that breast-fed babies learn to food intake better than formula-fed infants because they may have better control over stopping feeding when they are full. By contrast, parents who use formula may see an unfinished bottle and try to induce their infants to drink more, unwittingly encouraging them to ignore their bodies' own hunger cues. That could raise the risk of weight problems later on.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that -babies get only breast milk during WASHINGTON (AP) To cut their risk of heart disease, nearly three times as many Americans should be taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, and they and millions more ought to be eating fewer burgers and other fats, exercising more and losing weight, the gov-ernment says. "This is something we cannot be complacent about," Dr. Claude Lenfant, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, said Tuesday in announcing the new recommendations. Heart disease risk is much higher than has been recognized, added Dr. James I.

Cleeman, director of the National Cholesterol Education Program. Already, heart disease kills Americans annually. The new guidelines, being published in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, call for early testing for cholesterol, recommend a diet with low levels of saturated fats and increased fiber, and urge people to strive for at least 30 minutes of exercise daily. Dr. Scott M.

Grundy of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas said that if the new guidelines are followed, they have the potential to reduce heart disease by 30 percent to 40 percent. "In terms of cost-effectiveness, diet is clearly the winner, if people will follow the diet," Grundy said. "There's a problem with adherence. People start their diet or medication, but they don't stick with it. We need to work on that." An estimated 53 million Americans have high cholesterol and millions more are borderline.

Diet and exercise, termed therapeutic lifestyle changes, can benefit 65 million adults in both high and low heart-disease risk categories, the physicians stressed. The new recommendations urge at least some form of mild exercise brisk walking, bicycling, swimming -r and even include a selection of suggested QiQWMiMtM! Mxi in. am 1 1- i'l'llFllil'l rofiir nr. 14313 if. iiwmnw i mm I-LHGM 5fH recipes, ranging from corn chowder to spinach stuffed sole, chicken marsala, Bavarian beef and many others on the Institute's internet site: http:www.nhlbi.nih.gov.

The diet limits saturated fats to 7 percent of total calories and increases intake of soluble fiber and plant stanols. Plant stanols are included in certain margarines and salad dressings. Foods high in soluble fiber includes legumes, cereal grains, peas, beans and many fruits and vegetables. For people at high risk, the guidelines call for more aggressive medical treatment, adding drugs to the lifestyle changes. The guidelines increase the number of people thought to need cholesterol-lowering drugs from about 13 million Americans to 36 million.

The recommendations update guidelines issued eight years ago. They set the same level of 200 milligrams or less of total cholesterol per deciliter of blood as advisable and 240 mg as too high. While people under 240 mg are not usually given treatment now, the guidelines urge lifestyle changes for those between 200 mg and 240 mg. The new guidelines add more detail, setting 100 mg as the optimal level of low-density lipoprotein, the so called "bad" cholesterol that can accumulate in the arteries, eventually causing heart attack or stroke. For LDL, a reading of 100 to 129 is above optimal, 130 to 159 is borderline high, 160 to 189 is high and 190 and above is very high.

For HDL, known as "good" cholesterol, the guidelines set a reading of 40 mg as too low, up from the 35 mg previously considered too low. HDL can reduce the risk of heart disease. The guidelines also call on doctors to give more detailed blood tests to check cholesterol levels and urge them to consider multiple risk factors for heart disease in deciding on treatment. -d cell Artery 29,600 where the train passed through. The sheriffs department at first said the engineer had apparently suffered a heart attack.

However, authorities later said no one was aboard. CSX spokesman Dan Murphy said the train was being assembled at a C.SX installation near Toledo when for reasons that are unclear, it left the rail yard under its own power. Several people saw it and alerted CSX officials. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Railroad Administration are investigating. The train rolled through at least two northwestern Ohio and other, flammable chemicals, said Kelli Blackwell, spokeswoman for the Ohio Emergency Management Agency.

At one point, police evacuated about 100 workers at a meat processing plant near the village of North Baltimore when authorities attempted to stop the train. Authorities had tried to derail the train once near Findlay, where the train rolled past houses and factories, passing through back yards and within 50 feet of some homes. There were no evacuations in the city of about 40,000. "We were prepared for it, but we didn't need to," Hancock County Chief Deputy Doug Wilcox said. Low-fat milk? In a study by researchers at Harvard University, children who were breast-fed were less likely to be overweight by adolescence.

Percentage overweight By feeding category studies suggest that children may be leaner KENTON, Ohio (AP) A runaway freight train carrying weed killer and other hazardous materials rolled about 70 miles through Ohio with no one aboard Tuesdav before a railroad employee jumped onto the locomotive and brought it to a stop. Patrol cars raced ahead of the train to block off traffic at crossings and sheriffs deputies tried to peer inside the locomotive as the CSX train of 47 cars lumbered through cities and villages, rolling past at 46 mph at one point. "It would have been a disaster if it would've derailed in town," said Sgt. Major Mike Blair of the Wood County sheriffs office in Bowling Green, a city of about Two breast-fed CHICAGO (AP) Two new studies add to the evidence that breast-fed infants may be less likely to become overweight later in childhood. In a study by Harvard researchers, the longer infants were breast-fed, the less likely they were to be overweight in adolescence.

In the second study, government researchers found that breast-fed infants tended to be leaner at ages 3 to 5 than formula-fed infants, but the duration of breast-feeding did not make much difference. The studies, published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, do not answer whether breast milk itself, the act of breast-feeding or socioeconomic and lifestyle traits in the infants' mothers might explain the results. The government study also suggests that other factors, including i the mother's weight, are much -more important determinants of a- new Boys Girls Formula only 10.0 6.8 Mostly formula 12.0 6.2 Equal amounts 10.8 4.5 Mostly breast milk 7.9 4.4 Breast milk only 7.1 4.1 (. By months of breast-feeding I Boys Girls No breast-feeding 9.9 6.4 Less than one 15.5 6.6 One to three 11.6 5.2 Four to six 8.6 5.0 Seven to nine 7.9 5.3 More than nine 6.8 3.8 I child's weight. It found that children were three times more likely to be overweight if their mothers were overweight "Obesity tends to run in families," said Mary Hediger, a biologist at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and lead author of the study.

"Whether or not that's modifiable by breast-feeding remains to be seen." She said that higher-income, better-educated women are more likely to breast-feed and that overweight women are less likely to breast-feed than normal-weight women. Her study is based on 1988-94 data from a nationally representative government survey. The researchers also interviewed the mothers of 2,685 children and gave the youngsters physical exams when they were ages 3 to 5. Children who were breast-fed as infants were 16 percent less likely to be overweight. "Good" cholesterol, high-density lipoproteins (HDL), does not cause lesions.

The molecules have receptors (hat pick up "bad" cholesterol and transport it to the liver for removal. New guidelines Intensifying the use of diet, physical activity and weight control will help lower blood cholesterol. About 200 milligrams per deciliter of total cholesterol is the desirable level. Here is a breakdown, in milligrams per deciliter. Borderline "Good" cholesterol Optimal limit for "bad" high LDL: High LDL Veryhigh is too low: 35 cholesterol, LDL: 100 130-159 160 LDL: 190 SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association AP their first six months, except in rare caaco.

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