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New York (CBS) --
THE SLIDE ON WALL STREET HITS HOME
With the year about half over, stock market values as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average are down more than 14% from what they were six months ago. Whatever gains had been made since September of 2006 have been erased.
Uncertainty about oil and about credit have been driving the market down and investors crazy
The spike in oil and food prices comes just when financial markets were already reeling, and even people who had planned ahead have been watching with horror as the values they've been building up have been heading south.
"Between our investments, our stock portfolio, 401k, stock options, all that stuff --- it took about a 20-to-25 percent hit," said Chris Cichorek.
Take Chris and Val Cichorek and their family.
"We worked really, really hard and saved up quite a bit --- and it's like a punch in the gut," said Cichorek.
Their son Kyle is already in college. Daughter Sarah just graduated from high school. And although she has a partial scholarship to college in the fall, making up the difference is going to be a problem.
"We're going online and hunting for the best interest rate for college loans --- that's what my Monday morning's going to look like," said Cichorek.
They don't want to sell stocks at this point. But they may have to, what with declining home values and the price of food and fuel being what it is. And what they thought was their ace in the hole has them, and a lot of people like them, in a hole. Financial planners and experts are seeing that.
"The people that have the most to worry about in this drop are people that were way overexposed to stocks," said Gary Schatsky, financial planner.
"One sign that people are in real stress is that they're taking hardship withdrawals on their 401K's --- they're up 16-percent over last year. Now that's something you do as an absolute last resort," said Jordan Goodman, personal finance expert.
The Cichorek's aren't at that point, yet. But as Val Cichorek tells our Tony Guida.
"I wonder if we're going to make it. We may be living with our children," laughs Val Cichorek.
IMPROVING A DRUG AIMED AT FIGHTING CANCER
One of the last experiments that cancer researcher Dr. Judah Folkman was overseeing when he died in January was an improvement in what he called angiogenesis therapy: starving tumors by preventing them from getting the blood they need.
But the experimental drug Folkman and Harvard's Donald Ingber developed to do that --- called TNP-470 --- affected the brain, caused depression and dizziness --- and there were other side effects. And it required repeated infusions, because it just wouldn't stay in the body long enough to do what it was supposed to. So the lab dropped it, and moved on to other things.
But now some of their colleagues, notably Ofra Benny of Children's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School say they've found a way to administer the drug in a pill. And they say tests in mice show it works against a range of tumors including breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, and brain tumors known as glioblastomas.
Maybe Dr. Folkman was on to something, after all.
It was Harvard's Donald Ingber who accidentally discovered a fungus, called Aspergillus fumigatus fresenius, while trying to grow cells like those that line blood vessels. This mold seemed to prevent the growth of capillaries, those tiny blood vessels that carry blood to tumors.
Ingber and Folkman reasoned that a drug isolated from this fungus might be able to starve the tumors and make them go away. Dr. Benny and other former colleagues say they've used nanotechnology to attach some pom-pom shaped polymers to the experimental drug, so that it can now be taken by mouth.
Now called lodamin, the drug is being tested on mice, and the results have been successful against very aggressive tumor models. Dr. Benny says lodamin may also be useful in treating other diseases marked by abnormal blood vessel growth, including age-related macular degeneration in the eye.
It is still too early to make any claims about human cancers. But the hope is that human trials will be approved --- and then, we shall see.
A RULING THAT BACKS A BENEFIT CUT IN RETIREE PLANS
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently issued a new regulation allowing employers to establish two classes of retirees. Those under 65 years of age can get more comprehensive health benefits than those 65 or older. In fact, under this regulation, for the older group the companies can drop health benefits altogether.
There's no federal law that says employers have to provide health benefits to any employees, active or retired. And some companies and unions told the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that if they had to provide the same benefits to those under 65 - and those 65 and over, they'd just drop health benefits altogether.
So, the Commission is saying OK, you can treat them differently.
"When someone reaches 65, if the employer has to continue to cover them as a retiree and not coordinate with Medicare, it increases their costs hugely," said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health.
Helen Darling is President of the National Business Group on Health, which represents large employers. This policy is not something radically different or new, she says.
"It's not like it's a negative change. It's been validating what's been going on since 1965," said Darling.
If companies want to pay for health coverage of all employees and retirees regardless of age, they can.
"As long as they can coordinate with Medicare, which they've been able to since 1965, if anyone provides retiree medical after retirement, then they might consider continuing to do it," said Darling.
So, if your company wants to, it can. But now that the rule gives employers free rein to use age as a basis for reducing or eliminating health care, you better not count on it.
"Almost no employers provide health care coverage anymore after someone retires. So we're talking about a small number of people --- except in the public sector, which is huge," said Darling.
PUT ON A HAPPY HEART
Two separate studies --- one from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland reported in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, and another from University College London published in the American Journal of Epidemiology --- say that neurotic people who worry a lot are more likely to die of cardiovascular disease, that extroverted people who are friendly and outgoing are apparently protected from respiratory disease ... and that upbeat, happy people have lower levels of cortisol --- a stress hormone that when elevated may contribute to high blood pressure, abdominal obesity and dampened immune function.
Bottom line: it's healthy to be happy.
Dr. Andrew Steptoe of University College London says he and his colleagues have found biological links between positive states of mind and health. These findings are evidence that happiness and other positive emotions and associated with biological responses that are health protective.
That sounds like that song from "Bye Bye Birdie."
Dr. Beverly A. Shipley and her team at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland found that an increased degree of neuroticism is tied to increased death from any cause, but especially cardiovascular disease ... and that extraversion reduces a person's likelihood of dying from respiratory disease. So, Mr. Van Dyke, put on a happy face…
In other words, medical research confirms...put on a happy face.
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