News of the Week that differed from the structure of the peptide portion of the hapten, nor did they cleave alanine-phenylalanine peptide bonds. Rudy Baum
Morton Thiokol plans to split into two firms Morton Thiokol, the Chicago-based chemical, salt, and aerospace firm, announced last week its intention to form two new companies from the one that currently exists. It will spin off the aerospace unit into a new company called Thiokol Corp., and leave the remainder, including its automobile inflatable restraint (airbag) business, in a new company called Morton International. Under the plan, Morton Thiokol stockholders will receive one share of each of the new companies for every share held in the old company. The company says that problems arising from the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 are in no way linked to the decision to split off the aerospace unit. Morton Thiokol supplied the O-rings for the solid fuel booster rockets that were shown to be the cause of the explosion. However, the aerospace operations unit has been a poor performer relative to the rest of the company—a problem only made worse by increased R&D expenditures needed to correct problems with the booster component.
Chemicals outperform aerospace at Morton Thiokol Operating profit margin, %
a
20 1 Specialty chemicals and salt 15
10 Aerospace 5
0| 1983
1 84
1 85
I 86
I 87
1 88
a Profit before income taxes, interest income, and allocation of certain administrative expenses.
6
March 6, 1989 C&EN
Charles S. Locke, chairman and chief executive officer of Morton Thiokol, says: "The combination of the specialty chemicals, inflatable restraint systems, and salt businesses will create a company with fiscal year 1989 sales approaching $1.5 billion, assets of $1.4 billion, and over 8000 employees." In making the announcement, the company says it is expected that Locke will be elected chairman and chief executive officer of Morton International and that S. Jay Stewart, president and chief operating officer of Morton Thiokol, will retain those titles for Morton International. U. Edwin Garrison, currently group vice president for aerospace, is expected to be elected president and chief operating officer for Thio-
kol, and a search for a chairman will be completed in the near future. The decision to place the inflatable restraint business into Morton International puts another potential big money-maker in that company. Although sales of inflatable restraints are currently low, at a reported $51 million in fiscal 1988, Morton Thiokol has projected that sales will top $200 million by 1991. The transaction, which Morton Thiokol hopes to consummate by July 1, the start of its next fiscal year, is subject to board approval of definitive agreements, to stockholder approval, and to receipt of an Internal Revenue Service ruling that the distribution will be tax-free to Morton Thiokol and its stockholders. William Storck
NRC substantiates earlier diet recommendations After an exhaustive review of the scientific literature on the relationship between diet and disease, a National Research Council panel has issued recommendations that by now sound a familiar nutritional theme: Americans should eat less fat and cholesterol, less salt, and more fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes. But, the panel indicated, what they should do isn't what they are doing. Getting Americans to change their eating habits is the next logical step for the NRC to undertake. Information by itself isn't enough. By eating fewer meat and dairy products a n d more plant foods, Americans can lower the risk of contracting heart disease, hypertension, and some forms of cancer, according to NRC's Committee on Diet & Health. To reach those conclusions, t h e panel members spent three years reviewing more than 5000 epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory experiments involving both humans and animals. "Our recommendations in many cases are similar to earlier ones," says Arno G. Motulsky, chairman of the committee and director of the Center for Inherited Diseases at the University of Washington, Seattle. "But our report is a more extensive and scholarly discussion of all the pros and cons. We sifted all the
evidence and put it down in one place." The current American diet is considerably different from what the panel recommends. To tackle the challenge of getting people to change their diets, a second NRC panel is charged with making policy recommendations for implementing the dietary guidelines. That report, due out in about a year, will address strategies and options available to government agencies, food producers, restaurants, airlines, health professionals, and other groups. The true value of the current tome lies not so much in its recommendations but in the critical evaluation of the scientific literature embedded in its 1300 or so pages. For example, the panel members carefully reviewed the evidence on adverse health effects of food additives and pesticide residues. The report concludes that exposure to individual n o n n u t r i t i v e chemicals in the small quantities normally present in the average diet is not likely to contribute to the overall cancer risk of U.S. residents. However, the report points out that data on human exposure are sketchy, the effects of simultaneous ingestion of many compounds are unknown, and long-term epidemiology studies are needed. Pamela Zurer
