January 4, 1994

A NEW study on asthma adds to the evidence debunking a myth that children usually outgrow the common and sometimes fatal lung disease, which is an increasing public health problem in the United States and many other countries. The incidence of asthma and deaths from it have risen sharply in recent years, but the reasons are not known. For decades, doctors have told anxious parents that their children's symptoms of wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and difficulty in breathing were likely to disappear as the children grew older.

Toys "R" Us Inc., the nation's largest toy retailer, reported yesterday that its Christmas sales had exceeded analysts' expectations and that it was giving more responsibility to two senior executives as part of a management succession plan. Michael Goldstein, 52, was named chief executive, effective on Feb. 1, becoming the heir apparent to Charles Lazarus, the company's 70-year-old founder, who remains chairman.

Rudolph W. Giuliani's administration settled in yesterday for the first full day at work at City Hall, searching for furniture and learning new phone numbers and new relationships. And if proximity is power, the new office layout was, if not a map of influence, certainly one of the first hints about the inner workings of the new administration. Deputy Mayor Peter J. Powers, longtime friend of Mr. Giuliani, settled in the most prestigious work space, the one First Deputy Mayor Norman Steisel had, near the Mayor, and at the end of the main hallway with a view of all the comings and goings of City Hall.

Despite a decade-long push by private and government organizations to market older people as reliable and mature workers, advocates for people 55 and older say their efforts have largely failed. They say that employers continue to view age not in terms of experience or stability but as deterioration and staleness. People who have worked to promote the older labor force say that 10 years ago they were confident that, through intensive public relations and educational efforts, American businesses would recognize and harness what they argued are the skills of older workers. Although it is impossible to tally how much money went toward that end, people who work in the field estimated that tens of millions of dollars were spent nationwide on studies, job fairs, seminars for executives and advertising.

R. H. Macy & Company reacted coolly yesterday to efforts by Federated Department Stores, a longtime rival, add Macy to its stable of stores, which already includes two other New York mainstaysx Bloomingdale's and Abraham & Straus. Allen I. Questrom, Federated's chief executive, visited the flagship Macy's store in Herald Square yesterday to make a personal appeal to Myron E. Ullman 3d, Macy's chairman and chief executive, to keep discussions from turning hostile.