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American Morning
Kathy Nguyen Dies This Morning from Inhalation Anthrax
Aired October 31, 2001 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: We want to go straight to new York city and get more on, again, that fatal case of anthrax inhalation we just mentioned. Jason Carroll now outside the hospital, Lenox Hill Hospital in New York -- Jason.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, Bill, both the hospital and the medical examiner's office have confirmed that Kathy Nguyen died earlier this morning due to complications from inhalation anthrax. She was 61 years old. Nguyen worked at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital. She worked in the stockroom in the basement, in the same area as the mailroom.
Now the way we understand it, Nguyen become sick on Thursday. She complained of having a headache and severe fever. But she went to work on Thursday, went to work again on Friday. Over the weekend, her condition become much, much worse. Finally, she checked herself into Lenox Hill Hospital on Sunday. At that point, doctors pulled her on a respirator, her condition at that point critical. Bill, this is a baffling case for investigators, because they simply at this point have no idea how contracted the disease.
What they are going to do is, they are going to retrace her steps. They've taken environmental standards from Manhattan Eye, ear And Throat Hospital, about 40 samples; 10 of those samples are back. So far all those samples are negative. In addition to that, they are going out to her house in the Bronx, and we're going to be taking environmental samples from there as well. They will also be interviewing her friends, her coworkers, trying to get information from there.
Unfortunately, Nguyen was so sick, she was unable to provide investigators with much in the way of helpful information.
Also, at this point, this is the first case, the first confirmed case of inhalation anthrax, also the first fatality here in New York City.
Right now, we are waiting for a press conference from Lenox Hill Hospital. Hopefully at that point, we will be able to get some more information about what happened in this case -- Bill.
HEMMER: Jason, you touched on it.
Maybe you can flush it out a bit better for us. When it comes to investigative side on this, knowing they did not have the fair amount of time to talk to this woman, ask her the appropriate questions they would have like, how big or bad of a setback could that be?
CARROLL: It's really tough to tell. In terms of what we are hearing so far from investigators and from health officials, this is the first case of inhalation anthrax in New York City. So they're really just sort of taking it as it comes.
What day are telling us, Bill, is all they can do at this point, is do the best job they can at retracing her steps, taking environmental samples from all of those different points, running those tests, and based on the results of that information, draw conclusions from there.
But at this point, that's really all they have to go on -- Bill.
HEMMER: You mentioned it, too, Jason. Thanks.
Jason Carroll there live in Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.
A bit of medical perspective now on anthrax. Our doctor, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, with us to talk more about that.
Good morning to you once again.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
HEMMER: This woman had the flu-like symptoms last week, Thursday of last week, and it went from there. Not surprised by that, I'm sure.
GUPTA: Not surprising, but it is a little confusing and maybe a little disconcerting, Bill. A lot of people have flu-like symptoms this winter, and I've been hearing from a lot of people, a lot of folks out there concerned about, how do you tell the difference? I myself was curious about that, asked the CDC director Dr. Jeffrey Koplan. This is what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. JEFFREY KOPLAN, CDC DIRECTOR: Many more of us over this year are going to have flu-like symptoms, many, many, many more of us than have exposure to anthrax, so you have to mesh the two, and that's the linkage. Is there a real potential exposure, and then do those symptoms seem to suggest something, and that combination might prompt even further action.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUPTA: Yes, and so prompting even further action, basically we're talking about anthrax being a diagnosis not only of an individual, but of a group of individuals. The flu usually just being a diagnosis of individuals. Clinically, they can be very similar. Both will have symptoms of fatigue, fever, muscle aches, malaise, which is tiredness, chest discomfort. Flu will go on to develop pneumonia sometimes. Most often the people will recover. Sometimes death. About 20,000 people probably die of the flu this year.
On the other hand, anthrax, from the symptoms that we just heard, go on to perhaps a few days of improvement, then shock, respiratory distress, and then death 80-90 percent of the time. They start off the same, Bill. They end up very differently most of the time.
HEMMER: What more are they saying how to treat this? We talked about Cipro. We talked about. What's the other one?
GUPTA: Doxycycline.
HEMMER: Doxycycline, yes.
Are they still going forward with this sort of treatment, or is there more of a cocktail version being used now?
GUPTA: They are still using an antibiotic, either Cipro or doxy. We are hearing very often now that either or will work just fine. A lot of folks were deemed as exposure either because they have anthrax near them, because they themselves, in combination with many other tests, are actually felt to have been exposed, will be given either Cipro or doxy for up to 60 days, so that is still sort of the treatment of choice, Bill.
HEMMER: That graphic we just showed there, 80-90 percent of the time, inhaled anthrax will result in death. But we've seen cases now of inhaled anthrax, confirmed infections, but these people still living. How do we go about this? Is it a case of being lucky, or is it eventuality?
GUPTA: I think it is, Bill. I think it is in some way a triumph of public health system. When we cite these 80-90 percent numbers, we're talking about untreated, symptomatic cases of inhaled anthrax. Luckily, people are being gotten to by the public health officials and started their antibiotics, all to say that maybe there were even more cases of potential inhaled anthrax out there. Those people are on antibiotics right now. We will never know that they even had it.
HEMMER: And as you say throughout all this when going back to issue of the flu, get your shot anyway, right?
GUPTA: That's right.
HEMMER: Sanjay, thanks, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
We want to shift our focus now to the White House, specifically the president is going to be talking about the economy momentarily. We will have those comments for you live. And there is certainly a lot of concern about the economy, where it goes from here.
Major Garrett is watching that and the other issues at the White House this morning.
Major, good morning.
MAJOR GARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
White House aides tell CNN that the president in his remarks in a couple of minutes about the economy will, in the words of one senior adviser, face up to what's happening and not try to paper over the bad economic news of today, although the White House will point out that, that drop in GDP for the third quarter, drop of 0.4 percent wasn't as bad as some private economists feared. But nevertheless, they also acknowledge that that's a preliminary estimate of the GDP numbers for the third quarter. They could likely and probably be revised downward.
The president will say, yes the economy in shock period, a shock period set in motion by the tragic crimes of September 11th, and that the effects of that still probably haven't within felt through all sectors of the U.S. economy. His remedy, a stimulus plan of about $75 billion, all in tax cuts. The president will make very strong statement to Congress, saying we have spent enough as far as stimulative extra spending this year. We need to focus on tax cuts, tax cuts designed to two things. One, boost business investment lagging for months and months, and also boost more consumer spending, particularly as it relates to the holiday spending period and just after that -- Bill.
HEMMER: Major, more on the economy. Speaking with Glenn Hubbard, who heads up the Counsel of Economic Advisers there at the White House, just about 20 minutes ago, wanted to know a bit of the backdoor talk, the backroom talk anyway, about what's happening at the White House. Not sure you can give it to us, but how much concern is there this economy could tailspin its way into an area that will take an awful long time to recover?
GARRETT: Well, look, the White House doesn't like to talk about the word recession. No White House does. Glenn Hubbard avoided using that word when you asked him about it, about 20 minutes, but what the White House is doing is looking at a lot of private economic data, and I don't want to get into too much economics. Some thought before September 11th, the economy was going to be in a U-shaped process, go down slowly and sort of come up slowly. The White House is now looking at economic data that is suggestive of what they call a V- shaped recovery, which means more dramatic and sharper downturn, but also, a more dramatic and sharper upturn.
The White House believe with the federal interest rate cuts and if $75 or so in tax cuts are put into the economy, in addition to $60 billion or so already put out, stimulative fiscal spending, that the economy will in fact go through that V-shape, or in fact, be in a recovery phase as early as the early quarter of next, no later than the second quarter of next year. That's currently what they are looking at now. As everyone at the White House emphasizes, we're not economist who can absolutely predict the future, but that's what the economic data suggest to us, and that's what conversations with the business world also suggest.
HEMMER: Major, want you to hang on a moment. We're watching the building off to your left, I think in front of the old executive office building. That is room is starting to fill up now. We anticipate the president coming out in a moment.
But, Major, what you just mentioned again about the U shape versus the V shape, with the number of people losing jobs across the country, that latter version of U.S. economy certainly would be the most welcome.
GARRETT: Absolutely. The White House is bracing for what they expect to be more bad economic news at the end of this week when the unemployment figures come out for the month of October. And what they are expecting, of course, is an increase in unemployment. What they are afraid of, of course, is with consumer confidence diminishing, higher unemployment numbers are often tied to how confident most consumers feel about their future, whether they still have a job. They will clearly have less confidence if they don't have a job, but if they are fearful about losing their job, confidence also goes down. Lower consumer confidence going into the holiday season would be bad news.
So again, the White House wants that stimulative tax package to boost consumer confidence, put a little bit of psychological thrust in the economy for the holiday spending period.
HEMMER: Major, thanks. We're standing by here. And you are, too. Thanks.
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