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American Morning
Car Bombing in Iraq Deadliest Insurgent Attack of War; '90- Second Pop'
Aired February 28, 2005 - 09:31 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: Welcome back, everybody. 9:30 here in New York. We expect in about three and a half hours, this place is going to be a winter wonderland with that storm rolling through here in the Northeast. Carol...
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Wonderland? It's going to be Hell! Carol Costello in for Soledad today. She's out in Los Angeles.
HEMMER: We'll get back to Soledad in a few moments there in California.
But in a moment here also, want to go to Iraq, Carol. Today the deadliest single attack coming in the two years of the insurgency, coming in a town of Hilla, about 55 miles south of Baghdad. We are 125 are dead. Nic Robertson standing by with a look at what happened there at a police recruiting center.
COSTELLO: Also, the search in Florida for a missing 9-year-old girl. Jessica Lunsford vanishing without a trace last week. We'll talk to a member of the sheriff's department about whether they have any clues to help find this little girl.
HEMMER: Yes, they need some clues, too.
COSTELLO: In the meantime, Kelly Wallace, back with us here. A look at the headlines now.
Good morning.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning again. And good morning again to all of you.
Now in the news, a reassuring message from the Vatican today that Pope John Paul II is recovering. It is the first health update since the pope's surprised crowds with a brief appearance at his hospital window yesterday. The 84-year-old pontiff underwent a tracheotomy last week. The Vatican says he's doing well and has started exercises to improve his breathing.
There could be a court appearance as early as today for the suspect in the BTK serial killer case. Authorities link Dennis Rader to the killings of at least 10 people between 1974 and 1991. The 59- year-old was arrested Friday, outside of Wichita, Kansas. New video just in to CNN, what you're seeing there, shows police searching Rader's home. He is behind bars this morning with bond set at $10 million. A major department store deal to tell you about this morning. Federated Department Stores is agreeing to buy rival May Department Stores for about $11 billion. The deal brings together such name as Macy's, Lord and Taylor, and Marshall Field's, among other stores. The combined company would become the third largest general merchandise retailer in the country, behind Wal-Mart and Sears.
It is a wrap at the gates. The 23-mile art exhibit, Carol is laughing, in New York Central Park, is coming down. Some of us are upset about this. Visitors getting in a final glimpse of the Christo and Jean Claude (ph) exhibit yesterday after a 16-day run. We have some live pictures to show you there. There you see them. Word is the remnants of the $21 million art project will be recycled and used for things like paint rollers. And that's...
HEMMER: Is that a fact?
WALLACE: That is a fact.
HEMMER: I thought they were going to go to home depot and make new aprons.
COSTELLO: That's the spirit.
WALLACE: It's art. It's an experience. It's a shared experience.
HEMMER: It was a very nice project.
(WEATHER REPORT)
In the news today, today's car bombing in Iraq is the deadliest insurgent attack of the war -- 125 people killed, more than 150 injured in Hilla.
Nic Robertson live in Baghdad now to tell us more.
Hello, Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol.
Well, police say a suicide bomber drove his car full of explosives into a line of police recruits. They were outside a medical center about 9:30 in the morning in the town of Hilla, waiting to have medical checks as part of their recruitment procedures when the car bomb detonated. An eyewitness said that he saw the car approaching, saw it detonate. He said at least 50 people were killed, and that was much more than expected. The police say the figures of the death toll so high because the medical center was very close to a market, outdoor market, that would have been very busy at that time. They say over 200 people have been wounded in the explosions. It's not clear yet, from what police tell us, how many were police recruits that were injured, how many were marketgoers that were wounded. But certainly this the deadliest blast in the two years, almost two years of insurgency now -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Nic Robertson reporting live in Baghdad. Thank you.
HEMMER: Almost 22 minutes now before the hour. Back in this country now, in Homosassa Springs, Florida, an intensive search is expected to wind down later today for 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, reportedly last seen Wednesday in her bedroom.
Ronda Hemminger Evan of the Citrus County Sheriff's Department back with us today talk about the search. And good morning to you down there in Florida.
RONDA HEMMINGER EVAN, CITRUS COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: Good morning.
HEMMER: Why would the search end today? And what does that indicate?
EVAN: Well, actually the search itself will not end today. The visibility of what you're seeing in the search going on is what people will see going away. Our mobile command center is scheduled to kind of wind down today. The search by no means for Jessica will end today. We will now go back and start retracing our steps. What people have seen are the massive searches with hundreds of volunteers and sheriff's officials. Now we're going to be calling in some specialists, and we're going to go back and retrace those steps.
HEMMER: One thing the sheriff has said over the weekend is that he wasn't certain this was an abduction case. About two hours ago we spoke with Jessica's father. We asked him about that. Listen to how he answered that question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK LUNSFORD, FATHER OF JESSICA LUNSFORD: Because I know my daughter, and she's not much different than anybody else's. She's, you know -- if they're in a good home, there's no reason for them to leave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: He is convinced she was abducted. Is that the premise that you're working on right now, or is there still a possibility that she ran away?
EVAN: Absolutely. We have not narrowed that down. That is probably what is most frustrating about this case right now, is when we can get going at a good direction, if we know she left the home on her own, or if we know she was taken from the home, that is going to be a break for us know which way to single down our leads.
HEMMER: Now why -- I know it's a difficult question to answer now because you don't have an answer. Why is it so difficult to answer, though?
EVAN: Because it would make a difference how we worked the case. Obviously, if she left on her own, then we're -- she's a missing child and we're trying to figure out where did she go. If she was abducted and she was taken by someone she knows, or if she was taken by a stranger, those are two completely different cases. We have people on staff that are capable of handling both scenarios. But right now, we need to find out what happened to her.
HEMMER: It's my understanding Jessica's father and also her grandfather were given some sort of computer voice stress test similar to a lie-detector test. Did they pass completely when given those?
EVAN: I can tell you that both of them did take those tests. They're not quite a polygraph. They're something our agency uses. I'm not at liberty to discuss whether they passed or failed the test, though.
HEMMER: Will you perform these on other people, or do you stop with the father and grandfather?
EVAN: No, absolutely. And during the course of our investigation, obviously we start in the home first because we -- what we want to do is find out what was her routine. Anytime someone is missing from their home, we always want to talk to the people who live there, the people around her, neighbors, people who came in contact with her. That is going to give you the best information to really immediately to find out what did we have, what are we working.
HEMMER: Good luck to you, Ronda Hemminger Evan is with the Citrus County, down in the sheriff's department there. And the search continues. Here's Carol.
COSTELLO: An FDA advisory panel earlier this month gave the OK for drugmakers to continue marketing painkillers Vioxx, Bextra and Celebrex. That decision despite concerns the drugs are linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Now some are questioning whether some FDA panel members are too closely tied to the makers of those painkillers.
Dr. Jerry Avorn is the author of "Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks and Costs of Prescription Drugs." He is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Avorn joins me live this morning from Boston. Good morning, doctor.
DR. JERRY AVORN, HARVARD MEDICAL CENTER: Good morning, Carol.
COSTELLO: OK, so let's run through this. "The New York Times" has reported that ten members of the 32 FDA panel advisers have consulting ties to Merck, the maker of Vioxx, and to Pfizer, which makes Bextra. Nine out of those ten members voted for the continued marketing of both drugs. Does that concern you?
AVORN: Well, it worries me that there's this incredible correlation between when a person consults with drug companies and how that person voted on the advisory panel. These are all smart people, they're honorable people, they're good people, but this is a worrisome pattern because it makes you wonder whether there is some kind of influence, perhaps an unconscious influence, of people who depend on the manufacturers of the drugs they're evaluating for part of their income. COSTELLO: Well, that's exactly right. We actually asked the FDA, you know, about this potential conflict. This is the statement that they gave us -- the FDA saying, "The advisory committee members and expert consultants were screened for conflicts of interest according to the same strict ethics guidelines the FDA applies to all of its advisory committees. This transparent process requires the agency to carefully weigh any potential financial interest with the need for essential scientific expertise in order to protect and advance the public health."
That is one confusing statement, I know. But do you believe the FDA's doing what it can to avoid this conflict of interest or apparent conflict of interest?
AVORN: Well, it's a confusing statement because it's a confusing policy. Many countries simply do not allow people who have financial ties to drug companies to sit on advisory panels to their FDA equivalents. And that is a common practice and in lot of countries around the world and perhaps it's time that we adopt such a policy as well. The argument that there are no smart people who don't consult for drug companies is both wrong and a little offensive to the ones that don't do that.
COSTELLO: Well, that's what the FDA is saying, though, doctor. It says it can't find enough people who haven't consulted with drug companies to serve on this board.
AVORN: Yes, that's kind of a strange argument. And there's a lot of us that don't consult personally with drug companies who think that we're actually pretty smart folks who would be available to do this kind of work. They FDA needs to relook at this whole question of allowing people with conflict of interest to serve on panels, especially when we see data that was in the paper from the Center for Science for the Public Interest last week that indicates how you consult has an awful lot to do with how you vote, and that seems more than coincidental.
COSTELLO: OK, so let's say the FDA looks at this and says, oh man, this is a conflict of interest, what can be done?
AVORN: Well, in the future, I think FDA can rethink its policies and perhaps take the same approach that a lot of other countries do, saying if you want to consult for drug companies as an individual and be paid for them, you know, into your on pocket as opposed to be paid to do a study, that's OK, but you just can't sit on our panels. Nothing personal, but we want people who have no financial relationship with the companies in their own personal finances. And that would leave a pool of still many thousands of experts who would be able to do so.
COSTELLO: We'll see what happens. Dr. Jerry Avorn from the Harvard Medical Center, joining AMERICAN MORNING this morning. Thank you.
AVORN: You're very welcome. HEMMER: Back to Hollywood in a moment. Here's Soledad with a special edition of "90 Second Pop" in L.A. But first, which actor endured the longest wait between his first Academy Award nomination and an Oscar victory? Henry Fonda, Paul Newman or Marlon Brando? The answer after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Before the break we asked you which actor endured the longest wait between his first Academy Award nomination and Oscar victory. The answer is -- Henry Fonda, Paul Newman or Marlon Brando. It's Henry Fonda. First nominated as an actor for "The Grapes of Wrath" in 1940. Did not win acting award until 40 years later, for "On Golden Pond." Now you know. Back to Soledad now in Hollywood.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to a special Oscar edition of "90-Second Pop." Before we head off to all of the parties, we're going to relive the big event.
Our panel tonight, Toure is CNN's pop culture correspondent. Ana Maria Montero is with CNN Espanol. And B.J. Sigesmund from "Us Weekly" joins us as well.
Don't we all look good?
TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE CORRESPONDENT: Especially you.
O'BRIEN: Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. OK. What did you think?
TOURE: I'm so happy. The A-list has a new member, Jamie Foxx. I mean, that's what the Oscars is so great for, when someone's life is transformed. And he's been raised to the A-list. He's going to get that eight-figure check. He's going to get the better scripts, the big directors. He's not going to be like Halle Barry and do "Catwoman." He's going to go there.
B.J. SIGESMUND, STAFF EDITOR, "US WEEKLY": Be careful, Toure. You know, I mean, easier said than done. There's this curse involved.
O'BRIEN: History is littered with people who picked bad movies after...
(CROSSTALK)
SIGESMUND: Yes, exactly. Remember Adrien Brody, how hot he was after he won? I mean, where is his career now?
TOURE: True, true.
SIGESMUND: So, Jamie Foxx has to be very, very careful.
O'BRIEN: What did you think of the whole night? Good, bad, boring? SIGESMUND: Well...
ANA MARIA MONTERO, CNN ESPANOL: Slow, slow.
TOURE: It dragged like algebra class for a while, but Rock picked it up. My favorite line of the night, right? Four presenters you can't get take your eye off of, Selma Hayek and Penelope Cruise.
O'BRIEN: Gee, I wonder what he was talking about.
MONTERO: I don't know. I don't know.
SIGESMUND: There was absolutely one worst moment, and that was when they gave those awards in the audience. That was painful. Painful for the presenters and painful for the nominees.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Because they changed the format this year. They had, like, a movie star kind of standing among the people. That was a little weird.
SIGESMUND: Yes. And what about when you won, instead of walking up to the mic and speaking to an audience of 3,000 people, you spoke right to a TV camera? It was so unusual. I felt I was squirming watching that.
O'BRIEN: Did you think it was weird also to have all of the nominees come out on the stage for some of the awards, not for the big categories?
TOURE: Yes.
MONTERO: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Where, like, if you lost, you sort of...
MONTERO: You were on stage, you know, I'm the big loser, right.
O'BRIEN: Hey, how are you?
TOURE: That did not work at all.
MONTERO: I think (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
TOURE: Yes.
MONTERO: And the whole thing with the audience, too, is they would pan out into the audience, and you'd see so many empty seats.
TOURE: Oh, my god.
SIGESMUND: Where were the seat fillers? Exactly.
TOURE: But let's talk about the movies, right?
O'BRIEN: OK.
TOURE: "Million Dollar Baby." Who said, what, two months ago, who said it's an...
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Yes, Toure, you did.
TOURE: But also...
O'BRIEN: He has such a good memory when he's right and such a bad memory when he's wrong.
TOURE: But also, right, mark my words, Marty Scorsese will never win an Oscar until lifetime achievement.
MONTERO: I am with you.
SIGESMUND: Yes, I agree. This was the year. You know, this was it.
MONTERO: For him to win?
SIGESMUND: This was a heartfelt thing. "The Aviator," he put his heart and soul into it. He got Leo...
O'BRIEN: But he had tough competition.
SIGESMUND: No. But it wasn't exactly a good movie either.
TOURE: He hasn't made a good film in 10 years, not since "Casino." He's on a slump.
SIGESMUND: Yes. But this was the one that people thought he might get it. It's time to give him the award already so we can stop thinking about having to give Martin Scorsese an award. And they still didn't.
O'BRIEN: Was there any category where there was a big shock?
TOURE: No. It was a little predictable.
MONTERO: No, it was predictable.
TOURE: I mean, like, I hate to say that I was, like, 6 for 6, but I was. I mean, like, but it was a very predictable Oscars.
MONTERO: It was predictable.
SIGESMUND: Besides it just being all about Toure...
O'BRIEN: I was going to say that!
SIGESMUND: I have to say that Cate Blanchett surprised me.
TOURE: Yes, and that surprised me. SIGESMUND: That surprised me. And I actually spoke with Virginia Madsen backstage afterwards, and she said...
O'BRIEN: Was she angry? Was she bitter? Did she cry?
SIGESMUND: She actually said that she really would have liked to have won. She admitted that in on the record.
MONTERO: The first person ever.
SIGESMUND: But that if she had to pick someone else to win, it was Cate Blanchett, because she really admired her and she likes her very much.
O'BRIEN: I thought everybody was very gracious. Everybody is always very gracious. You never see anybody get angry. I mean, Chris Rock sort of referred to that. What did he say about Nicole Kidman?
TOURE: Well, the Sean Penn...
O'BRIEN: Nicole Kidman would have won an Oscar.
TOURE: ... Chris Rock little thing back and forth was kind of weird. I mean, like there was no need for Sean Penn to come out and defend Jude Law, who is not that great of an actor. And then Rock had to go back to Sean Penn.
MONTERO: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Do not mess with Jude Law.
TOURE: Please!
MONTERO: I happen to like Jude Law.
TOURE: He is a great looking guy. You hear it from all the girls.
MONTERO: I like him as an actor.
TOURE: He's not that great of an actor, come on.
SIGESMUND: The one person we haven't actually...
TOURE: Come on.
MONTERO: He's not Sean Penn, I'll give you that.
SIGESMUND: The one person we haven't given a shout out to at all is Chris Rock.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS ROCK, COMEDIAN: Can I get a little acting, just a "to be or not to be" or Morgan Freeman doing a shampoo commercial? Something! Right? It's like the only acting you ever see at the Oscars is when people act like they're not mad they lost. (END VIDEO CLIP)
SIGESMUND: I thought he did great. I thought he really...
TOURE: No, yes, he did great.
SIGESMUND: I thought he really got the tone right.
O'BRIEN: I thought he saved that show. It would have been deadly boring without Chris Rock.
SIGESMUND: Yes.
TOURE: He livened it up.
O'BRIEN: And he livened it up, and he did a good job.
TOURE: And he was clearly for Iowa. He was not for Hollywood. He came out and broke on half the crowd. A lot of the people he broke on were not there. But I don't think he would have cared if Jude Law was there, he would still break on Jude Law.
O'BRIEN: And he's wrapped it up by saying, "Good night Brooklyn."
TOURE: Good night Brooklyn!
O'BRIEN: You've got to love it. You guys, thank you so much.
Bill -- back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: All right, Soledad, thanks for that. Early returns show the Oscar's best rating in about five years. They matched last year's ratings, 2004.y
COSTELLO: You know what that means? Chris rocked!
HEMMER: Okay.
COSTELLO: That was a good one, wasn't it?
A bank loses the personal data of 1.2 million customers, and it doesn't know where it went. Whose at risk for identity theft? Andy's "Minding Your Business," next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Bank of America loses personal information on millions of its customers, and Kraft Foods cans the roadkill.
Andy Serwer told you about that last week. Back with us this morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Back with more. Let's talk about the markets, first of all, Bill, Dow trading down at this hour, down 33 points. The big merger between May and Federated not doing much good. Let's see here, two drug stocks in focus, Elon (ph) and Biogen down, down 43 and 68 percent respectively. That's because their multiple sclerosis drug apparently has problems, and they voluntarily pulled it. More on that story, I'm sure, later in the day.
Bank of America, yes, they did lose data on 1.2 million customers. They happen to be federal employees. Some of them happen to be U.S. senators. One of those U.S. senators was Pat Leahy. Pat Leahy earlier this week was railing about security in banks and other financial institutions. He is none too pleased. The tapes were in baggage on a commercial flight. Someone lifted them. Visa accounts included in there.
HEMMER: They lost the luggage?
SERWER: Yes, they lost the luggage, or someone stole it. B of A is not quite sure there. But Pat Leahy's visa account may be in cyberspace somewhere for all we know at this moment.
And anyway, yes, an update on this roadkill gummy situation here. Kraft Food makes these. And they were under pressure from the gummy animals lobby. The gummy animals lobby had lobbied against them making this candy, which had chickens, and squirrels and snakes with tire tracks on them, and today Kraft has decided to remove this food from store shelves. Bowing to the gummy animals lobby, the powerful gummy animals lobby.
HEMMER: Thanks, Andy.
COSTELLO: Time for jack, I guess.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: "New Yorker" magazine's very unflattering comments about Dan Rather from Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace, and Don Hewitt. Is it appropriate at the end of his career for these colleagues to be trashing the Dan man?
Jessica in Missouri, "Wasn't it Walter Cronkite who chose Dan as Walter's successor? And didn't Mike Wallace begin his TV career in the entertainment area? And finally, Dan was one of the first journalists to be embedded with troops in Vietnam, while most of the other correspondents were embedded in a London hotel. Hold your head high, Dan. You're entitled."
Travis from Wyckoff, New Jersey, "Good riddance to Dan Rather and his egotistical megalomania. Edward R. Murrow is finally applauding CBS News for this retirement."
And Hal in Missouri writes, "What's the problem, Jack? If a coworker's a jerk, call them a jerk. That doesn't sound like you, or is it that you're close to retirement yourself, and you're dreading what the Bill Hemmers and Andy Serwers are going to tell 'The New Yorker?'"
(LAUGHTER) HEMMER: Tell them to hold.
We'll be right back.
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Aired February 28, 2005 - 09:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. 9:30 here in New York. We expect in about three and a half hours, this place is going to be a winter wonderland with that storm rolling through here in the Northeast. Carol...
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Wonderland? It's going to be Hell! Carol Costello in for Soledad today. She's out in Los Angeles.
HEMMER: We'll get back to Soledad in a few moments there in California.
But in a moment here also, want to go to Iraq, Carol. Today the deadliest single attack coming in the two years of the insurgency, coming in a town of Hilla, about 55 miles south of Baghdad. We are 125 are dead. Nic Robertson standing by with a look at what happened there at a police recruiting center.
COSTELLO: Also, the search in Florida for a missing 9-year-old girl. Jessica Lunsford vanishing without a trace last week. We'll talk to a member of the sheriff's department about whether they have any clues to help find this little girl.
HEMMER: Yes, they need some clues, too.
COSTELLO: In the meantime, Kelly Wallace, back with us here. A look at the headlines now.
Good morning.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning again. And good morning again to all of you.
Now in the news, a reassuring message from the Vatican today that Pope John Paul II is recovering. It is the first health update since the pope's surprised crowds with a brief appearance at his hospital window yesterday. The 84-year-old pontiff underwent a tracheotomy last week. The Vatican says he's doing well and has started exercises to improve his breathing.
There could be a court appearance as early as today for the suspect in the BTK serial killer case. Authorities link Dennis Rader to the killings of at least 10 people between 1974 and 1991. The 59- year-old was arrested Friday, outside of Wichita, Kansas. New video just in to CNN, what you're seeing there, shows police searching Rader's home. He is behind bars this morning with bond set at $10 million. A major department store deal to tell you about this morning. Federated Department Stores is agreeing to buy rival May Department Stores for about $11 billion. The deal brings together such name as Macy's, Lord and Taylor, and Marshall Field's, among other stores. The combined company would become the third largest general merchandise retailer in the country, behind Wal-Mart and Sears.
It is a wrap at the gates. The 23-mile art exhibit, Carol is laughing, in New York Central Park, is coming down. Some of us are upset about this. Visitors getting in a final glimpse of the Christo and Jean Claude (ph) exhibit yesterday after a 16-day run. We have some live pictures to show you there. There you see them. Word is the remnants of the $21 million art project will be recycled and used for things like paint rollers. And that's...
HEMMER: Is that a fact?
WALLACE: That is a fact.
HEMMER: I thought they were going to go to home depot and make new aprons.
COSTELLO: That's the spirit.
WALLACE: It's art. It's an experience. It's a shared experience.
HEMMER: It was a very nice project.
(WEATHER REPORT)
In the news today, today's car bombing in Iraq is the deadliest insurgent attack of the war -- 125 people killed, more than 150 injured in Hilla.
Nic Robertson live in Baghdad now to tell us more.
Hello, Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol.
Well, police say a suicide bomber drove his car full of explosives into a line of police recruits. They were outside a medical center about 9:30 in the morning in the town of Hilla, waiting to have medical checks as part of their recruitment procedures when the car bomb detonated. An eyewitness said that he saw the car approaching, saw it detonate. He said at least 50 people were killed, and that was much more than expected. The police say the figures of the death toll so high because the medical center was very close to a market, outdoor market, that would have been very busy at that time. They say over 200 people have been wounded in the explosions. It's not clear yet, from what police tell us, how many were police recruits that were injured, how many were marketgoers that were wounded. But certainly this the deadliest blast in the two years, almost two years of insurgency now -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Nic Robertson reporting live in Baghdad. Thank you.
HEMMER: Almost 22 minutes now before the hour. Back in this country now, in Homosassa Springs, Florida, an intensive search is expected to wind down later today for 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, reportedly last seen Wednesday in her bedroom.
Ronda Hemminger Evan of the Citrus County Sheriff's Department back with us today talk about the search. And good morning to you down there in Florida.
RONDA HEMMINGER EVAN, CITRUS COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: Good morning.
HEMMER: Why would the search end today? And what does that indicate?
EVAN: Well, actually the search itself will not end today. The visibility of what you're seeing in the search going on is what people will see going away. Our mobile command center is scheduled to kind of wind down today. The search by no means for Jessica will end today. We will now go back and start retracing our steps. What people have seen are the massive searches with hundreds of volunteers and sheriff's officials. Now we're going to be calling in some specialists, and we're going to go back and retrace those steps.
HEMMER: One thing the sheriff has said over the weekend is that he wasn't certain this was an abduction case. About two hours ago we spoke with Jessica's father. We asked him about that. Listen to how he answered that question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK LUNSFORD, FATHER OF JESSICA LUNSFORD: Because I know my daughter, and she's not much different than anybody else's. She's, you know -- if they're in a good home, there's no reason for them to leave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: He is convinced she was abducted. Is that the premise that you're working on right now, or is there still a possibility that she ran away?
EVAN: Absolutely. We have not narrowed that down. That is probably what is most frustrating about this case right now, is when we can get going at a good direction, if we know she left the home on her own, or if we know she was taken from the home, that is going to be a break for us know which way to single down our leads.
HEMMER: Now why -- I know it's a difficult question to answer now because you don't have an answer. Why is it so difficult to answer, though?
EVAN: Because it would make a difference how we worked the case. Obviously, if she left on her own, then we're -- she's a missing child and we're trying to figure out where did she go. If she was abducted and she was taken by someone she knows, or if she was taken by a stranger, those are two completely different cases. We have people on staff that are capable of handling both scenarios. But right now, we need to find out what happened to her.
HEMMER: It's my understanding Jessica's father and also her grandfather were given some sort of computer voice stress test similar to a lie-detector test. Did they pass completely when given those?
EVAN: I can tell you that both of them did take those tests. They're not quite a polygraph. They're something our agency uses. I'm not at liberty to discuss whether they passed or failed the test, though.
HEMMER: Will you perform these on other people, or do you stop with the father and grandfather?
EVAN: No, absolutely. And during the course of our investigation, obviously we start in the home first because we -- what we want to do is find out what was her routine. Anytime someone is missing from their home, we always want to talk to the people who live there, the people around her, neighbors, people who came in contact with her. That is going to give you the best information to really immediately to find out what did we have, what are we working.
HEMMER: Good luck to you, Ronda Hemminger Evan is with the Citrus County, down in the sheriff's department there. And the search continues. Here's Carol.
COSTELLO: An FDA advisory panel earlier this month gave the OK for drugmakers to continue marketing painkillers Vioxx, Bextra and Celebrex. That decision despite concerns the drugs are linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Now some are questioning whether some FDA panel members are too closely tied to the makers of those painkillers.
Dr. Jerry Avorn is the author of "Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks and Costs of Prescription Drugs." He is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Avorn joins me live this morning from Boston. Good morning, doctor.
DR. JERRY AVORN, HARVARD MEDICAL CENTER: Good morning, Carol.
COSTELLO: OK, so let's run through this. "The New York Times" has reported that ten members of the 32 FDA panel advisers have consulting ties to Merck, the maker of Vioxx, and to Pfizer, which makes Bextra. Nine out of those ten members voted for the continued marketing of both drugs. Does that concern you?
AVORN: Well, it worries me that there's this incredible correlation between when a person consults with drug companies and how that person voted on the advisory panel. These are all smart people, they're honorable people, they're good people, but this is a worrisome pattern because it makes you wonder whether there is some kind of influence, perhaps an unconscious influence, of people who depend on the manufacturers of the drugs they're evaluating for part of their income. COSTELLO: Well, that's exactly right. We actually asked the FDA, you know, about this potential conflict. This is the statement that they gave us -- the FDA saying, "The advisory committee members and expert consultants were screened for conflicts of interest according to the same strict ethics guidelines the FDA applies to all of its advisory committees. This transparent process requires the agency to carefully weigh any potential financial interest with the need for essential scientific expertise in order to protect and advance the public health."
That is one confusing statement, I know. But do you believe the FDA's doing what it can to avoid this conflict of interest or apparent conflict of interest?
AVORN: Well, it's a confusing statement because it's a confusing policy. Many countries simply do not allow people who have financial ties to drug companies to sit on advisory panels to their FDA equivalents. And that is a common practice and in lot of countries around the world and perhaps it's time that we adopt such a policy as well. The argument that there are no smart people who don't consult for drug companies is both wrong and a little offensive to the ones that don't do that.
COSTELLO: Well, that's what the FDA is saying, though, doctor. It says it can't find enough people who haven't consulted with drug companies to serve on this board.
AVORN: Yes, that's kind of a strange argument. And there's a lot of us that don't consult personally with drug companies who think that we're actually pretty smart folks who would be available to do this kind of work. They FDA needs to relook at this whole question of allowing people with conflict of interest to serve on panels, especially when we see data that was in the paper from the Center for Science for the Public Interest last week that indicates how you consult has an awful lot to do with how you vote, and that seems more than coincidental.
COSTELLO: OK, so let's say the FDA looks at this and says, oh man, this is a conflict of interest, what can be done?
AVORN: Well, in the future, I think FDA can rethink its policies and perhaps take the same approach that a lot of other countries do, saying if you want to consult for drug companies as an individual and be paid for them, you know, into your on pocket as opposed to be paid to do a study, that's OK, but you just can't sit on our panels. Nothing personal, but we want people who have no financial relationship with the companies in their own personal finances. And that would leave a pool of still many thousands of experts who would be able to do so.
COSTELLO: We'll see what happens. Dr. Jerry Avorn from the Harvard Medical Center, joining AMERICAN MORNING this morning. Thank you.
AVORN: You're very welcome. HEMMER: Back to Hollywood in a moment. Here's Soledad with a special edition of "90 Second Pop" in L.A. But first, which actor endured the longest wait between his first Academy Award nomination and an Oscar victory? Henry Fonda, Paul Newman or Marlon Brando? The answer after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Before the break we asked you which actor endured the longest wait between his first Academy Award nomination and Oscar victory. The answer is -- Henry Fonda, Paul Newman or Marlon Brando. It's Henry Fonda. First nominated as an actor for "The Grapes of Wrath" in 1940. Did not win acting award until 40 years later, for "On Golden Pond." Now you know. Back to Soledad now in Hollywood.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to a special Oscar edition of "90-Second Pop." Before we head off to all of the parties, we're going to relive the big event.
Our panel tonight, Toure is CNN's pop culture correspondent. Ana Maria Montero is with CNN Espanol. And B.J. Sigesmund from "Us Weekly" joins us as well.
Don't we all look good?
TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE CORRESPONDENT: Especially you.
O'BRIEN: Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. OK. What did you think?
TOURE: I'm so happy. The A-list has a new member, Jamie Foxx. I mean, that's what the Oscars is so great for, when someone's life is transformed. And he's been raised to the A-list. He's going to get that eight-figure check. He's going to get the better scripts, the big directors. He's not going to be like Halle Barry and do "Catwoman." He's going to go there.
B.J. SIGESMUND, STAFF EDITOR, "US WEEKLY": Be careful, Toure. You know, I mean, easier said than done. There's this curse involved.
O'BRIEN: History is littered with people who picked bad movies after...
(CROSSTALK)
SIGESMUND: Yes, exactly. Remember Adrien Brody, how hot he was after he won? I mean, where is his career now?
TOURE: True, true.
SIGESMUND: So, Jamie Foxx has to be very, very careful.
O'BRIEN: What did you think of the whole night? Good, bad, boring? SIGESMUND: Well...
ANA MARIA MONTERO, CNN ESPANOL: Slow, slow.
TOURE: It dragged like algebra class for a while, but Rock picked it up. My favorite line of the night, right? Four presenters you can't get take your eye off of, Selma Hayek and Penelope Cruise.
O'BRIEN: Gee, I wonder what he was talking about.
MONTERO: I don't know. I don't know.
SIGESMUND: There was absolutely one worst moment, and that was when they gave those awards in the audience. That was painful. Painful for the presenters and painful for the nominees.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Because they changed the format this year. They had, like, a movie star kind of standing among the people. That was a little weird.
SIGESMUND: Yes. And what about when you won, instead of walking up to the mic and speaking to an audience of 3,000 people, you spoke right to a TV camera? It was so unusual. I felt I was squirming watching that.
O'BRIEN: Did you think it was weird also to have all of the nominees come out on the stage for some of the awards, not for the big categories?
TOURE: Yes.
MONTERO: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Where, like, if you lost, you sort of...
MONTERO: You were on stage, you know, I'm the big loser, right.
O'BRIEN: Hey, how are you?
TOURE: That did not work at all.
MONTERO: I think (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
TOURE: Yes.
MONTERO: And the whole thing with the audience, too, is they would pan out into the audience, and you'd see so many empty seats.
TOURE: Oh, my god.
SIGESMUND: Where were the seat fillers? Exactly.
TOURE: But let's talk about the movies, right?
O'BRIEN: OK.
TOURE: "Million Dollar Baby." Who said, what, two months ago, who said it's an...
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Yes, Toure, you did.
TOURE: But also...
O'BRIEN: He has such a good memory when he's right and such a bad memory when he's wrong.
TOURE: But also, right, mark my words, Marty Scorsese will never win an Oscar until lifetime achievement.
MONTERO: I am with you.
SIGESMUND: Yes, I agree. This was the year. You know, this was it.
MONTERO: For him to win?
SIGESMUND: This was a heartfelt thing. "The Aviator," he put his heart and soul into it. He got Leo...
O'BRIEN: But he had tough competition.
SIGESMUND: No. But it wasn't exactly a good movie either.
TOURE: He hasn't made a good film in 10 years, not since "Casino." He's on a slump.
SIGESMUND: Yes. But this was the one that people thought he might get it. It's time to give him the award already so we can stop thinking about having to give Martin Scorsese an award. And they still didn't.
O'BRIEN: Was there any category where there was a big shock?
TOURE: No. It was a little predictable.
MONTERO: No, it was predictable.
TOURE: I mean, like, I hate to say that I was, like, 6 for 6, but I was. I mean, like, but it was a very predictable Oscars.
MONTERO: It was predictable.
SIGESMUND: Besides it just being all about Toure...
O'BRIEN: I was going to say that!
SIGESMUND: I have to say that Cate Blanchett surprised me.
TOURE: Yes, and that surprised me. SIGESMUND: That surprised me. And I actually spoke with Virginia Madsen backstage afterwards, and she said...
O'BRIEN: Was she angry? Was she bitter? Did she cry?
SIGESMUND: She actually said that she really would have liked to have won. She admitted that in on the record.
MONTERO: The first person ever.
SIGESMUND: But that if she had to pick someone else to win, it was Cate Blanchett, because she really admired her and she likes her very much.
O'BRIEN: I thought everybody was very gracious. Everybody is always very gracious. You never see anybody get angry. I mean, Chris Rock sort of referred to that. What did he say about Nicole Kidman?
TOURE: Well, the Sean Penn...
O'BRIEN: Nicole Kidman would have won an Oscar.
TOURE: ... Chris Rock little thing back and forth was kind of weird. I mean, like there was no need for Sean Penn to come out and defend Jude Law, who is not that great of an actor. And then Rock had to go back to Sean Penn.
MONTERO: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Do not mess with Jude Law.
TOURE: Please!
MONTERO: I happen to like Jude Law.
TOURE: He is a great looking guy. You hear it from all the girls.
MONTERO: I like him as an actor.
TOURE: He's not that great of an actor, come on.
SIGESMUND: The one person we haven't actually...
TOURE: Come on.
MONTERO: He's not Sean Penn, I'll give you that.
SIGESMUND: The one person we haven't given a shout out to at all is Chris Rock.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS ROCK, COMEDIAN: Can I get a little acting, just a "to be or not to be" or Morgan Freeman doing a shampoo commercial? Something! Right? It's like the only acting you ever see at the Oscars is when people act like they're not mad they lost. (END VIDEO CLIP)
SIGESMUND: I thought he did great. I thought he really...
TOURE: No, yes, he did great.
SIGESMUND: I thought he really got the tone right.
O'BRIEN: I thought he saved that show. It would have been deadly boring without Chris Rock.
SIGESMUND: Yes.
TOURE: He livened it up.
O'BRIEN: And he livened it up, and he did a good job.
TOURE: And he was clearly for Iowa. He was not for Hollywood. He came out and broke on half the crowd. A lot of the people he broke on were not there. But I don't think he would have cared if Jude Law was there, he would still break on Jude Law.
O'BRIEN: And he's wrapped it up by saying, "Good night Brooklyn."
TOURE: Good night Brooklyn!
O'BRIEN: You've got to love it. You guys, thank you so much.
Bill -- back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: All right, Soledad, thanks for that. Early returns show the Oscar's best rating in about five years. They matched last year's ratings, 2004.y
COSTELLO: You know what that means? Chris rocked!
HEMMER: Okay.
COSTELLO: That was a good one, wasn't it?
A bank loses the personal data of 1.2 million customers, and it doesn't know where it went. Whose at risk for identity theft? Andy's "Minding Your Business," next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Bank of America loses personal information on millions of its customers, and Kraft Foods cans the roadkill.
Andy Serwer told you about that last week. Back with us this morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Back with more. Let's talk about the markets, first of all, Bill, Dow trading down at this hour, down 33 points. The big merger between May and Federated not doing much good. Let's see here, two drug stocks in focus, Elon (ph) and Biogen down, down 43 and 68 percent respectively. That's because their multiple sclerosis drug apparently has problems, and they voluntarily pulled it. More on that story, I'm sure, later in the day.
Bank of America, yes, they did lose data on 1.2 million customers. They happen to be federal employees. Some of them happen to be U.S. senators. One of those U.S. senators was Pat Leahy. Pat Leahy earlier this week was railing about security in banks and other financial institutions. He is none too pleased. The tapes were in baggage on a commercial flight. Someone lifted them. Visa accounts included in there.
HEMMER: They lost the luggage?
SERWER: Yes, they lost the luggage, or someone stole it. B of A is not quite sure there. But Pat Leahy's visa account may be in cyberspace somewhere for all we know at this moment.
And anyway, yes, an update on this roadkill gummy situation here. Kraft Food makes these. And they were under pressure from the gummy animals lobby. The gummy animals lobby had lobbied against them making this candy, which had chickens, and squirrels and snakes with tire tracks on them, and today Kraft has decided to remove this food from store shelves. Bowing to the gummy animals lobby, the powerful gummy animals lobby.
HEMMER: Thanks, Andy.
COSTELLO: Time for jack, I guess.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: "New Yorker" magazine's very unflattering comments about Dan Rather from Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace, and Don Hewitt. Is it appropriate at the end of his career for these colleagues to be trashing the Dan man?
Jessica in Missouri, "Wasn't it Walter Cronkite who chose Dan as Walter's successor? And didn't Mike Wallace begin his TV career in the entertainment area? And finally, Dan was one of the first journalists to be embedded with troops in Vietnam, while most of the other correspondents were embedded in a London hotel. Hold your head high, Dan. You're entitled."
Travis from Wyckoff, New Jersey, "Good riddance to Dan Rather and his egotistical megalomania. Edward R. Murrow is finally applauding CBS News for this retirement."
And Hal in Missouri writes, "What's the problem, Jack? If a coworker's a jerk, call them a jerk. That doesn't sound like you, or is it that you're close to retirement yourself, and you're dreading what the Bill Hemmers and Andy Serwers are going to tell 'The New Yorker?'"
(LAUGHTER) HEMMER: Tell them to hold.
We'll be right back.
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