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American Morning

"Gimme a Minute"; The Modernization of North Korea; War on Cancer

Aired August 12, 2005 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Ooh, traffic. That's never a good sign. I guess rush hour is under way. Welcome back, everybody. It's exactly half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING.
Coming up, a pretty interesting report.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, it's a very rare live report from North Korea. CNN's Mike Chinoy has crossed the DMZ. In fact, we're just getting these pictures in from him. We're going to get an update on nuclear talks and a look at what the North is doing to modernize the country.

O'BRIEN: Yes, very unusual, of course, to have a reporter get across that DMZ. Looking forward to that.

First, though, a check of the headlines. Let's get right to Fredricka Whitfield. She's at the CNN Center in Atlanta. Hey, Fred. Good morning again.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, Soledad and Carol.

A fugitive couple wanted in connection with a courthouse shooting is set to be extradited this morning. George and Jennifer Hyatte will face first degree murder charges for killing a prison guard. They were arrested one day after the escape. A cab driver alerted authorities about their whereabouts.

The governor of Washington state has declared a wildfire emergency. The biggest fire has destroyed more than 40,000 acres. The National Guard is on alert. Wildfires are also raging in western Montana and Idaho.

Former president Bill Clinton is lashing out at one of his wife's critics and potential rivals for the Senate. Republican Jeanine Pirro has accused Senator Clinton as using the state as a doormat to the White House. The former president took a swipe at Pirro on CNN's "THE SITUATION ROOM."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Jeanine Pirro is wrong. Hillary has not used any doormat. And, by the way, she doesn't even have a Republican opponent yet. I don't know who the Republicans are going to nominate, and I don't think you do. But I know one thing. She has been a great senator from New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Recent polls show Hillary Clinton is widely popular in New York and favored to win re-election in 2006.

And Angelina Jolie is a Cambodian citizen. The Oscar-winning actress was given the honor in recognition of the environmental work she has done there. Jolie also adopted her 4-year-old son Maddox from Cambodia and has said she feels a special tie to the country.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: It is Friday, and our "Gimme A Minute" gang is cued up for the last word on this week's big story. "Sun Times" columnist Debra Pickett is in Chicago. WABC radio host Mark Simone in New York. And Andy Borowitz from borowitzreport.com is right here in our New York studios. Welcome to you all.

ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Good morning.

MARK SIMONE, WABC RADIO HOST: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Let's start with this NARAL ad, because NARAL has decided to pull this controversial ad. And some people are saying, well, you know, this was meant anyway as a smear campaign against Supreme Court nominee Judge Roberts. Debra, what you think?

DEBRA PICKETT, "CHICAGO SUN TIMES": Well, I don't think it was a smear campaign, exactly, but I do think it was intended to send a message about just how ugly these Supreme Court battles -- and I use the plural there, because it's clear that at least one more nomination is likely to come up -- just how ugly those battles are willing to be and just how hard they're willing to fight.

COSTELLO: Yes, but for every coming ad, you know, against Judge Roberts, I mean, will anybody really believe them now, Mark?

SIMONE: No. You know, we were worried that they were going to try to Bork Judge Roberts and then, obviously, try to Michael Moore him. And when you do that and you go over the top like, it just creates sympathy for the victim. There's one way to stop a nominee like Roberts, and that was at the election last November.

COSTELLO: Andy, I hesitate to ask you.

BOROWITZ: I've got to say, it's ugly. The last time I heard so many bad things about a judge, it was Paula Abdul.

COSTELLO: See, now you know why. Let's head to you, Mark, and talk about -- let's talk about President Bush. This is going to be a long, hot summer. He's got, like, grieving mothers camped out by his Crawford, Texas, ranch. Is this just the beginning for him?

SIMONE: Well, he did meet with that mother a while back. In fact, right after the meeting, she said he was wonderful, sensitive and made her feel whole again. So -- and her own family has now written apparently -- members of her family denouncing what she's doing. But, you know, I don't think he's really an vacation. Any time you're in 100 degree heat clearing brush, to me, that's a chain gang. Not a vacation.

COSTELLO: Remember, Debra...

PICKETT: You know, I...

COSTELLO: Go ahead. Go ahead.

PICKETT: That Texas weather does sound tough, especially to us here in Chicago. But I think the Camp Casey story is just going to get bigger, and I think it's really got the president in a tough spot. I just think he can't win in how he responds to it.

COSTELLO: OK, Andy, your take on the temperature in Crawford, Texas.

BOROWITZ: I think President Bush deserves August off, especially when you think how many summers he probably had to go to school.

COSTELLO: Debra, let's talk about this Rolling Stones controversy, because they have this new song out, "Sweet NeoCon," and, supposedly, you know, it's poking fun of President Bush, actually criticizing him harsh. Although Mick Jagger says it has nothing to do President Bush.

PICKETT: Well, you know, it's pretty interesting when the Rolling Stones are against you. I don't know what that says about you. But I'm not sure one, anyone can really understand the lyrics coming out of Mick Jagger at this point. And, two, if the senior citizen vote is really all that important at this point.

COSTELLO: Oh, my gosh. Let me read the lyrics. These are the lyrics to "Sweet NeoCon": "You call yourself a Christian / I think you're a hypocrite / You say you are a patriot / I think you are a crock of" -- and you know the rest.

Mark, I wanted to ask you this. The Rolling Stones are going to kick off the NFL season. Already, some conservatives are saying, get them out of here. It's America's sport. They're writing this nasty song. Get 'em out.

SIMONE: Yes, no, it is kind of nasty. It's from their new CD, "Grumpy Old Men." And you know, you think about it. They're all the same age now as Cheney and Rumsfeld. And I hate to be technical here, but Condi Rice has never been a NeoCon or part of that movement.

COSTELLO: Can you top any of those comments, Andy?

BOROWITZ: I actually cannot. I was going to make a comment about how The Rolling Stones are really, really old. So let's move on.

COSTELLO: OK. Undercovered stories of the week -- Debra?

PICKETT: You know, I think there's a really interesting kind of preview of the Republican primary that's brewing up on Capitol Hill. Bill Frist is pushing through some campaign finance reforms that could enormously help his campaign. John McCain is vowing to fight and fight hard against those changes. And watching those two go at it, I think, is probably going to be really interesting, and I'm sorry that that story didn't get more coverage this week.

COSTELLO: Mark?

SIMONE: Well, this is really amazing. It sounds far-fetched, but it's not me. It's Bob Woodward who said this earlier this week. He's got a lot of credibility with me. He thinks Cheney will be the nominee, that Bush will urge him to run and that he'll accept. Now, obviously, there's a health concern. Helen Thomas will probably kill herself.

COSTELLO: Andy, again, can you top it?

BOROWITZ: Well, NASA delayed the launch of the Mars orbiter on Thursday, saying, quote, "No one will notice but Miles O'Brien."

COSTELLO: I love that. He did it. Debra Pickett, Mark Simone, Andy Borowitz. Thanks so much to all of you for giving us a minute this morning.

PICKETT: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: I'm going to tell miles you said that, you know. If he's not paying attention right now, I'm telling him, Andy.

Let's get to other news this morning. Negotiators meet today to try to break the deadlock talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons. Two of the six nations involved in the negotiations, China and South Korea, met. Didn't release, though, any details of their discussion.

Mike Chinoy has traveled to North Korea 14 times, reporting extensively on the peninsula. He joins us this morning from Pyongyang for a rare live report.

Let's start first with this six-party talks. Where exactly are they standing right now, Mike?

MIKE CHINONY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Soledad. We'll get to that in a second. I just want to tell you where I am. I'm outside North Korea TV, and what you can see behind me is a big panel with pictures of North Korea's late president Kim Il-Sung and current leader Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Il's mother. This kind of political symbolism that you see all over Pyongyang and, indeed, pretty much everywhere you go in North Korea.

In terms of the six-party talks, North Korean officials that I've been speaking with say that they're determined to stick to their demand that North Korea be allowed to have a peaceful civilian nuclear program. They point out that it's a double standard for the U.S. to essentially acquiesce in the international community's willingness to let Iran have a nuclear program, even with all the complications now, while insisting that North Korea not have that program. The North Koreans say the real issue is still total distrust between Washington and Pyongyang, and until that changes, they're sticking to their guns -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: You know, live reports, as we pointed out, from North Korea are incredibly rare because that society is incredibly closed. There is a process, though, under way now, modernizing the capital at the very least. How is that coming so far?

CHINOY: Well, it's very interesting, when you look around here at what is happening is the beginnings of sort of tinkering with economic reforms. You see some private enterprises, street vendors. There are officially sanctioned free markets. I've now got a cell phone here, which is something that would have been unheard of just a couple of years ago. There are business people who are trying to make the Internet available to the international business community, and we heard today there's a North Korean intranet, where local business folks and officials can exchange e-mails and information. There are a dozen resident Western business people in Pyongyang, and everybody says this is still very, very early, very, very uncertain. But there is a kind of palpable sense that the government here is trying to experiment with some kind of economic opening -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Mike Chinoy for us this morning. Mike, thanks.

COSTELLO: Still to come on American morning, more on that British Airways strike that's left thousands of travelers stranded. Andy tells us about the ripple effects stateside. Hope you're not waiting long in the airport this morning.

O'BRIEN: Doesn't that look depressing when everybody's in line?

Also, we're "Paging Dr. Gupta" for his special series for the war on cancer. Today we're going to meet a little girl whose life may have been saved by an experimental drug. So then why did the drug company stop making it? That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Welcome back, everybody. A labor dispute between British Airways and 600 people now affecting 70,000 people around the globe. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" this morning. This is a pretty incredible story, this strike.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: It's a mess, and it starts at Heathrow Airport, Soledad, where 600 catering workers were fired by British Airways. The ground crews, the baggage handlers walked out in solidarity. Now British Airways has canceled all flights in and out of Heathrow, and of course, B.A. is a giant global carrier. So that means chaos around the globe; 70,000 travelers around the world stranded, including, say, 1,000 at LAX in Los Angeles, just for instance. And it's really a situation that's not going to get resolved right away. They're acknowledging that it's going to take at least a couple of days. And, of course, people are sleeping. They're lining up. We have a picture of a couple guys who are kind of snuggling, I guess, you could say. COSTELLO: Snuggling?

O'BRIEN: They're sleeping.

SERWER: They're sleeping. They're waiting for their flight.

O'BRIEN: So they're not even going to be able to get through the negotiations with the catering company for a couple of days.

SERWER: Yes, well, the catering company, they have to rehire people apparently. The baggage handlers want to know how it's going. The clock is running. There are flights all around -- it's a big grid. Its a matrix. When the plane is stranded here and the crew's there, it's going to take a long time to sort out.

COSTELLO: Wow, that's bad. That's ugly. Let's talk oil prices. Also bad.

SERWER: Yes, I mean, what else could go wrong for this business. I mean, the airline industry is in such a situation now where every single thing is really having a negative effect. The higher oil prices -- we talked about Delta Airlines going to be spending $1 billion more on fuel this year. It's not a surprise then that Delta and other carriers are raising fares. These are the ones that are raising it just now over the next -- over the past 24 hours. You know, their fuel surcharge is $2 to $10 each way. And you know, you've got to understand that, because the capacity is up. Traffic is up. The costs are up. And somehow the piper must get paid.

O'BRIEN: Something's got to give.

All right, Andy, thanks.

SERWER: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Stick around. I'm sure you've seen this, this incredible collision on the baseball field last night.

SERWER: Yes, I did see that last night.

COSTELLO: The Reds-San Diego game. Let's go right to the video. This is Carlos Beltran and Mike Cameron.

SERWER: This is ugly.

COSTELLO: You can see it's just a little bloop hit, goes right over the infield, and These two players dive to get it, and they dive at the same time.

O'BRIEN: Oh! Oh, that's hard to watch.

SERWER: Yes.

COSTELLO: And that was literally a head-on collision. You got Mike Cameron coming in from right field, Carlos Beltran coming in from center field, totally unaware of each other. And I mean, Mike Cameron is hurt.

SERWER: What a train wreck.

COSTELLO: Cameron has a broken nose, multiple fractures of both cheekbones and a slight concussion. Beltran was able to get up and walk away on his own. He has a cut, like, on his face, I think, and a sore shoulder, but he has no memory of this happening at all.

SERWER: That's probably a good thing. Isn't one of them supposed to say "I got it?" And the other is supposed to back off.

COSTELLO: You know what the problem was, they're both center fielders, so they're both used to diving for the ball. So you know, the spirit of competition is there. And they both go head-on and, like, you know, they both went like this. The crowd was hushed because they knew it was coming.

O'BRIEN: They could see it happening.

COSTELLO: And they're like, no, no.

O'BRIEN: They hit so hard. And they had a picture where they're on the ground, where I couldn't tell who it was, but the position of the neck was just -- where it just doesn't work. You look and you say, that -- your neck doesn't go that way.

COSTELLO: No. And you know, in football, they have helmet-to- helmet contact, that is not allowed? Well, these guys did it without helmets on. Poor Mike Cameron.

SERWER: Same team.

O'BRIEN: That is bad. Yes, well, I guess they're going to be OK, which is the important thing.

SERWER: Yes, they are going to be OK.

O'BRIEN: A short break. We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All this week, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been looking at the war on cancer through the eyes of people living with the deadly disease. Sanjay joins us now from the CNN Center with the final installment of the his series. And this is a heartbreaker.

SANJAY GUPTA, SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is a heartbreaker, Carol. We meet a young girl today who has a very rare cancer, and there is a drug to treat her out there. The question is for how long.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): Alexandra is the only child of Sandra and Ed Krowski. While on vacation, she suddenly blurts out, "My back hurts."

SANDRA KROWSKI, ALLIE'S MOM: You have that little voice saying something's wrong.

GUPTA: For weeks, doctors think otherwise. They point to a new tricycle or a playground injury as the probable cause of the pain. Then suddenly, little Allie can't walk.

KROWSKI: She was telling the doctors, "My legs are stuck." She had no movement from her waist down. She was completely paralyzed. It was just a horrible situation where you're -- I said to my husband that I'm losing my child and she's dying in front of me.

GUPTA: The emergency MRI reveals a tumor on Allie's spine. She has a rare, often fatal cancer called Ewing's Sarcoma.

KROWSKI: I made the decision to get her to Houston immediately. We chartered a Lear jet. We put it on our card. It was $12,654. It was the best $12,654 I ever spent.

GUPTA: Sandra, Allie's mom, also battles cancer. She knew her daughter's life depended on experimental medicine.

KROWSKI: Allie's physician Dr. Cynthia Herzog (ph) came in and told me there was a clinical trial for Allie's type of cancer. I said, I don't need to think about it. I've already thought about it. And you can bring me the papers, and I'll sign right now.

GUPTA: Weeks of very aggressive chemotherapy and radiation had left Allie weak, nearly dead. Then she began a year long treatment with Immther, an experimental drug. After six months, a change.

KROWSKI: I knew that it was working. I just had that feeling. Once she started the trial, like, she just seemed to -- I could see, you know, in her face, she was getting more energetic.

Put your head straight.

GUPTA: Now, almost 6, Allie is cancer free, but must be monitored carefully.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just hold your breath. Do not breathe and do not move.

GUPTA: Immther, the drug that apparently saved her life, is still available as part of the Dr. Kleinerman's ongoing clinical trial, but after that, it disappears.

(on camera): So there was a drug out there that, as far as you could tell, at least seemed to be working?

EUGENIE KLEINERMAN, CHIEF, PEDIATRIC DIVISION: Correct.

GUPTA: And then you got a phone call saying that they weren't going to manufacture the drug anymore.

KLEINERMAN: Correct. Basically, I was getting the message that our marketing people have done research and we're never going to be able to recoup our research and development costs. And it doesn't matter who we're going to help and who we're not going to help, the marketing people have made the decision that we're not putting any more resources in this.

GUPTA: And the outcome?

KLEINERMAN: The outcome is we still have only a certain amount of drug.

GUPTA (voice-over): Just enough to treat 60 kids, or about one- third of the kids that get Ewing's Sarcoma each year.

(on camera): This isn't the kind of story people want to hear. If a drug works, why wouldn't they make more of it?

KLEINERMAN: Because sarcomas are a very rare tumor, and you have to understand that drug companies, pharmaceutical companies, have to report to their stockholders, and they're interested in their financials, and this will never be a money-maker.

GUPTA: This really does keep you up, doesn't it?

KLEINERMAN: Oh, yes, of course.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: Really remarkable, Carol. You know, Allie remains cancer free, and she is doing well. But no one knows what's going to happen for another patient that comes in with Ewing's Sarcoma after these drugs run out.

COSTELLO: Well, this makes me really angry. My brother died of Ewing's Sarcoma when he was 25. So when you talk about how rare it is...

GUPTA: Sorry, Carol.

COSTELLO: It doesn't really matter when you have a family member who has it. So I have a couple of questions. Is there anything you can do? Because, you know, the drug -- it just seems cruel.

GUPTA: Yes. You know, and we -- I think everybody feels the same way. It's really one of these things that sort of boggles the mind. Couple things. There is something called the Orphan Drug Act. This was actually from federal government to try and create drugs for diseases that affect less than 200,000 people in the United States.

But what we found as we sort of explored this was the pharmaceutical companies, even with these federal incentives, don't always want to make these drug. So maybe there needs to be improvements and amendments to the Orphan Drug Act.

But, you know, I'm sorry to hear about your brother, but this is the reality right now with some of these medications.

COSTELLO: I mean, I'm shaking I'm so mad. Another thing, clinical trials. We had no idea that these drugs existed. So how do you find out something like that? Because he may have been saved.

GUPTA: And there is better ways of doing that now, Carol. There is a Web site, for example -- this is pretty simple. It's called cancer.gov/clinicaltrials. You can go to this Web site, you can punch in the kind of cancer that you have and you can find out about clinical trials that are going on at places like M.D. Anderson or places that are, perhaps, closer to you as well.

And it's important for people to know about this because, when you're given a diagnosis of terminal cancer, this is an option for you if you're someone who wants to fight.

COSTELLO: All right. You're going to have a special on, too, this weekend that I hope will get the message out to a lot of people.

GUPTA: Carol, we're going to tell stories of people like your brother. We're going to honor them, I think, with this special and talk about where we've come in this fight against cancer. You know, it was 35 years ago they declared war. Where are we? I think the stories are going to be uplifting, optimistic, more so than people think -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Thank you, Sanjay. Appreciate it.

GUPTA: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Coming up in just a moment, Wolf Blitzer interviews former President Bill Clinton. We're going to find out what he has to say just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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