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American Morning

Deadly Plane Skid; Winter Weather Watch; Merck Under Fire

Aired December 09, 2005 - 06:29   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Live pictures. That's Midway Airport, Chicago, Illinois. WFLD providing those pictures. We thank them for that.
Coming up, we're going to tell you about that plane, Southwest, skidding off the runway, bad weather, bad conditions, possibly bad judgment. One child is dead. We have a live report on that.

Some potentially dangerous winter weather. Well, we know it's dangerous. We just saw how dangerous it can be. But it's coming toward the East Coast now. We'll tell you what to expect on the East Coast.

And then a study funded by Merck ignored damaging information about the health risks of Vioxx. We'll look at that latest controversy on Vioxx ahead.

And we'll get the latest from that plane crash in Chicago as well. Once again, we have those live pictures from WFLD. One boy is dead.

Midway Airport, west of downtown Chicago, right in the middle of a residential neighborhood, the shortest runways in the jet business, 6,500 feet. That's shorter than LaGuardia or Washington National, where we know -- we've heard about the short runways there. And this kind of thing is in the back of people's minds there, because the neighborhood is right around.

Sean Callebs is there at the edge of the airport -- Sean.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Miles. If you look behind me, you can see the tail section of the Southwest jetliner that is really stretched across Central Avenue here at the end of where Midway Airport is.

The conditions here right now are very clear, very cold. Dramatically different last night at the time of this accident. It had been snowing for hours. It had been coming down. Something like eight inches fell in this area.

When the jet came in, it skidded off the runway, went through a fence. Apparently at some point the front landing gear collapsed, and then the jet slammed into two cars.

Now, I want to set the scene on the traffic last night as well. It was about 7:00 Central Time, bumper to bumper traffic. So, it could have been those vehicles were simply sitting ducks. Eyewitnesses described just how bad the weather was at the time of that crash.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIA VELASQUEZ, WITNESS: The snow was horrible. If you stand even by the corner of our house, you cannot see the scene that you see now. And you can probably see the bright lights. But there was so much snow everywhere, it was just ridiculous. I mean, something like this was probably unavoidable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CALLEBS: And, really, the tragic thing in all of this, a 6-year- old boy was killed in that accident. The plane coming down on two vehicles, one holding a family -- mother, father and three children. That is where the 6-year-old died. He had two siblings, a 4-year-old and an infant, both injured as well.

And the wing came down on another car, injuring three of the four passengers seriously. All four were taken to local hospitals.

Now, a lot of factors in play. Of course, the bad weather is going to be looked at the FAA and NTSB. The FAA was on the scene last night. We're told the NTSB should be here early this morning.

Now, Miles talked about the short runway. And, really, when pilots come in at night, they often take what is called a long landing, meaning they don't come at the very beginning of the runway. They land a little further down, using those lights.

So, with the weather as bad as it was, if there was any kind of tail wind, it could have pushed that aircraft right off the end of the runway.

We know of two accidents in the past several years similar to this. One was at Burbank Airport back in March of 2000, where another 737 went through a fence at the end of the runway, injuring a number of people. And another much more serious back in 1999, a McDonald Douglas MD-82 went through the end of a runway in Little Rock, Arkansas. Eleven people died in that crash.

Now, after the accident happened here last night, the passengers were able to deploy through emergency chutes and emergency doors as well, Miles. And all of the passengers got off very quickly, very safely. Three of them had to be treated for injuries, what the fire commissioner last night called the "walking wounded." He said they simply suffered bumps and bruises and were able to walk away and taken to the hospital for observation -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Sean, I know the -- I believe the NTSB is still on the way to the scene there. And one of the things they're going to be looking very closely at was just how slick that runway was. There are a couple of things that pilots rely on: other pilot reports and in some cases they have a little gadget on the runway that indicates the friction. At this point, we know there was a lot of snow in the area, but we don't know yet exactly how slick that runway was, do we?

CALLEBS: Exactly. And we talked to -- last night I was here with the -- talking to the fire commissioner last night. He said that the runway had been plowed. It had been groomed.

But at the time of this accident, coincidentally, I was at O'Hare watching the situation get worse throughout the day. And as crews would de-ice aircraft and clear the runway, it was coming down so heave that they were simply overburdened. They were actually having trouble getting jets from the hangar to the gates because there was so much snow on the runway over there.

And we know that more snow fell to the south, where Midway is. The conditions were very bad. They are going to, of course, look at just how bad the runway is. We know there was a great deal of snow built up there. But they were doing what they could trying to keep that runway as clear as possible.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, Sean Callebs, you know, one of the things that happens is pilots are reluctant to declare the breaking action nil, as it is, because that means they've got to close down the runway, and that causes a lot of delays. So, it will be interesting to see how this all unfolds. Sean Callebs in Chicago. Back with you in a little bit -- Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And the other thing is the runway is so short it leaves very little room for error.

M. O'BRIEN: Absolutely no room for error. This is at a good day, perfect conditions, 4,500 feet required for that airplane. This is a 6,500 runway. With the instrument landing approach that they would have used, they would have touched down with about 4,900 feet left on the runway. You've got the snow. You have the tail wind of about 10 miles an hour. It's very hard to see how it would have made it.

COSTELLO: Oh, definitely. And just for the cars on the road, seeing a plane bearing down and skidding out of control, it's just...

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, boy. Yes, can you imagine?

COSTELLO: Oh, how frightening.

Anyway, you saw the snow coming down in Chicago last night. Well, it's coming down in many parts of the country this morning. Let's get straight to Chris Huntington. He's at a truck stop along the New Jersey Turnpike near Secaucus.

We just asked Bonnie Schneider the temperature, Chris. It's 26 degrees out there.

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, that sounds about right. It's also blowing a little bit. So, you can all do the wind chill factor calculations at home. You know, picking up on the aviation theme, we're hearing already, as expected, as you can expect in conditions like this that there are major delays at the New York City airports. LaGuardia Airport is reporting an hour-and-a-half delay. And, of course, the shuttles, both Delta and US Air shuttles, fly in and out of LaGuardia. So that's a good proxy for the kind of delays you can expect up and down the Eastern seaboard.

Newark Airport is only about 10 miles south of us here. Newark apparently is still reporting no delays. I find that very hard to believe, because we have conditions here that would not be conducive to quick takeoffs and landings.

On the New Jersey Turnpike behind me here, the official speed limit now is reduced to 35 miles per hour. I can tell you the normal slow lane speed on the New Jersey Turnpike is 70. And even though the official top-end spend now is supposed to be 35, people are still making better than that.

One thing we are noticing is that -- and it's probably due to the fact that it's a Friday -- the traffic does seem lighter than usual. At this time of the morning you would expect almost bumper to bumper at this section of the Jersey Turnpike. We're only a few miles from the Lincoln Tunnel, one of the major entry points to New York City.

In the city, the plows are out. These situations are not completely unexpected. And, of course, all of the towns and cities in the Northeast around here in the last few years have become well- accustomed to dealing with dumpings like this, even if it's hitting early in the season.

Carol -- back to you.

COSTELLO: Wow! It's awful out there. So, everybody, be careful. Slow down. Have some patience. And, Chris, Bonnie did the math. The wind chill is 18 degrees where you are.

HUNTINGTON: There you go.

COSTELLO: So, your lips will start to freeze soon.

All right, let's get the big picture on the snowy weather this morning. Let's head to the forecast center in Atlanta and check in with Bonnie.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: I just got I.M. from the household, snow day in the O'Brien household. They're very excited here in New York City. Lots of kids getting the sleds out, even as we speak.

Kelly Wallace has some other headlines for us.

Good morning, Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Miles. And hello to all of you.

We're beginning with U.S. troops in Iraq. Thousands of the troops could soon be coming home for the holidays. That's coming from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who says he expects violence in Iraq to taper off after next week's elections. That could free up to 20,000 troops after December 15. Secretary Rumsfeld also hinted that some of the remaining 137,000 forces could begin pulling out next year, but only, he stressed, if conditions permit.

Economic risks now from the bird flu. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says a pandemic could deliver a $675 billion hit to the U.S. economy, triggering a recession. Senator Frist says it would all start with mass hysteria.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), MAJORITY LEADER: Normal lifestyles. The churches close. The schools shutter. Communications and transportation grinds to a halt. The public succumbs to hysteria and panic. Police protection fails. Order decays. Productivity falls.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: And Senator Frist's comments come as there are reports of a second bird flu fatality in recent months. This one, a 5-year- old boy in Thailand.

Well, Robert Clark (ph) is a free man this morning after nearly a quarter-of-a-century in prison. DNA testing proved Clark (ph) did not rape an Atlanta woman back in 1981. You see a smiling Clark (ph) there, hugging his lawyer at last night's hearing as his relatives kept saying, "I told you, I told you." Police say DNA evidence suggests -- get this -- that one of Clark's (ph) friends might actually be the guilty one. And police officers are considering pressing charges.

And here's a question for you: Offensive video or art? We're talking about some video we showed you a lot yesterday on AMERICAN MORNING. A lawyer for the San Francisco police officer accused of making this video says his client is an artist, and that the skits are self-analytical. It was supposedly created as a spoof for an office Christmas party. Well, as many as 20 officers may be suspended for it. And coming up at 8:00 a.m. Eastern, we'll talk to a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

COSTELLO: Yes, well...

WALLACE: So, it's an artist at work here.

COSTELLO: No, no, no.

M. O'BRIEN: An artiste, you mean. He's an artiste.

WALLACE: Artiste, artiste, exactly.

COSTELLO: He said it was to improve morale. And, you know, you mentioned the guest we're going to have, Kelly. Her name is Fiona Mont (ph). She's from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. And needless to say, she's very upset about this.

But my issue is, is can you file criminal charges for putting such a thing together? We're going to ask her about that. I mean, what criminal charges be?

M. O'BRIEN: What would the criminal charge be? I don't know. I don't know about that. But certainly if it improved morale among police officers, it has reduced morale among the many people that viewed it. So...

WALLACE: Everybody else, exactly.

COSTELLO: You know, 20 of them are facing disciplinary action right now.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. All right.

Coming up on the program, President Bush says Iraq is making lots of progress. And it's most important industry may actually be moving backwards. Andy is "Minding Your Business."

COSTELLO: And next, the latest controversy facing the makers of Vioxx. Did they try to cover up some of the drug's most serious risks? That's, too, ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: "The New England Journal of Medicine" is now saying that Merck, the company that makes Vioxx, withheld some crucial information as it released studies about the efficacy and the dangers of that drug. This could have a tremendous impact on -- I don't know, there's about 5,000 lawsuits now -- against the company by Vioxx patients in the wake of problems with the drug. And also, it speaks to the larger issue of whether the research that is in these medical journals is accurate and can be trusted.

Joining me now from Boston, the author of "Overdosed America," Dr. John Abramson.

Dr. Abramson, good to have you back with us.

Let's talk about...

DR. JOHN ABRAMSON, AUTHOR, "OVERDOSED AMERICA": It's good to be with you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: What is a VIGOR manuscript? Please excuse us, viewers, while we try to get through this, but this is an important point.

ABRAMSON: It's very important. VIGOR is the nickname of the large study that Merck did to see if Vioxx was actually safer than an older anti-inflammatory drug called Naproxen, which is sold over-the- counter as Aleve, Miles. M. O'BRIEN: All right. And the results -- the initial results of this study indicated what?

ABRAMSON: The results of this study indicated if you look at the real data, not the data that was published in "The New England Journal of Medicine," but the real data, the results show that Vioxx is no more effective at relieving arthritis pain than the older drug, Naproxen or Aleve, and causes significantly more serious complications, significantly more heart attacks, blood clots and strokes.

M. O'BRIEN: But that was not what...

ABRAMSON: The problem is...

M. O'BRIEN: That wasn't published initially. What was published initially?

ABRAMSON: Right. That's the problem, Miles. The article that was published in November 2000 in "The New England Journal of Medicine" that doctors thought was reporting the most important results of this study didn't report that. It said that Vioxx is a safer drug, because it causes fewer serious stomach problems.

M. O'BRIEN: So they cooked the books.

ABRAMSON: They didn't tell the doctors the most important facts. They did cook the books. That's the news that came out yesterday is Merck forgot to include three heart attacks and deleted important data from the diskette that contained the manuscript.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

ABRAMSON: But the real story is that Merck wanted to show that Vioxx was a better drug, safer on the stomach. It was actually causing more trouble in the heart, lungs and in blood clots.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Let's run through it real quickly. Here's what "The New England Journal of Medicine" had to say when they announced this: "We determined from a computer diskette that some of these data were deleted from the VIGOR manuscript two days before it was initially submitted to the 'Journal.' These inaccuracies and deletions call into question the integrity of the data."

It calls into question the integrity of a lot of things actually.

Let's get Merck's side of this on here before we get in trouble here. Merck says this: "Merck correctly communicated about the benefits and possible risks of Vioxx and extensively disclosed the VIGOR data to the scientific and medical communities and in the press."

How do -- what do we make of that statement from Merck?

ABRAMSON: Their disclosure was selective, Miles. They said that it was safer for the stomach, but they did not fully disclose that if you looked at heart attacks, blood clots and strokes, which was the cardiovascular complications that had been pre-specified in the experimental design, if you looked at those, there were significantly more in the people that took Vioxx than Naproxen. And Merck did not include that crucial data in "The New England Journal of Medicine" article.

So, doctors reading that article thought it was a safer drug when, in fact, Vioxx was a more dangerous drug.

M. O'BRIEN: Will this tilt the balance on so many of those lawsuits that are now out there?

ABRAMSON: I think it's going to help the public and doctors and probably jurors to understand that Merck's intention appears to have been to sell drugs and not to protect the health of the American people.

M. O'BRIEN: That's quite a statement. Final thought here. This calls into question the much larger issue of how this research is funded and whether it can be trusted at all.

ABRAMSON: Miles, that's the key question. That's why I dropped out of family practice to write "Overdosed America." The American people are not getting what they should be getting from medical science. Our knowledge is now produced largely by commercial entities, drug companies, device companies, and their primary goal is to sell more products.

We have a system that's broken, and I hope that this disclosure of Merck withholding data from "The New England Journal of Medicine" starts us to move in the right direction of bringing the best medical information to the American people.

M. O'BRIEN: Always a pleasure having you with us, Dr. John Abramson, who is the author of "Overdosed America." Quite a statement there, isn't it?

COSTELLO: Yes. It's difficult to know who to trust, that's for sure.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: So, (INAUDIBLE) thought this morning.

M. O'BRIEN: We sure can trust Andy Serwer, though.

COSTELLO: Yes, we can, because he's going to talk about Bechtold (ph) Texas tea.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: I'm glad to hear that. Yes. We're going to be talking about oil. Where in the world has Iraq's oil production gone? It's disappearing. We'll tell you why coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, everyone. I'm meteorologist Bonnie Schneider with a look at your cold and flu report for today.

As we check things out across the country, you'll find some sporadic outbreaks of the flu in many locations, though much of the country is reporting no activity at this time. You'll find some sporadic activity in Texas, Florida and up north towards New York state, where there is snow right now. Also back out towards California and some areas in the Southwest and the Northern Plains.

That's a look at your cold and flu report for today. Hope everyone stays healthy. We'll have more coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Oh my. Take a look at that. It is snowing in New York City this morning, and they're already out shoveling the sidewalks, because this is the law in New York City. You have to clear those sidewalks, or you're in big trouble.

M. O'BRIEN: So, you have to stay out there during the whole snowstorm shoveling the whole time? That's the law.

COSTELLO: Pretty much.

M. O'BRIEN: And if not, what do they do?

COSTELLO: You get fined.

M. O'BRIEN: Take your sled away? Or what do they do?

SERWER: Yes.

COSTELLO: You get slapped on the wrist, and you get a ticket.

SERWER: You get a ticket. Miles, you better get shoveling.

M. O'BRIEN: I'm glad I couldn't afford a driveway.

SERWER: You'd better get up there.

COSTELLO: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Good thing.

COSTELLO: Andy is here to mind your business this morning.

SERWER: I am. Yes, we're going to be talking about Iraq this morning. And Iraqi oil production, sad to say, will be much less than anticipated in this year. Down from last year. And, of course, this is a really difficult situation for the Bush administration and, of course, for the country and the citizens of Iraq.

Hard numbers are difficult to come by here, but it looks like 1.8 million barrels a day will be the average of oil being pumped from that nation. That's down from two million barrels a day in 2004.

Just to give you a point of reference, we used 20 million barrels of oil a day.

And the really difficult situation here is this is far below the peak production from this company. In 1990, this country pumped 3.5 million barrels of oil a day. So, almost half the level of 15 years ago.

The reason? Insurgent attacks and those insurgent attacks preventing foreign experts from coming in to fix this old infrastructure.

So not a good situation there. And, of course, this is a critical issue for the administration.

COSTELLO: Well, yes, because that was supposed to pay for the war and pay for Iraq's reconstruction. And now...

SERWER: Yes, the only silver lining...

COSTELLO: ... the American taxpayers are doing that.

SERWER: That's right. The only silver lining is that the price of oil is up. So that's helping offset the lower production a little bit. But still a real problem here.

M. O'BRIEN: There's an awful lot of oil there, though, if they could figure this out.

SERWER: There is. Yes, that's right.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Number two is Saudi Arabia, right, as far as reserves?

SERWER: Reserves, they say, yes.

M. O'BRIEN: They say. All right, Andy Serwer, thank you very much.

Coming up, that plane crash in Chicago is the focus of much of our attention this morning. The weather was terrible when they made this approach on a short, slick runway. As a matter of fact, the weather conditions were such there that they might have been below the minimums for that runway at the time. As a result, that Southwest Airlines 737-700 did not stop before the runway ended, crashed into some traffic, and a little boy is dead. We'll keep you posted on that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Well, be sure to check out our Web site. It is CNN.com. We have the latest morning's top stories, including some of the stories you're most interested in. And by virtue of that, the most popular stories, which you can click on. You're curious about Debra Lafave. She's that teacher in Florida who had an affair with a 14-year-old student. Had a plea deal, which would have kept her out of prison. But a judge in Marion County, Florida, said, huh-uh, we're not going to accept that deal. It does not meet the minimum standards for such a plea bargain. And so that story -- well, I guess the plot continues to thicken.

Another story you're interested in, Tookie Williams. He is the California death row inmate, who is trying to save himself from a lethal injection by claiming that he's done good works, writing some children's books and so forth. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had a clemency hearing on this particular death row inmate yesterday. They don't like to give clemency in California. Last time that happened, you know -- I know you know the answer.

COSTELLO: When Reagan was governor.

M. O'BRIEN: In 1967, Ronald Reagan was the governor there last time there was clemency, and it was somebody with a serious mental impairment. So the chances of clemency -- well, who knows? We'll see what happens.

COSTELLO: I don't know.

M. O'BRIEN: The truth is the Hollywood intelligencia (ph) has gathered around Tookie.

COSTELLO: Isn't that an oxymoron?

M. O'BRIEN: That's a good point. And the question is, does that help or hurt? I mean, Arnold Schwarzenegger is, after all, a product of that.

COSTELLO: True.

Let's head to the forecast center to get a check on the weather, because it's nasty out there.

(WEATHER REPORT)

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