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Paula Zahn Now

Breast Milk Black Market?; Oprah Flip-Flops on Controversial Book; New Clues in Missing Honeymooner Case?

Aired January 26, 2006 - 20:00   ET

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

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, suddenly, there may be new hope for a desperate family that is wondering what became of a loved one.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN (voice-over): Vanished at sea -- tonight, dramatic new clues in a mysterious disappearance.

MAUREEN SMITH, GEORGE SMITH'S MOTHER: My son boarded Royal Caribbean ship for his honeymoon, and he never got off. And we want to know why.

ZAHN: Now a famous forensic scientist is brought aboard.

DR. HENRY LEE, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: I did find something.

ZAHN: Could what he discovered help break the case?

The "Eye Opener" -- mother's milk and money. Could you ever imagine a thriving black market for breast milk?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: How much money would you say you made from your breast milk?

JACQUELINE GILSTRAP, SOLD BREAST MILK: Probably, say, $1,000.

ZAHN: What kind of person would take food from her baby from an absolute stranger?

And Oprah's flip-flop -- on "LARRY KING LIVE," she gave this author the benefit of the doubt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LARRY KING LIVE," JANUARY 11, 2006)

OPRAH WINFREY, HOST, "THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW": Whether he hit the police officer or didn't hit the police officer, to me, it seems to be much ado about nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: That was then. But this is now. Wait until you see her confront the man she says duped her and millions of her fans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And we begin tonight with what could be dramatic new developments in a mysterious disappearance that captured headlines just about everywhere.

It also sent chills down the spines of people who might be thinking about taking a cruise. It involves a honeymoon couple on a dream cruise back in July that took a sudden fatal turn. Ever since then, their family has struggled to learn exactly what happened.

Deborah Feyerick has the very latest, including what could be crucial new evidence discovered by a scientist famous for his crime scene investigations.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They seemed the picture-perfect couple, newlyweds George and Jennifer Smith, smiling, in photo after photo, as they sailed the Mediterranean aboard a luxury cruise ship. But, on the seventh day of their dream honeymoon, as they partied into the early-morning hours, it all went terribly wrong.

George Smith vanished, leaving behind a large bloodstain, a brokenhearted bride, and a family desperate for details of what happened that tragic night, when they believe George Smith was thrown overboard.

BREE SMITH, GEORGE SMITH'S SISTER: My brother was murdered at the age of 26.

FEYERICK: If it was murder, who did it? And why? And could his wife Jennifer have somehow stopped it?

Forensic scientist Henry Lee, working on her behalf, recently examined the Smiths' cabin, more than six months after her husband disappeared.

DR. HENRY LEE, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: I did find something, OK? But I cannot tell you what we found.

FEYERICK: Cruise officials say the FBI has the original carpet and padding and that room 9062 has been occupied many times since the honeymoon.

Gregg McCrary, a former FBI agent working for the cruise line, was with Dr. Lee.

GREGG MCCRARY, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: For me, there wasn't any, like, big eureka moment during the day where, holy cow, look at this.

FEYERICK: A cruise official says Dr. Lee appeared to find biological matter on the lifeboat canopy where the bloodstain was found. Dr. Lee won't say whether or not his finding is critical.

But what is critical is the hour between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning on July 5, the hour George Smith was last seen alive. The newlyweds had been partying in the disco with friends they had met on the cruise. There was alcohol. Some reports say it was a hallucinogenic liquor called absinthe, which is not sold in the U.S., but is available in Europe.

Royal Caribbean Captain Bill Wright says it is possible someone may have brought a bottle on to the cruise ship.

CAPTAIN BILL WRIGHT, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF FLEET OPERATIONS, ROYAL CARIBBEAN: Who brought it on board? Have no way of knowing. But it is not sold or available on our ships.

FEYERICK: Whatever they drank, Jennifer Smith says she remembers nothing about her final moments with her husband and has no memory whether they had a fight, as some passengers have stated. Still, she and George went separate ways, parting for the last time.

Cruise officials say George had to be carried back to his cabin by four friends and that they were so loud, a vacationing police officer in the cabin next door called security to complain.

RICHARD FAIN, CHAIRMAN & CEO, ROYAL CARIBBEAN: He called down and said that he was hearing partying noises or drinking games in the cabin next door. We sent up a security officer.

FEYERICK: Royal Caribbean chief executive officer Richard Fain says security knocked on the Smiths' door 20 minutes after the noise complaint. The man who had called security tells CNN, by that time, he had heard a terrible thud outside the balcony.

FAIN: We knocked on the door. There was no noise coming at that point. And we had only the one noise complaint. There was no noise coming. There was no answer to it. We don't force entrance on that basis. And so he left thinking everything was fine.

FEYERICK: But everything was not fine. On the other side of the ship, cruise officials say Jennifer Smith was found alone, passed out in a hallway. And the same security guard who, moments earlier, had knocked on the couple's door was dispatched to help bring back the groggy bride. Her husband was nowhere in sight.

FAIN: The cabin looked normal. There was nothing amiss in the cabin. But there was no one there.

FEYERICK (on camera): The mother has been quoted saying, there was blood everywhere in the cabin. What is your response?

FAIN: It is absolutely not true. There was no signs of a struggle. This is not a room that was covered in blood. There was no blood trail.

FEYERICK (voice-over): Even Jennifer Smith says she didn't notice anything wrong when she woke up alone in the cabin several hours later. George wasn't there. And she hadn't seen him since the night before.

But rather than worry, she headed to the spa for a massage. It was 8:30 in the morning, the same time passengers first alerted security to a large bloodstain on a lifeboat canopy two flights below the Smiths' cabin. Why wasn't George Smith's wife worried? The head of guest relations, says because it had happened before.

MARIE BREHERET, GUEST RELATIONS, ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISE LINES: She only mentioned that he had slept elsewhere during the cruise. So, she just thought he was just sleeping in another cabin.

FEYERICK: Cruise officials say Jennifer Smith was in another part of the ship around the time George disappeared. Smith says she was given a lie-detector test by the FBI. It is not clear what she was asked, but she says she passed. The FBI will not confirm or deny.

Jennifer Smith and her lawyer believe George Smith's fate might have been different had the cruise ship investigated the original noise complaint more thoroughly.

JAMES WALKER, ATTORNEY FOR JENNIFER HAGEL SMITH: If the security guards had simply listened to what the passengers were begging and get in there, and take a look around, they would have found his blood, if they had looked outside. They could have stopped the ship and tried to save him or look for him, or they could have perhaps found him on the awning and saved his life.

FEYERICK: So, what did happen in that cabin? Why did the passenger in the next room hear sounds of doors opening and closing? And who was Smith with?

(on camera): FBI investigators now have all the forensic evidence. And they're saying nothing. What might that evidence show? Other officials tell CNN, when the ship was docked in Turkey, police there who boarded and collected the evidence found nothing conclusive to determine if George Smith accidentally fell, was thrown overboard, or was killed.

(voice-over): Meanwhile, Royal Caribbean has turned over nearly 100 surveillance tapes from the Smith cruise.

(on camera): So, technically, the answer to what happened that night could be on the tapes?

FAIN: It might be. I think the FBI is looking at that. And I don't know where that will take them.

FEYERICK (voice-over): But that is little consolation to the Smiths.

B. SMITH: George hasn't surfaced, so we have no body to bury and we have no grave to pray at.

FEYERICK: Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And -- and joining me right now is forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee, who you just saw in Deborah's report. And joining us from Washington, another man you just saw, former FBI agent Gregg McCrary, who is assisting the Royal Caribbean cruise line in the investigation.

Good to see both of you.

Dr. Lee, I am going to start with you this evening. Based on the bloodstain on the canopy, do you think Greg (sic) Smith was alive when he hit it or was he killed in the cabin and moved?

LEE: Well, Paula, that's an excellent question.

We see a large pool of blood, those are in liquid, which indicative the blood is still in circulation, still in liquid stage. And there are blood smears. Of course, they indicate some kind of movement.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: So, what does that really mean? What -- what are the theories that you're potentially considering at this hour?

LEE: Well, I don't -- any scientist, a forensic scientist, especially, we don't come up any theory until we see all the piece of physical evidence.

Right at this moment, we only know we have some bloodstain. Of course, if we at the scene at the initial stage, I can determine volume of blood, the type of bloodstain pattern, and the mechanism transfer.

However, we only have a photograph. And we only can estimate, try to use some experiment to duplicate and try to estimate amount, try to determine possible mechanism.

ZAHN: All right.

Now, Mr. McCrary, you are going to take a look at some of the evidence, even though Mr. -- Dr. Lee is conducting his own independent investigation, but some of the same evidence he is going to go through.

But the fact is, when the two of you entered the cabin, it -- it was no longer a crime scene. The scene had been contaminated. You have had customers in and out of there. The carpeting has been removed. So, how valuable is any of this information you just recently collected?

MCCRARY: Well, it is hard to know, because it has to be factored into the overall investigation, which will include interviews and interrogations and a review of the videotapes and -- and all of those things. It all has to be put together.

If -- if Henry has been able to come up with something that the Turks or the FBI has missed, then, as I said before, God bless him. Hopefully, that is another little piece of the puzzle that will help move this thing forward, because Henry and I are both interested in getting this thing resolved accurately and find out exactly what happened, which is what the cruise line wants. And I -- I think the attorneys want it as well.

ZAHN: Well, we're all going to be looking for answers. We appreciate both of your joining us tonight.

Dr. Henry Lee, Gregg McCrary, appreciate your time.

MCCRARY: You're welcome.

ZAHN: And still ahead tonight, two thriving black markets that may just shock you. First, who could be spending hundreds of dollars to buy human breast milk, even if they don't know where it came from?

And, then, couples desperate to have children paying thousands for fertility drugs on the black market.

And, then, a little bit later on, Oprah's apology over the author who made up parts of his memoir two weeks ago, after standing up for him. Why did she change her mind?

But, first, tonight's countdown of the 10 most popular stories on CNN.com. More than 21 million of you went to our Web site today. At number ten, Randy McCloy, sole survivor of the Sago Mine explosion, is finally out of a coma. Tonight, he's in a rehabilitation center.

Number nine, today, the U.S. military freed five Iraqi women detainees, a move demanded by the kidnappers of American reporter Jill Carroll -- still no word on Carroll's fate.

Please stay with us. We have seven and eight on the countdown straight ahead. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Much more ahead tonight, including couples so desperate to have children of their own, they're turning to the growing black market in fertility drugs.

And now another incredible story for you "Outside the Law" -- have you ever seen something that looks suspicious, but hesitated about calling it to report it? Well, our next story could make you change your mind next time. You're about to meet one woman who just last week had the courage, the persistence to act on her suspicions, follow her heart, and rescue a troubled young child.

Just watch as Rick Sanchez brings us tonight's "Outside the Law."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Take a look at this surveillance video taken inside a store in south Alabama. You see the little girl in the middle of the picture? Is there anything about her or the couple that she's with that strikes you as odd or suspicious? This Atlanta woman who was in that same store says yes.

TRACIE DEAN, REPORTED SUSPECTED ABUSE TO POLICE: It was very clear to me that something was wrong. I have seen that look before, that blank look, that -- that there is something missing. I call it -- I consider it like they're missing love.

SANCHEZ: Call it a hunch or intuition, but the little girl, Tracie thought, seemed to want to get away, but just couldn't express it. She was with an older man who was encouraging Tracie to get out of the store, but there was something about the little girl, who seemed to want to cling to Tracie.

DEAN: And I got back to my car and I said, oh, my God; she was trying to come with me.

SANCHEZ: Tracie did something else when she got in her car to drive away. She jotted the man's license tag and called 911, and got a call back, telling her all was fine. Just a man with his granddaughter was what she recalled the 911 operator saying.

DEAN: She said, all it all checked out. So, I said, OK, you know, sorry. But, when I hung up, I thought, hmm, you know, that's not right.

SANCHEZ: Back at her home, outside Atlanta, Tracie immediately got on her computer and began checking Web sites that list missing children. She also called police in Alabama to check if they had any new information. Then she called the store to see if they had some type of surveillance video.

(on camera): Did you ever experience something you simply could not get out of your mind? For Tracie, it got so bad, a full five days after returning home here to Decatur, Georgia, she decided she would act. She got back in her car and headed back to Alabama.

(voice-over): Back to the store, where she had come across the sad little girl. There, she went inside and approached the woman behind the counter.

DEAN: We told her what happened. We showed her the picture. Immediately, she said, I know exactly who you're talking about.

SANCHEZ: Police arrived. And, soon, she got the response that seemed to prove her intuition right. This is what she was told by police after they found the little girl and the couple she was with.

DEAN: He goes, Tracie, girl, you were right on. He said, something is not right here. He said, I don't know what is going to happen yet, but the name this guy gave us, we feel, is a false name. And that guy is a wanted sex offender.

TRACY HAWSEY, CONECUH COUNTY, ALABAMA, SHERIFF: We ran some checks and found out that the gentleman by the name of Jack Wiley had an arson warrant that was active from California.

SANCHEZ: Then the bombshell.

HAWSEY: Mr. Wiley had been having sex with the 3-year-old girl.

SANCHEZ: Tracie's hunch was on target. The woman on the videotape told police a sordid tale of sexual abuse involving the little girl. And because of it, Jack Wiley, the man on the videotape, is being held by Alabama authorities on a $3 million bond and charged with two counts of first-degree rape.

As for the woman, Glenna Faye Marshall, she says she's the little girl's mother. She has been charged with child abuse. And her bond is set at $2 million.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is hard to believe that a mother could be involved in letting that happen to her child. But based on the physical evidence, how could she not know it is going on? If she knew it was going on, then what was she doing?

SANCHEZ: Police say the pair lived on the road, traveling to stock car events, where they sold trinkets. And, police say, they have admitted to sexual encounters with other children.

(on camera): A lot of people would say, why did you keep going when you have got so many roadblocks?

DEAN: My heart. I told my sister over and over -- I kept telling her, when my heart tells me to let this go, I am going to let it go.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): Tracie says something told her she was the little girl's only chance. She may have been right.

Rick Sanchez, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And there's one more thing. The police are saying they hope that anyone around the country who recognizes the couple calls the Evergreen, Alabama, Police Department. They are worried that other children might have been harmed along the way.

Still ahead tonight, we're going to hear Oprah's apology today over the memoir that it turns out wasn't. Why the about-face just weeks after standing by the author?

First, though, some of the hour's other top stories from Erica Hill at Headline News -- Erica.

ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Paula, the battle over judge Samuel Alito may be coming to a head -- Democratic Senator John Kerry saying today he will support a filibuster to block Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. But Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist says the Senate will vote Monday to cut off debate, a motion that requires 60 votes to pass.

Just days before the president's State of the Union address, a new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll finds most Americans don't see him as a uniter, not a divider. Just 41 percent of respondents now call him a uniter. That's down 17 points since 2001.

Today, in South Texas, a Ford pickup carrying 13 passengers slammed into a car carrier, killing six people, injuring eight others. Authorities suspect those in the pickup were part of a human-smuggling operation. And Haleigh Poutre, the young Massachusetts girl was nearly removed from life support two weeks ago, was transferred to a rehabilitation center today. The 11-year-old was hospitalized with severe brain injuries. Her stepfather is charged with assault. And officials say Haleigh is now moving her eyes to follow sounds -- quite a development there -- Paula.

ZAHN: Erica Hill, thanks so much.

Coming up next, we change our focus to something I think is going to surprise you. Can you imagine selling human breast milk on the black market? And who is paying hundreds of dollars a bottle for it? The answer, I think, is going to shock you.

Also, another growing black market in the baby industry -- if you were desperate to have a baby, would you buy fertility drugs from someone in a parking lot? What if it saved you thousands of dollars?

But, before the break, our CNN.com countdown -- earlier, we showed you number 10, Sago Mine survivor Randy McCloy now in a rehab center. Number nine, the Iraqi women prisoners released by the U.S. military.

Now number eight -- in Exeter, California, a suspect in a 10-and- a-half-hour bank siege is in custody. The standoff ended early this morning, when the last hostages were rescued.

At number seven, the investigation into the fatal shooting of a mother and her baby in suburban Boston, Massachusetts. Detectives are in New England, where they plan to question the woman's husband. We are working on that story and we will have more for you tomorrow.

And, just ahead, number five and number six on our top 10 countdown.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Welcome back.

Now an in-depth look at two burgeoning black markets involving the baby industry, both making them and feeding them. It may surprise you, but there is a thriving market for breast milk. Millions of moms believe it is healthier for their babies. And some can't breast-feed their own babies for various reasons.

But listen to this. The going rate at some breast milk banks is as much as $4 an ounce. And a baby needs, on average, 25 ounces a day. That adds up to an astounding $18,000 for six months of breast milk. And, if you can't afford that, where does a desperate mom turn?

Elizabeth Cohen looked into the story and found some surprising rewards, as well as some tremendous risks for mothers and their children, in tonight's "Eye Opener."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Someone once paid this woman $300 for a bottle of her breast milk and that was just one offer.

(on camera): How much money would you say you made from your breast milk?

JACQUELINE GILSTRAP, SOLD BREAST MILK: Probably $1,000, enough to buy all the baby furniture.

COHEN (voice-over): Breast milk, the stuff of life, that bond between mother and child, has become a commodity on a mother's milk black market, to be sold and shared, not one mom for one baby, but, sometimes, as many as 20 mothers for one baby.

Meet some of the women who are redefining the world of breast- feeding, Jenn, whose son nursed at the breast of four different women, Kelly (ph), who recruited 20 women to give breast milk to her baby, and Cathy, whose little girl has drunk the milk of six different moms, including one who shipped it in from nearly 1,000 miles away.

It is called milk sharing. And, in this world, Jenn Connel is known as a founding mother, of sorts.

JENN CONNEL, FEEDMYBABY.COM: Children that are breast-fed are healthier, are smarter, have less ear infections, have less problems with gastrointestinal problems, less problems with allergies. Why wouldn't I want to breast-feed my child?

COHEN: But Jenn couldn't. She lost both her breasts to cancer three years ago.

CONNEL: And that was most difficult part about my surgery, was not really losing the breasts. It was losing the ability to feed.

COHEN: So, when Jenn gave birth to her son Grayson a year later, she started this Web site, feedmybaby.com, explaining her plight. The responses poured in. In all, 35 women donated milk to her sons.

CONNEL: I had three moms that came over one day. And we were just hanging out. And all three of them breast-fed Preston. And I don't even know why this makes me so sad, but it is just something that I couldn't do. It was so beautiful.

COHEN: Beautiful perhaps, but also dangerous, according to some doctors.

DR. LAWRENCE M. GARTNER, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS: There is a real risk involved when somebody simply takes mill from another mother. The biggest risk is for HIV, the viruses and the bacteria that may get into the milk.

COHEN: The American Academy of Pediatrics says mothers who can't breast-feed should use milk banks, where mothers like Mary Anna Goran (ph) donate milk that has been tested, pasteurized, and sold for $3 to $4 an ounce. The pediatricians strongly discourage unsupervised milk sharing.

CONNEL: Any doctor that would say that I'm being dangerous with my children or that formula is safer than breast milk, I would -- I would say you're insane.

COHEN: Jenn says she was smart. She asked her donors for proof they tested negative for HIV and other diseases. Still, experts say, what if a milk donor tested negative and then contracted the disease after the fact?

GARTNER: Any one of them, if they were infected, could give the infection to the infant.

COHEN: But women who take milk from others say they get to know their donors.

Kelly Faulkner (ph), who is raising her son Lauren (ph) on donated milk, didn't just screen her 20 donors. She got to know the ones who live nearby, like Kim (ph) and Lauren (ph). And she talks on the phone to Lilly (ph) and other donors who live far away. The women try to build a community, a throwback to the days when women nursed each other's children or even hired wet nurses.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can i get a hug?

COHEN (on camera): But how can you really know 30 different women?

CONNEL: I can't. How I can know 30 different cows?

COHEN: Jacquie (ph) Gilstrap had so much extra milk for her daughter Holly (ph), she and her husband, Jason, went on the Internet trying to sell it.

JASON GILSTRAP, WIFE SOLD BREAST MILK: When I first typed in "breast milk for sale" or "selling breast milk," it was literally thousands of, you know, hits for that.

COHEN: We found trails of mom selling, sharing, swapping on craigslist, the La Leche League bulletin board, mom chat groups, dad chat groups, sex sites and parent blogs.

The Gilstraps sold a few bottles for $50 each. Then interest began to wane. Then they saw an e-mail from Cathy Lundgren, who was looking for breast milk from her baby, adopted from Guatemala.

CATHY LUNDGREN, USED DONATED BREAST MILK: (INAUDIBLE) pretty girl.

Profit turned to charity. Jacquie (ph) and others stepped up.

(on camera): Six different women gave your baby breast milk. How did you know that they were all healthy?

CATHY LUNDGREN, USED DONATED BREAST MILK: That's just a risk that I was willing to take because I know -- I felt the benefits of the milk far outweigh the risks.

COHEN: A risk to get baby Hannah (ph) what Cathy can't provide, milk from a mother. Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Lakeville, Minnesota.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And there's this. In some states, it's actually illegal for mothers to do what you've just seen because of laws that ban the sale or exchange of any bodily fluids.

Coming up next, another growing black market, this one in fertility drugs where couples desperate to have babies go when they can't get them legally. But, at what risk?

Right now, another look at the top 10 most popular stories on CNN.com, some 21 million hits today. Coming in at No. 6, it is the world's smallest fish. Scientists found it in Indonesia, they says it's about less than than half an inch long. No. 5, a story that's coming up on our show. Oprah Winfrey confronts author James Frey about the lies in his best-selling memoir. Much more on that and No. 4 on our top 10 list, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Coming up in this half hour, Oprah's big apology as she back-tracks on her support for the author whose memoir was not so true. Why the change of heart? Also tonight, some other famous apologies from other celebrities forced to come clean in public.

And we just took a look at one black market connected to babies. The selling of breast milk. Well here is a different scene that no doubt is happening right now. Two strangers meet on a street corner, something is passed between them in exchange for money.

You probably guess a drug deal. You would be right except maybe not about who they are and the drugs they're dealing with. In fact, they're just perspective parents desperate to get pregnant, forced to turn to yet another growing black market. Here is Randi Kaye.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Phillipsburg, New Jersey, I'm in need of Gonal-F. I am self paying and don't have a lot of cash left. I need 475 IU. Please help me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Easton, Maryland, I have a 14- day supply of Luprotkit (ph) purchased in the U.S. and stored properly. Buyer pays shipping.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): I met with them in a parking lot. And gave them the drugs and they gave me the money.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to the underground world of infertility. Web sites, chat rooms, conversations. Here couples desperate to have a baby barter and beg for unused infertility medications. For hundreds, sometimes thousands dollars less than they pay at the pharmacy. It is a dangerous and growing trend in a world where a single treatment can cost $12,000-to-$15,000. And insurance coverage is hard to come by.

"STEPHANIE", BOUGHT INFERTILITY DRUGS ONLINE: This was a necessity for in vitro only. I mean, there's no other reason why I would want to buy drugs off the Internet.

KAYE (voice-over): This woman asked us not to use her real name, so we'll call her Stephanie. Stephanie and her husband, like more than six million other Americans are unable to have a baby. They chose in vitro fertilization, or IVF, in order to have their own child. But there was a problem.

STEPHANIE: IVF was not covered through my insurance at all. No drugs, no procedures, nothing.

KAYE: And there's no guarantee it will work. A couple has a one in five chance of having a baby after a cycle of IVF. In order to find affordable medications, Stephanie, like many others, turned to the Internet.

STEPHANIE: There is a network of people out there that are willing to help you that have leftover drugs that can sell them to you at a reduced cost. Because you have a prescription that your doctor gives you and it's just an alternative way of getting the prescription drugs.

CARMEN CATIZONE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL BOARD OF PHARMACIES: Just because it's a fertility drug which people may think is reasonably safe doesn't make it any different than if they were trading cocaine or trading other products on the Internet. It's still illegal and it's still dangerous.

KAYE: Carmen Catizone is the executive director of the National Board of Pharmacies, which is designed to protect the public health in dealing with pharmaceuticals.

CATIZONE: They could be expired medications, they could have been tampered with, they could be medications that not only cause harm to the mom but could also cause harm to the fetus or the baby that could be born later.

KAYE: But that is a risk many people like this man feel they have to take.

"SCOTT", BOUGHT INFERTILITY DRUGS: If it makes you a criminal, then that's what it has made me.

CATIZONE: We'll call him Scott. He lives in one of 36 states where health insurers are not mandated by law to cover some part of infertility treatments. Without the mandate, neither his or his wife's insurance will cover the treatments.

So just a few weeks ago he found himself in a parking lot of a K- Mart, exchanging an envelope of cash in an insulated cooler for a supply of drugs at a discounted price from a woman we will call Jennifer who had extra medications after IVF was no longer a viable option.

"JENNIFER", SOLD INFERTILITY DRUGS TO SCOTT: I felt like a drug dealer.

SCOTT: We laughed nervously. This was the K-Mart connection, you know. We're passing drugs back and forth through a window.

JENNIFER: I didn't make any financial gain off of it. That wasn't my intention. I had medication leftover, so I just thought the best thing to do would be to maybe sell it to somebody else who could use it.

SCOTT: If the health insurance industry paid for the medications and the procedure, there would be absolutely no reason to have to do a deal through a car window.

KAYE: Susan Pisano is spokeswoman for the largest trade association for health plans. Pisano says the decision doesn't fall with the insurance plans directly but rather the employer.

(on camera): Has your group ever recommended that fertility treatments be covered?

SUSAN PISANO, AMERICAN HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS: We believe that the decision about what an employer can afford is an employer decision.

KAYE: So yes or no, has your group ever suggested or recommended that infertility treatments be covered.

PISANO: Our groups believes that whether infertility treatments are covered by individual employers is that employer's decision.

KAYE: So no?

I don't know about you but I find it hard to believe that employers and insurance will cover things like Viagra, even abortions, so in other words, insurance will help pay for someone to have sex, they'll help pay for someone to actually get rid of a child, but they won't help pay for someone to have a child. That surprises me.

PISANO: What you have is employers cover a combination of things. They cover things where there's evidence that they work to achieve a good health outcome.

KAYE (voice-over): But for people like Jennifer, it's not about good evidence. It's about fulfilling a dream.

JENNIFER: What the intention is about is honorable. It's about getting pregnant and being able to afford to get pregnant.

KAYE: But the drugs may cost couple it is more than cash.

CATIZONE: Unfortunately this trend won't stop and won't decrease until we see a major tragedy where somebody receives medications that are deadly or medications that cause significant harm. KAYE: It was worth the risk to Stephanie. Using medication she bought on the Internet. Just last month she and her husband gave birth to a baby boy. That's priceless. Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And still ahead, Oprah's apology club. A week after backing up the author whose memoir turned out to be less than the whole truth, why did she change her mind and then today say truth does matter?

Also a fond look back at some other famous public apologies for all sorts of reasons. First though, No. 4 on our top 10 countdown, Islamic militant group Hamas, their victory in the Palestinian elections raising lots of questions tonight about the prospects for peace in the Middle East. Don't go away, we've got No. 3 coming up. Just a reminder, 21 million of you went to CNN.com today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: all right, it's not everyday you see someone as famous as Oprah Winfrey telling the world she was wrong and she is sorry. Yes, there she was on her own show today doing a complete about-face of her support for best-selling author James Frey, who has made headlines and stirred a lot of outrage for making up part of his memoir. Here's Mary Snow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: It is difficult for me to talk to you because I really feel duped.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An emotional Oprah Winfrey says it was a first in her television career. She confronted author James Frey, who admitted he embellished parts of his memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," in a book she touted as inspirational.

JAMES FREY, AUTHOR: I have, you know, essentially admitted to...

WINFREY: Lying.

FREY: ... that I have been -- to lying.

WINFREY: To lying.

SNOW: In September, Winfrey added the memoir to a book club. Sales skyrocketed. By January, Frey found himself under scrutiny and went on the Larry King show to defend himself.

FREY: I don't think it's necessarily appropriate to say I've conned anyone.

SNOW: That same night, came a surprise phone call from Winfrey. She defended Frey.

WINFREY: To me, it seems to be much ado about nothing. The underlying message of redemption in James Frey's memoir still resonates with me and I know that it resonates with millions of other people who have read this book.

SNOW: Now, Winfrey has done an about-face and retracted her support.

WINFREY: I regret that phone call. I made a mistake and I left the impression that the truth does not matter and I am deeply sorry about that.

SNOW: Questions first arose on The Smoking Gun, a Web site owned by CourtTV, which is partly owned by Time Warner, CNN's parent company.

WINFREY: The Smoking Gun report, titled "The Man who Conned Oprah," and I want to know were they right?

FREY: I think most of what they wrote was pretty accurate, absolutely.

SNOW: Among the facts that turned out to be fiction, Frey's time in jail. He says he spent a few hours in jail, not 87 days as written in the book. Frey also says he altered every character in the book but still thinks of it as a memoir, not a novel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: The book's publisher, Doubleday and Anchor Books also is retracting its previous support. It says its concluded that a number of facts were altered and incidents embellished. It's apologizing to readers and says it will include add a note from both the author and publisher in further printings. Mary Snow, CNN, New York.

ZAHN: And as you just heard, Larry King interviewed James Frey two weeks ago and spoke with Oprah when she called into his show. What does he think of today's apology? Well Larry joins me now with the answer. So Larry, were you surprised to see Oprah take a complete 360 today?

LARRY KING, CNN ANCHOR: No, I wasn't, Paula, because she had gotten so much criticism in the press. I don't think Oprah has ever seen herself slammed as much as she has been in every periodical, saying she shouldn't have called in, she shouldn't have backed him up, the book was false, why is she backing a false book?

So I don't think she -- I would have done the same thing she did. She did a mea culpa, she did it very well. She openly said that she was in a sense, conned. She apologized to her viewers. She said she was sorry she called in. What else could she do?

But I think was the reaction she got -- nor as if that story had died that night, I don't think you would have heard from Oprah. If there was a lot of praise for Oprah, or a switch on the book, you wouldn't have heard from her. But she was reacting.

ZAHN: Yes, because at the core of her attraction to the audience is this idea that she's credible and takes honesty seriously. Now in your interview with James Frey, he admitted to embellishing parts of the book. But today, when he was pushed by Oprah, he actually said he lied. Did he ever admit that to you off camera?

KING: Well, he never said the word lie to me on camera. And he was forced to kind of say it today, almost admitted it. I mean, if you are embellishing, you are lying. If you said you spend three months in a jail when you spent three days, that is a lie. You can call it an embellishment, but it is a lie.

So, no, but I spoke to him this afternoon. And he was quite distraught. He said that this was one of the worst days he had ever had. And I wonder -- I wonder about, Paula, where he goes from here. Does his book go on the nonfiction -- on the fiction list now in "The New York Times." You know, it's a best-seller in paperback and in hard cover.

ZAHN: And yet as you know, every time he goes on T.V., it spurs interest in the book, so who knows what will happen. You're going to focus in your whole next hour on this, aren't you?

KING: Yes we are. We're going to have Michael Wolff of "Vanity Fair" magazine, William Bastone of The Smoking Gun, Jeannette Walls, a gossip columnist, and Carole Radziwill, who wrote her own memoir about the life with the Kennedy's. We'll have response from folks across the country and takes phone calls as well. And I note with due deliberation that we are wearing blue.

ZAHN: For people who haven't been watching every night, for some crazy reason, we were all in black on Friday, we were in kind of lavender on Monday and then you were very upset last night because I broke the pattern. So there you go, Larry.

KING: What are you picking tomorrow?

ZAHN: I'm not telling. I'm going surprise you.

KING: OK, surprise me.

ZAHN: Groovy green, Larry.

KING: Groovy green, OK, you got it, green tomorrow, I don't forget.

ZAHN: All right, see you at the top of the hour, we'll be watching. Thanks, Larry.

Coming up next, Oprah joined the club today. We, as you have just seen, we're going to review some famous celebrities and their public apologies for all sorts of reasons. But now onto No. 3 on our countdown. Another story we're working on in Mexico City, a woman who sold popcorn worked as a wrestler, is now accused of killing at least 10 elderly women. Stay with us. Number two is straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ZAHN: So if you were watching us a little bit earlier, you have seen that Oprah has now apologized for initially standing by author James Frey and his only semi-true memoir.

Well, that apology puts her in pretty good company with a lot of other famous people who have said they're sorry, people who can only wonder, what were they thinking?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If sorry really is the hardest word, Oprah sure made it look easy.

WINFREY: I regret that phone call.

MOOS: A call she made to Larry King.

WINFREY: Still resonates with me and...

MOOS: Defending author James Frey.

WINFREY: I made a mistake, and I left the impression that the truth does not matter. And I am deeply sorry about that.

MOOS: Now, that's an apology and not some sorry excuse for one.

MIKE TYSON, BOXER: Evander, I am sorry.

MOOS: Sorry for biting off a piece of your ear.

RUSSELL CROWE, ACTOR: I'm extremely sorry for...

MOOS: For throwing a phone at a hotel worker.

Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry" is one of over 300 songs with "sorry" in it.

There are those iffy sorries that begin with if, for instance when Arnold Schwarzenegger was accused of groping and insulting women.

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: If I've done anything wrong, that I thought that I'm playful and just, you know, have fun, I feel bad about that.

MOOS: Apologies for sexual misbehavior often feature a supportive wife.

KOBE BRYANT, LOS ANGELES LAKERS: Furious at myself. Disgusted at myself. I'm so sorry.

MOOS: When sex is involved, say between a movie star and an alleged prostitute, a highly anticipated apology is something to promote.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Jay asks Hugh Grant the one question everybody has been wondering. JAY LENO, HOST, TONIGHT SHOW: What the hell were you thinking?

HUGH GRANT, ACTOR: I need to suffer for this. I've done an abominable thing. I did a bad thing, and there you have it.

MOOS: But when it was President Clinton's turn, his original lie was more passionate than his eventual admission.

BILL CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wanted more groveling.

MOOS: And eventually there was.

CLINTON: I don't think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned.

MOOS: Oh, there is a fancy way. With tears.

JIMMY SWAGGART, TELEVANGELIST: I have sinned against you, my Lord.

MOOS: And then there were those who voted against George Bush and apologized to the world after his election on the SorryEverybody Web site.

One of the most abject apologies came from the South Korean scientist recently exposed for faking cloning research.

DR. HWANG WOO-SUK, STEM CELL RESEARCHER (through translator): I feel so miserable that it's difficult even to say sorry.

MOOS: But the most impersonal sorry, the lamest sorry, the sorriest sorry of all is the one we hear on hold.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sorry we're having so much trouble. I'm sorry, but I'm not exactly sure what you want.

MOOS: All we want is to hear what Oprah said to her critics.

WINFREY: You are absolutely right.

MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And much more ahead on Oprah. "LARRY KING LIVE" tackles the controversy at the top of the hour. First, though, here is number two on our countdown. Authorities have found what they call the largest tunnel ever discovered running into the U.S. along the border with Mexico. They say they discovered more than two tons of marijuana in that tunnel. Coming up next, what is number one on the countdown today? Well, 21 million of you decided that. We'll find out right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: And now on to number one on our cnn.com countdown. Twenty-one million of you logging in today. The crash in Florida that killed seven children in the same family. A child at the wheel of the car. Tonight, charges are pending against the driver of the truck that hit them.

Now, we want to get your take on some of the stories we have been doing. A lot of you sounded off about the National Security Agency and the president's defense of his domestic spying program.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARRIE: I do not think it's right that the Bush administration is able to spy on any given American at any given time. I'm more concerned about our borders. They don't seem to be like that. And I'm also concerned about the economy and the rise in gas prices, considering the fact that I live in a small, two-bedroom house, and I just got a $408 gas bill for this month. He needs to address those kind of problems.

SHARON: It's ridiculous. Leave the NSA alone. They need to be listening. I don't care who listens to whatever I have to say on my phone or whatever. But we need protected, and I want them to do the job they've done right along.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Keep your comments coming.

Thanks for joining us tonight. Good night.

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