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CNN Live Sunday

Sen. Grassley Outraged over Artificial Blood Substitute; Storms Blast Mississippi Valley; Bush to Speak about Iraq; Mixed Feelings in Belgrade over Milosevic's Death; Cancer Survivor Discusses Recovery

Aired March 12, 2006 - 17:59   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN LIVE SUNDAY, I'm Carol Lin. Ahead in this hour, deadly tornadoes rip through America's heartland. Don't go outside until you hear from our meteorologist. It is dangerous out there.
Also, it's designed to save lives, but will new artificial blood help or harm patients in desperate need? We'll have the latest on this ongoing debate.

And a European trip turns one lucky college student in a million dollar baby. The incredible story, straight ahead.

But right now, topping the headlines. Domestic spying and a senator wants an apology. Democrat Russ Feingold says he will file a formal censure resolution against the president tomorrow. Essentially, it amounts to a public scolding. Others say it is a crazy suggestion.

Horrific violence in Baghdad. Six car bombs all went off at the same time in the same Baghdad neighborhood today, some of them in crowded marketplaces. The latest casualty figures, 46 people dead and more than 200 hurt.

And Saddam Hussein is back before a judge this week, possibly as early as tomorrow. Three of Hussein's co-defendants today denied any involvement in the killings they are charged with ordering.

Right now I want to begin with a story that's still putting many people in danger. Take a look at some of the pictures from last night in southern Missouri and southern Illinois. They had hail the size of baseballs and they had tornadoes. Damage is extensive and people did die. Do not go out the door yet. Bonnie Schneider is in the CNN Weather Center. Bonnie, what is the map looking like right now?

(WEATHER REPORT)

LIN: You bet, and some of the stories coming out of that region, a couple who's truck was picked up and shoved underneath a propane tank on the road and they were killed.

So we want to give you the big picture of what's happening out there right now. The worst of last night's wild storms trashed several towns along the Mississippi River and many families have the clothes on their backs, but nothing else tonight. CNN's Fredricka Whitfield reports. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): This bird's-eye view speaks of the horrors, fierce tornadoes ripped through a 20-mile long swathes traveling the Mississippi River from Missouri to Illinois.

Power lines entangled, strewn dangerously on the ground and trucks and cars crushed and overturned. The worst damage was along a rural stretch of highway south of St. Louis.

DEP. CHIEF RAY EARLS, ILLINOIS FIRE DEPARTMENT: Well we have probably maybe five or six houses that have collapsed. Of course this partial one here. We had to get a victim out of here. He was in pretty good shape.

WHITFIELD: Rescuers also rushed to what was once Mike Fieweger's home.

MIKE FIEWEGER, HOME OWNER: My house is right over there. It's the one that has nothing to it now. It's totally gone. We were in the basement. We were watching the forecasts on the T.V. and my wife said, "We should go in the basement." We all went in the basement and about six minutes later, no house. My truck was in my driveway, now it's in my neighbor's yard. And then my wife's career is on there. My one son's car is on top of where our bedroom used to be, is on top of the house now.

WHITFIELD: Fortunately, the Fiewegers are all fine. That was not the case for a husband and wife in a pickup truck on Highway 61. They died when a twister hurled their truck into a propane tank.

Softball-sized hail caused more damage and heavy rain prompted flash flood warnings across the area. Forecasters are calling for more severe weather through the night. Fredricka Whitfield, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: We also have another tool for you to track this severe weather. You can get full details, pictures, photos, video reports and of course, forecasts wherever you are. It's all free on our Web site at CNN.com/weather.

The pictures out of Baghdad, out of Iraq, are extremely disturbing tonight. Car bomb mayhem, that is the only way to describe the scene in Baghdad. Half a dozen bombs exploded in Sadr City, the stronghold of a powerful Shiite militia. The blast went off almost simultaneously. More than 40 people are dead and more than 200 wounded. It was one of the bloodiest days and weeks, angry residents kicked the head of the suicide bomber as it lay in the street.

Now some of the bombs ripped through markets. A seventh bomb was found and diffused but mortars were also fired into that area. There were chaotic scenes in a nearby hospital. Many of the victims had to be carried in without the help of stretchers. And a bomb was found at Baghdad Airport, probably one of the most fortified airports in the world. A senior official with Royal Jordanian Airlines says an explosive device was found under the nose of one of its planes. The U.S. government immediately banned its employees from flying out of the country on commercial flights.

Well this is not all the best timing for President Bush, who is once again going on the road to remind Americans why we're fighting in Iraq. Elaine Quijano at the White House right now. Elaine, what's the president going to say that he hasn't said already?

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, one thing that is different now is we are approaching the three-year anniversary next week of the start of the Iraq war. So President Bush actually will be beginning here in Washington with his first in a series of speeches laying out his strategy in Iraq. Now the focus, we understand of the speech tomorrow is going to be on security. He'll also talk about the problem of IEDs or improvised explosive devices.

But this really is part of the larger White House effort to give the administration's assessment of progress being made there. In addition to President Bush, Carol, we should tell you that we're also going to see other top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, as part of this effort.

Now one thing also that is different, the recent sectarian violence. That is something that, of course, has continued to fill T.V. screens. Those are images that Bush aides well understand are disturbing. They know that there are questions about what is being accomplished by having U.S. forces remain in Iraq. So these speeches are going to reflect that, provide an opportunity, officials hope, for the president to show that he is not out of touch. Carol?

LIN: Elaine, even Republican strategists can see the issue of Iraq is weighing down the president's approval ratings. Is the White House expecting to see a major shift in public opinion because of these speeches?

QUIJANO: Well, what they say really is that the purpose of the speeches is to inform people, to broaden the lens as one official put it. Now aides say that they understand ultimately what is going shape public opinion is not a speech or two or three, but events on the ground.

Still, the White House thinks that these speeches are critical for providing more context. As one senior administration official put it, "a person can be unsatisfied but still ave a better understanding of what's happening." Carol?

LIN: Elaine, thank you very much -- Elaine Quijano live at the White House. Also, a big story -- a big story that broke just a couple of hours ago.

New York City cops announced that they have DNA evidence and a suspect in a brutal murder. CNN's senior correspondent Allan Chernoff in New York with that. Allan? ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Carol, the New York City police department has finally gotten what it's been waiting for from forensic scientists: definitive evidence tying the bouncer at the bar, the Falls in SoHo to the murder and rape of Imette St. Guillen, a graduate student at John Jay College here in Manhattan.

New York City's police commissioner a few hours ago, Ray Kelly, said that the blood found on plastic ties that were wrapped around St. Guillen's wrist indeed does belong to Darryl Littlejohn. And he said that the Brooklyn district attorney will be asking a grand jury to hand up an indictment against Mr. Littlejohn.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAY KELLY, NEW YORK POLICE COMMISSIONER: As a result of this and other evidence, Littlejohn is the prime suspect in this case and his indictment will be sought for the murder of Imette St. Guillen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHERNOFF: The other evidence includes the fact that Mr. Littlejohn's cell phone was found to be traced to the location, the vicinity of location where St. Guillen's body was found in a very remote section of eastern Brooklyn.

Now, Darryl Littlejohn is being held at Rikers Island jail and he's being held actually, on a parole violation. Mr. Littlejohn did serve time for armed robbery and he was found to be out after his 9:00 p.m. curfew, in fact violating that curfew by working a bouncer at the Falls, the bar in SoHo, the last place that Imette St. Guillen was seen. Carol?

LIN: Allan, do they think the investigation ends here or do they think that he may have had an accomplice?

CHERNOFF: The investigation is continuing. The police have not ruled out that possibility, but they haven't said anything beyond that on that very issue.

LIN: All right, thanks very much, Allan Chernoff, such a sad story.

All right, in his day, Slobodan Milosevic was like a god to the Serbian people. But Alessio Vinci finds a different reaction to his death. He reports from Belgrade.

Can attitude and sharing help survive cancer? One man says yes and we are going share his secrets.

And an ancient Egyptian goddess is discovered. You're watching CNN LIVE SUNDAY, stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: His supporters say he was poisoned, but we have new details on how Slobodan Milosevic died. The autopsy showed he suffered a massive heart attack and we're getting that from the spokeswoman of the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal. Now back in Belgrade, feelings among ordinary people are mixed. CNN's Alessio Vinci is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over: No one at the popular St. Michael's Church in Belgrade was lighting a candle for Milosevic. Their prayers instead were focused on the first day of fasting ahead of Orthodox Easter. Outside though, some were visibly saddened.

"It is hard, it is hard for everybody," she says, "he was our citizen and our president." This lady shares the suspicions of many here in Serbia who doubt Milosevic died a natural death. "All we want to know is the truth," she says, "the truth is the only thing we're interested in."

There were plenty of candles instead for Milosevic outside the headquarters of his Socialist Party. Despite the rain, a small group of people waited in line for their turn to share their sorrow. "I felt terrible when I heard about the news. I cried a lot," she says, "why are those people at the Hague so against the Serbs?"

Newspaper headlines carried much of that feeling, some suggesting the former Yugoslav strongman was murdered, possibly poisoned by his jailers. It's a charge flatly denied by the war crimes tribunal, but one that gives national sympathizers here an opportunity to review the former president's place in history.

BRATISLAV GRUBACIC, POLITICAL ANALYST: The way he died basically means that he's now out of hands of justice. Now he will be in the hands of historical science and probably after this, he will get much better position in the history of Serbia nation than one could believe even two days ago, definitely better than maybe he deserved.

VINCI: But a larger crowd gathered to commemorate the third anniversary of Zoran Djindjic's assassination, the pro-Western Serb prime minister who extradited Milosevic to the Hague in 2001, only to be killed two years later by a sniper believed to have been hired by gangsters connected to ultra-nationalist forces here.

With Milosevic's sudden death, the pressure has increased on the Serb government to finally deliver war time Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic for trial in the Hague.

(on camera): Brussels has threatened to freeze E.U. membership talks with Serbia in a bid to urge Belgrade to cooperate. But the possibility of a surging ultra-national sentiment is something the current Serb government may have to contend with. Alessio Vinci, CNN, Belgrade.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Staying on the international front, we have a report of American troops being attacked and there are some casualties. So we're going to go, for the latest on that and other big world stories to CNN's Anand Naidoo. Anand?

ANAND NAIDOO, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, Carol. We sometimes forget U.S. troops are on the front line in that other conflict, the one in Afghanistan. A roadside bomb in the Pesh Valley in Kunar Province killed four U.S. troops. They were travelling in an armored vehicle on a road-clearing operation. That's what we are being told. It was the deadliest attack on coalition forces there in a month.

Now let's go to the Iranian nuclear stalemate. That's in Tehran saying it's ruling out a Russian proposal to resolve the standoff. Under that proposal, Russia would enrich uranium on its soil and then ship it to Tehran for Iranian use. But Iran says that suggestion is now off the table and that issue was of course referred to the U.N. Security Council last week. The U.N. will take that up sometime in the following week or the week after that -- Carol?

LIN: Hey Anand, I heard you had a special assignment. You're on the goddess beat? One was found in Egypt?

NAIDOO: Yes, well we're always on the goddess beat, aren't we? Yes, Sekhmet, that's the goddess, she's being discovered, or should I say rediscovered. A joint Egyptian/German archaeological team has discovered 17 more statues of the goddess who has the head of a lion and the body of a woman. The discovery was made near the southern city of Luxor. Last week now that same team discovered six similar statues. They were actually restoring a temple when they made this discovery, Carol.

LIN: Head of a lion, body of a woman, not exactly everybody's dream date.

NAIDOO: Well, she is the goddess of war and recovery. Maybe that might explain it.

LIN: There you go. Anand, thank you very much. Stay on the beat, will you?

NAIDOO: Yes.

LIN: All right, we are going to take a look at a really interesting medical story, fake blood, when we come back. What is it and why is one senator outraged? And future medics learning how to save lives in combat.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: How would you feel if you were given experimental artificial blood without your permission? But consider this, what if you were badly injured, bleeding to death, would it matter to you? This is happening in more than a dozen states and now one senator is stepping in. Here's CNN's Gary Nurenberg.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAN DALTON, POLYHEME PATIENT: Thank you. GARY NURENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Even with an amputated leg, Jan Dalton feels lucky to have survived the accident and blood loss that left her unconscious at her Pennsylvania home.

DALTON: Every second that went by counted.

NURENBERG: Medics found her in shock and gave her the blood substitute PolyHeme. They didn't ask her for her permission to use the experimental product and she says that's OK.

DALTON: I mean, if there was any chance at all that it was going to help save my life, of course I was going say yes.

NURENBERG: The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee sees it differently.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R), IOWA: People are being asked to be a guinea pig for a new product without their knowledge. That's outrageous.

NURENBERG: But that is what's happening to some patients in 18 states where medical centers are taking part in a government-approved study of PolyHeme. Trauma victims can be given the substitute unless they're wearing a bracelet specifically saying they don't want it.

GRASSLEY: If you want to put your life on the line for medical research, you should know about it.

NURENBERG (on camera): Grassley said Friday the federal government's Office of Human Research Protections has, quote, "urgent ethical concerns about the consent policy." Neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the Food and Drug Administration provided on-camera spokespersons but the FDA issued a statement staying, "the applicable regulations provide for medical, legal and ethical safeguards for this kind of research."

DR. CHRISTOPHER MICHETTI, TRAUMA SURGEON: It does seem that it provides a benefit to survival.

NURENBERG (voice-over): Dr. Christopher Michetti is a Virginia trauma surgeon who says getting consent from trauma patients is difficult.

MICHETTI: Hemorrhagic shock patients are by nature of the injury, not conscious or have an altered mental status and therefore are unable to consent.

NURENBERG: The manufacturer sees PolyHeme as potentially useful for emergency medical technicians who deal with thousand of cases of blood loss leading to death. PolyHeme, it says, "has the potential to address this critical unmet medical need."

Jan Dalton believes PolyHeme met her critical medical need, but Grassley wants other potential patients to know in advance they're getting a product that has not yet been proven safe. Gary Nurenberg, CNN, Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: All right, so here's a riddle for you. The price of gasoline is going up even though the price of crude is coming down. Today's Lundberg Survey says retail gas prices across the country have jumped 11 cents in the past two weeks. The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular now stands at $2.35.

Every week we like to bring you the more personal stories from the frontlines and today a story of blood and guts. It takes guts to be a combat medic and it also takes some intensive training. Kelly Wallace reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An explosion at a Baghdad market. U.S. Army medics rush in and within minutes must decide who needs to be treated first.

It's make-believe, but designed to feel, sound and look like the real thing. All to prepare these would-be medics for combat.

CLAY WALKER, SIMULATION TECHNICIAN: We want to ingrain in them when they see it it's an automatic reaction. It's just a response. I have a limb removed, I need to stop that bleeding.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who's the company commander?

WALLACE: Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, the site of the army's only medic training school. Any soldier-turned-medic heading to Iraq or Afghanistan is trained here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to check your respiration again, all the way down to your chest. I'm going to go ahead and...

WALLACE: In essence, they are getting one year of medical school in a 16-week course...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm going to go ahead and administer.

WALLACE: ... learning primary care, emergency medical techniques and combat medicine all at once.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you worked on him?

WALLACE: It's tough. About 15 percent don't make it past the first few weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It took you three and a half minutes to realize that he was missing his leg.

WALLACE: They could mean the difference between life and death. Nearly 90 percent of military men and women wounded in Iraq survive, which is higher than the 78 percent survival rate for the first Gulf War and 73 percent for Vietnam.

Leaders here say that's partly because there are more highly- trained combat medics, more soldiers on the front lines with basic medical knowledge.

COL. PATRICIA HASTINGS, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, MEDIC TRAINING: The combat medic allows the patient to come in as a patient and not a victim so that the physicians and nurses at the upper echelons of care can take care of them and get them back to the states.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you hear me? Can you hear me? One, two, three.

WALLACE: The training is constantly updated based on what soldiers are now seeing regularly on the battlefields of Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, how is his breathing?

WALLACE: For instance, new types of injuries from IEDs can be woven into the training here in less than 90 days.

WALKER: We get feedback from our doctors and our VAs back from the war, and this is the injuries they are seeing.

WALLACE: Eight of the 16 weeks are devoted entirely to combat medicine. Can they work in the darkness? What if they come under fire? Can they handle the seriously wounded?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How's he working, doc?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's doing good. He's doing good.

WALLACE: In this scenario, four soldiers come across an infantryman whose hand has been blown off.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, doc. Hurry up.

WALLACE: These soldiers have been here now for 12 weeks and say the highly-specialized training is invaluable.

PFC. RUBEN RYAN, MEDIC TRAINEE: By the time we're released to go with the regular line units, we're going to be that much more advanced or be able to pick up the slack where we need to.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on, doc. Hurry up. We've got to get going.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. All right.

WALLACE: Trying to give these soon-to-be medics a sense of what they will see on the battlefield before they actually see it for themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hang in there, buddy. We're taking good care of you. We'll get you out of here.

WALLACE: Kelly Wallace, CNN. (END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: How do you think you would cope with cancer? I'm going to talk with someone who was told he would be dead in a year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL BERMAN, CANCER PATIENT: As the times get really difficult and the opportunity to just lay down and die is very real and you have to just say, "No, I'm not going do that."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: He is very much alive. Surviving cancer, the Phil Berman way. You're watching CNN LIVE SUNDAY.

And among the most popular stories this hour on CNN.com, Web users are clicking on the story about one senator's call for a censure of President Bush. As we've reported, Democrat Russ Feingold says a censure is the best response to the president's domestic spying program. Click on to CNN.com for more details.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Lots to talk about, but these are the top stories this hour. An autopsy shows former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack. A spokeswoman for the UN war crimes tribunal says the findings are preliminary. Milosevic was found dead in his cell in the Hague.

Saddam Hussein could be testifying tomorrow. Three of his co- defendants today denied any involvement in the killings they are charged with ordering.

The man who was James Bond, Sean Connery, has undergone surgery for a kidney tumor. His spokesman says the 75-year-old actor underwent the surgery a few weeks ago. He is now resting at his home in the Bahamas.

Severe storms leave a trail of death and destruction as they sweep across parts of the Midwest. An apparent tornado touched down 80 miles southwest of - south, actually, of St. Louis, killing two people. The storm left a 20-mile trail of damage in southern Missouri and southern Illinois. A husband and a wife died after strong winds blew their pickup truck into a propane tank. The worst may not be over.

So for a second straight day powerful storms are targeting the nation's midsection. Let's check in with meteorologist Bonnie Schneider. She is tracking the storms right now.

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's right, Carol. And this new information, we have another tornado warning. We had a thunderstorm that was producing strong rotation over Centralia. At that's moving to the northeast at 50 miles per hour. Now looking at the map that's just across the border of Boone County into Audrain County. And a closer look at this cell, it's just north of Columbia, that's where the University of Missouri is. And you'll find on the eye powerful one and we're getting indications of rotation and notice the bending, or the bow-shaping of the echoes. That's an indication of some very strong winds and rotation which could indicate tornado. So take cover right now if you're in any of the counties where we have warnings at present.

The big picture shows you, now we have three tornado watches and some extended all of the way up to the north into central Illinois. It looks like south of Chicago, but don't rule out the chance of thunderstorms there overnight tonight. We have severe thunderstorm warnings in effect just to the south of the city there and there this is going to be a disruptive area because we have the warm front that's now to the south of this region through central Illinois and right along the collision of air masses is where we will see the severe weather fire up even into the later evening hours.

Our current temperature map says it all. Look at the contrast here. We have got temperatures in the 20s and 30s ahead of the front, 60s, 70s and 80s. This is a good setup for severe weather, but it's not the only factor that's causing this outbreak of tornadoes that we've been seeing. We have our jet stream, a fast-moving band of upper level winds. That mixing with the surface winds that you see coming out of the south or coming out of the north, that causes rotation often in these thunderstorms and we get this low pressure traveling right along our jet. And look what happens, the tornadoes break out and this is our weather pattern for today.

Tomorrow this will shift further east, but I'm not expecting as many outbreaks of severe weather tomorrow as we expect for this afternoon and into the evening hours, Carol?

LIN: Good to have you on the story, Bonnie. We're going to be checking in with you tonight.

I am willing to bet that someone you know maybe even someone you love has been somehow touched by cancer. Dana Reeve and Sheryl Crow, Ann Richards, they're the latest high-profile victims of the disease, but an ordinary guy in San Diego took his cancer fight to the World Wide Web. CNN's Ed Lavandera has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

This is my brain taken in slices like a ...

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Phil Berman keeps a stack of brain scans in his San Diego home. Two years ago he was diagnosed with cancer.

BERMAN: Look at these big guys. Tons of them. You know, everywhere you look.

LAVANDERA: Doctors couldn't count all the cancer and then the news got worse. BERMAN: I had it in my liver. I had it in my bones and had it in my brain and had it in my lung. So, everywhere.

LAVANDERA: Berman was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, the most advanced stage. Most doctors gave him less than a year to live.

BERMAN: As the times get really difficult and the opportunity to just lay down and die is very real and you have to just say no. I'm not going do that.

LAVANDERA: What Berman needed was an outlet for his thoughts and fears, so he started an online diary to keep family and friends updated on his condition.

BERMAN: OK. Here's my very first blog.

"Chemo number two today. Went well, I'm feeling well. Maybe it's just the steroid high and," that's where it started.

And then I got better at it. They got longer and more story- like.

LAVANDERA: He found blogging so therapeutic he created a Web site called redtoenail.org. A site where other patients can create their own blogs, putting your fears and experiences in words, Berman says, offers cancer patients, the kind of medicine doctors can't prescribe. Hope.

BERMAN: To the people that gave me the most hope when I got my diagnosis and I obviously knew how deadly a disease I had were other people with the same diagnosis at the same stage who had done well.

LAVANDERA: Cancer patients can go online to share experiences about treatment as well. Doctors do warn people to be careful with information they find on the Web. What works for one cancer patient might not work for another.

But Berman says the site is policed by the patients who participate.

BERMAN: This is a community that is more interested in people surviving and healing so that I don't think we're going to experience that kind of misbehavior, if you will, or bad behavior.

LAVANDERA: Phil Berman knows people will be asking where the name for the site came from. The secret is in his shoe.

BERMAN: Yes, I have one red toe nail. It is true.

LAVANDERA: Berman will paint one toe nail red for every year he beats lung cancer. He just beat the two-year survival mark so there are now two red toenails. The idea came from a friend who had a nightmare while Berman was undergoing treatment he had come out with ten red toe nails. Phil Berman's goal is to make that nightmare come true.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, San Diego.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And joining me now from San Diego, Mr. Red Toenail himself, Phil Berman.

Hey, Phil, if I might say, you look great. You look great.

BERMAN: Thanks.

LIN: And it's such a pleasure to have you here because the people who are out there who are touched by cancer, this is what they need ton. They need to than there's always hope and in going your blog, God, I was just so thrilled at reading the stories there. There was one guy who I think it's his sister-in-law was a nurse, was a chemo nurse and was giving him hope because he was losing weight, he'd finished treatment and he didn't know if it meant that the cancer had come back. And it was lovely to know that all these people can read her letter to him saying, no, you're doing fine. That's what you offer, isn't it?

BERMAN: Well, we're trying to build a community. Hope for every individual who has cancer is a key to survival. What we're trying to do is bring together in one place a place where people with cancer can blog and of course, get the primary benefit which is informing their family and their friends of what's going on with them, but also find other people who were in similar circumstances or have helpful advice.

LIN: Now, what do you think was your biggest surprise?

BERMAN: I think it was that there's just so much love and so much feedback and so much of a need for many people to communicate with one another that the amount of feedback I personally got is -- I mean, it's just been overwhelming, it's enormous and it's all gratifying.

LIN: Because you see the people who are blogging and the people who have cancer out there as a powerful force, a political force. What do you mean by that? What is your greatest hope?

BERMAN: Well, as this community grows and evolves, people with cancer really have very little voice. You know, their voice is heard as far as the room to their oncologist or their radiation therapist or their internist but it's not heard anywhere else in the world. When you look at everybody else involved in cancer, pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, doctors, nurses, radiation technologists, they all have lobbies. They all have a voice in Washington.

LIN: Right. But do they ever really hear from the patient?

BERMAN: No. They really don't listen very well to the patients.

LIN: Because the cost of the medication. You were talking about one medication that was costing you thousands of dollars and that there was somebody reading your blog who was able to provide you some of that medication.

BERMAN: Yeah.

I was actually on two medications like that. Now I'm on one which costs about $2,000 a month and the price of that medication has been raised twice in the last year with no commentary back to Washington.

LIN: I come from a family of researchers. Cancer researchers. And I know the investment that these drug companies make and I agree with you, because there are drugs there that during treatment change your life, that boost your immune system, increase your red blood cell count and for a couple of days you can actually feel normal. That's priceless. And I think for a cancer patient, that's a right. That's a right.

BERMAN: Well, these drugs are fantastic, but, you know, Washington isn't really hearing these things from patients about what the ground price is, what's going on at the pharmaceutical counter.

LIN: Right. Phil, I think they're going to be hearing from you and all of the people who are blogging on your sight. It is so heart warming to read the site and so much hope for the people who need it..

BERMAN: Thank you. It is.

LIN: Phil Berman. You have two red toes on right now?

BERMAN: I do.

LIN: All right. Two and counting. OK. We're going to keep up with you.

BERMAN: Thank you.

LIN: Phil Berman, cancer survivor.

Coming up at 9:00 Eastern this evening, a two-hour Larry King special, remembering Dana Reeve, life, legacy and lung cancer. The rife wife of actor Christopher Reeve died of lung cancer. So join Larry King at 9:00 Eastern.

Now, a very special story now about forgotten little souls and a man who is a guardian angel. Children, even babies who died, either murdered or abandoned now rest in peace. Here's CNN's Chris Huntington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In this small plot of land at the Holy Rude (ph) cemetery in western New York, lie the tiny graves of more than 80 infants, all with the last name "Hope." All buried by the same man.

TIM JACCARD, CHILDREN OF HOPE: Every one of my children that are victims to neonaticide we bury with full honor and full honor guard. HUNTINGTON: Tim Jaccard calls him his children, 88 infants who died anonymously. Over the past seven years he's taken legal custody of them. His goal, to give them dignity, a proper funeral and a proper burial.

JACCARD: These are all of the babies that I've rescued from abandonment.

HUNTINGTON: Jaccard's mission is not only to bury babies, but to save them. He's a paramedic with the Nassau County Police Department and director of Children of Hope. A national organization dedicated to helping mothers coping with unwanted pregnancies give up their babies safely.

JACCARD: Next time you need to call me don't be afraid to tell me what's on your mind.

HUNTINGTON: Jaccard started the foundation in 1998 after witnessing countless deaths of abandoned infants.

JACCARD: I came upon a 6 pound 4 ounce baby boy drowned in a toilet bowl by his mother. I responded to another call, baby not breathing and I found a baby boy wrapped up in a plastic bag. Three weeks later we responded to another call, baby not breathing and found another child wrapped up in a plastic bag in a recycling bin in Lawrence/Cedarhurst, so at this point I was just devastated by how many of these cases were actually going.

HUNTINGTON: So Jaccard helped write New York's State's safe haven law which says mothers can walk into a firehouse, hospital or police station and relinquish their baby with no questions asked and no fear of prosecution. Forty six states currently have safe haven laws and Jaccard says it's making a difference.

JACCARD: This is what it's about. I know that I have at least 87 babies that have personally been involved in that are loving and have loving families.

HUNTINGTON: Nationwide, Jaccard says Children of Hope have saved the lives of over 600 infants. The ones they can't save, they bury and remember.

JACCARD: Christina, Gabriel, Jonathan and Matthew Hopes were the first ones here.

HUNTINGTON: Visiting the cemetery is painful, Jaccard says, but also peaceful and the reminder that he will continue to help and care for the unwanted in life and in death. Chris Huntington, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Well, he played his cards right. A freshman at University of Georgia is the new champion of European Poker. Jeff Williams won more than a million dollars and a top spot in the European Poker Tour's grand final. Now he joins me now live by telephone from Monte Carlo. Jeff, congratulations.

JEFF WILLIAMS, POKER CHAMPION (on phone): Oh. Thank you very much.

LIN: Now, I hear you're suffering from a bit of a cold. Did it come from the celebration last night?

WILLIAMS: No. It's been ...

LIN: The family's listening so I guess we won't go there. What are you going do with the money?

WILLIAMS: I'm definitely going to invest a lot of it, but I'll probably buy a nice watch or something.

LIN: A nice watch. Well deserved, but are you going continue with your education?

WILLIAMS: Definitely. Definitely. I'm studying at the University of George. I'm a freshman right now.

LIN: But you're a millionaire, so what is going to keep motivating you?

WILLIAMS: I'm getting a degree in political science and I really love it. So I'll deal with that.

LIN: How did you learn to play poker?

WILLIAMS: Well, my friends and I started playing a couple of years ago and we just played for nickels and quarters and then I started playing on the Internet and I played there for a little while and I learned how to play there.

LIN: And what do you think makes you so good?

WILLIAMS: Oh, I don't think I'm good at all.

LIN: Oh, come on. You're the European champ. You're an American and a European champ. Come on. Don't be modest. You don't have to share your trade secrets, but what do you think is your very particular skill?

WILLIAMS: For playing on the Internet I've had a lot of practice and I've seen a lot of hands so I have seen a lot of different situations play out in different ways. I think that's a strength.

LIN: Uh-huh and your winning hand, can you describe it?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. I had an ace-10 and I raised and my opponent went all in and I thought for a while and I thought I had him beat and he had an ace and an eight and my hand held up and I won.

LIN: Did you have a heart attack right then and there? WILLIAMS: Oh. It was the most amazing feeling ever.

LIN: Well, Jeff, I guess your parents must be pretty proud of you.

WILLIAMS: Yes. They actually came and surprised me the morning of the final table. They took the red eye from Atlanta up to JFK and over to Nice where they came to Monte Carlo and watched the whole final table.

LIN: Wow. Well, they are then your lucky charm. Good for them. Are they going to share in some of the winnings, you think?

WILLIAMS: Oh, definitely, definitely.

LIN: But you're not talking percentage yet, I guess.

WILLIAMS: Not yet.

LIN: Just remember all those nights your mother woke up in the middle of the night to feed you.

WILLIAMS: Of course.

LIN: Thanks very much, Jeff. Good to know you're continuing with your education.

WILLIAMS: Yes, thank you.

LIN: Well, on the converse side, a teen prank on a popular Internet site leads to unintended consequences. So details coming up, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Teenagers often go online to escape their daily pressures and create their own little world, but Dan Simon tells us about a group of teens who got more than they bargained for when they began fooling around on a popular Web site.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They thought it would be a good prank. These California teens went to the trendy Web site myspace.com, created a profile of fake 15-year-old girl and started e- mailing a buddy who started to think the girl had a crush on him, but it was no joke when a 48-year-old man started messaging their fictitious female.

MITCH, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: We just made up this girl named Stacy at first, just a real random name and we started getting these messages from this guy.

SIMON: The boys played along for several days, e-mailing back and forth with the man and then the exchanges turned to sex.

MITCH: He was saying, you know, age doesn't matter to me and stuff.

SIMON: The teens being teens invited a man to the park for an encounter. Remember, the man thinks he's meeting a 15-year-old girl.

(on camera): The boys never really expected the man to show up at the park, but sure enough there he was. They recognized him from the picture online. That's when the teenagers decided to call police.

ARIF, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: I was surprised. My face was, like, I was -- I didn't think he would show up.

SGT. WILLIAM MEGENNEY, FONTANA, CALIFORNIA POLICE: Thank God they had the foresight to call the police department and explain what was going.

SIMON (voice-over): Police arrested Michael Ramos on a felony charge of attempting to commit a lewd act on a child and two misdemeanors. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment and is still in custody.

This is just the latest incident involving myspace.com. A free Web site where teens can do things like blog and post pictures. In Laguna Beach last month, police arrested 13 men who they say solicited minors on MySpace. Also last month in Delaware, a 16-year-old girl was reported missing after apparently communicating with an adult on MySpace. And in September in Port Washington, New York, authorities say a 16-year-old girl was molested after meeting a man on the site.

MySpace told CNN it's taking measures to address sexual predators online. It tells us it's, quote, "Working with hundreds of law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels to address issues quickly and effectively." As for the boys who conducted that prank.

MEGENNEY: It was an accident that turned out favorable to us.

SIMON: But it may have actually backfired on the teens. One parent said he's restricting his son's activities on the computer. Dan Simon, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Well, one of the people in that story from pervertedjustice.com is going to join me tonight at 11:00 with more on cracking down on predators and how to keep your teenager safe.

Now there's much more ahead tonight on CNN. Coming up at 7:00 Eastern, a special two hour "CNN PRESENTS: 26 Hours of Terror," the untold story of the Atlanta courthouse shootings.

And at 9:00, "LARRY KING WEEKEND," tonight, remembering Dana Reeve and I'll be back at 11:00 Eastern. Tonight, Perverted Justice tracking online predators who may be targeting your kids.

The hour's headlines when I come back and then "CNN PRESENTS."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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