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American Morning

New Orleans Mayoral Race; Hero Boat Captain; AIDS: 25 Years Later; When Gators Attack

Aired May 19, 2006 - 07:30   ET

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


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Federal agents killing the driver of an SUV who refused to stop at the point where San Diego and Tijuana meet. They were acting on a tip the car was filled with illegals.
They're still digging for Jimmy Hoffa in Michigan. The FBI says it could take two weeks or more to finish the search in that Michigan horse farm where the teamster boss who disappeared in 1975.

And in south Florida, trappers capture an 11-foot they believe killed a Tennessee woman. Two other women have been killed by gators in recent days. And later this hour, Jeff Corwin from "Animal Planet" will be along with this fellow. He's a little five-year-old and at this stage they almost looks kind of cute and that's part of the problem. We'll explain that in a little bit.

Good morning to you. I'm Miles O'Brien.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Cute and small, too.

Welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien.

It's being called the most important election in New Orleans history, tomorrow's run-off election for mayor. CNN Gulf Coast Correspondent Susan Roesgen live in New Orleans for us this morning with much more on the race.

Hey, Susan, good morning.

Give me a sense of the tenure in New Orleans. Is it feeling as nasty as it seems to feel from where we are?

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, I wouldn't say nasty, I'd say the city is holing its breath right now. We don't know which way this race will go. It's looking very close between the two candidates. So voters will choose the city's mayor tomorrow. But more than that, Soledad, this is a vote on what people here believe the future of this city should be.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN, (voice over): After Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, you might think New Orleans is well on its way to recovery. Not really. While some areas are recovering from Katrina, 80 percent of the city was flooded and many neighborhoods are still stuck in a time warp.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: Hey. What's happening, man? How they treating you these days?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Doing good.

ROESGEN: Mayor Ray Nagin is fighting to bring the city back from the brink and fighting to stay in office.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen.

ROESGEN: He got a round of amens from a black minister's group when he told them he's the guy to stick with.

NAGIN: This city does not have the luxury of having someone new to come in to try and learn all that is going on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exactly.

NAGIN: And try to figure out how to keep this momentum going.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.

ROESGEN: Nagin says the city's recovery is on track. The challenger, Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, says it's not moving fast enough. Landrieu points to piles of trash and thousands of flooded and abandoned cars on the streets. And Landrieu likes to remind voters of the city's problems before Katrina, poverty and crime.

LT. GOV. MITCH LANDRIEU, NEW ORLEANS MAYORAL CANDIDATE: The past is thinking that it is our destiny to be second class citizens. Think about whether you want to go back to the past and have a place that's unsafe.

ROESGEN: Whoever wins faces a tough job right away, fixing a broken city while preparing for the next possible crisis with the start of the new hurricane season just 12 days away.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN: And many voters here say they're torn, Soledad. I talked to one woman, a middle aged African-American woman, who said her choice is between the devil and the deep blue sea. She said she had heard that Landrieu would raise her taxes and she didn't like that. But when I asked her what was the wrap on Nagin, she said, well look around, this city has so many problems and so little has been done.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Wow. Well if the choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, which one seems to have the edge going in? That's kind of depressing.

ROESGEN: Well, a lot of political analysts say the edge right now, but a very, very small edge, goes to Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu. Mayor Nagin has been picking up steam in the last week but most political analysts again do think that it could be Landrieu by just a couple of percentage points ahead of Nagin tomorrow. We will have to see. SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yes. So rarely is one mayor's race watched by the nation. And maybe, maybe even it's fair to say the world.

Thanks, Susan. Appreciate the update.

Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: Here's a bittersweet tale of heroism to tell you about. Off the coast of South Carolina, the search for a missing tour boat captain called off this morning. Seventy-five-year-old Robert Clark being called a hero for going to the rescue of a passenger instead of saving himself. CNN's Kyung Lah has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): One by one, six survivors were plucked from the water after clinging to a capsized fishing boat for 17 hours miles from shore. They are the lucky ones.

TOM FULTZ, MARINA OWNER: The oldest and most experienced captain that we have here. He's been captain in over 35 years.

LAH: Captain Bob Clark and first mate Wayne Smith, longtime friends, ran the Super Suds II for vacationers at Myrtle Beach for 12 years. This time, five visitors from Rupert, West Virginia, were on board. The Coast Guard says as a boat was returning to shore, a wave capsized the vessel. Five people eventually made it back to the boat. Captain Clark refused to leave passenger Mike Robinson (ph) who was floating away.

CAPT. JOHN CAMERON, U.S. COAST GUARD: The captain of the vessel, Robert Clark, yelled back to his mate for the mate to take care of the five on the boat and that he would stay with Mr. Robinson who was having trouble swimming back to the vessel.

LAH: According to the Coast Guard, as night fell and sharing just one life vest, Captain Clark suffered a heart attack. Robinson said he held on to Clark's body as long as he could.

DAVID WILLIAMS, LOCAL BOATER: We knew the area they were fishing, so we knew the direct route that they would be coming back in.

LAH: Members of the fishing community assisted in searching for the missing. The Coast Guard says all six survivors appear healthy, though some are suffering from hypothermia. The search will continue for Captain Bob Clark.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN: All the rescued men are being treated for hypothermia.

Soledad. SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Wow, that's a sad story there. Thanks, Miles.

Twenty-five years ago next month, the government first identified a new, incurable and deadly disease called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS. Since then, 25 million people have died from it, 40 million people have been infected. But today it's no longer a death sentence. AMERICAN MORNING's Alina Cho with more on this story.

Really a huge -- I mean we were both journalists early on in our careers when AIDS was a big story.

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Right. We've come a long way from Ryan White and the AIDS quilt. Certainly there's a changing face of AIDS, Soledad. Twenty-five years ago nobody wanted to talk about AIDS. Gay cancer is what many people called it. Today, some doctors say a little more than one in 10 American families have at least one relative with HIV. This week we spent some time with a 33-year-old woman who's been living with it for 15 years. She never thought she'd live this long. Now she's preparing for the next big phase in her life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHO, (voice over): Jennifer Jako does all the things other pregnant women do. She continues to work.

JENNIFER JAKO, LIVING WITH AIDS: This is beautiful.

CHO: Gets plenty of exercise and makes regular visits to the doctor. But Jako is different. At age 18, she made a poor decision that changed her life.

JAKO: We both got drunk and neither of us I think wanted to but we ended up having sex.

CHO: Jako felt so awful about it she decided to become abstinent. It was too late.

JAKO: With those words, Jennifer, I'm sorry, your pap smear is normal but your HIV test is positive. I'm sorry. Everything came crashing around me. Every dream, every hope, everything I thought I would be was over. I would never be the girl that I was. All of a sudden I was the infection.

CHO: The prognosis at the time was not good. Doctors told her if she was lucky she'd live to be 25.

JAKO: I had no idea that it could happen to me. I truly thought of this disease as a disease of gay men, IV drug users. What my family were spoken of as bad people. People that we didn't know.

CHO: That was 15 years ago. Today Jako is alive and well thanks to modern medicine. Three pills twice a day. She never misses a dose. She also watches what she eats and gets plenty of sleep. Pregnant through in vitro fertilization, her baby girl is due in July and the chances of her child being HIV positive are about 1 percent. That's in large part because Jako's virus has been successfully suppressed. A story so remarkable she recently landed on the cover of "Newsweek" magazine with this provocative photo inside. Chris Bliler (ph) has been by her side for nine years, five of them as her husband. They've practiced safe sex. He's remained healthy and HIV negative and is now looking forward to fatherhood.

JAKO: Thinks about it a lot.

CHRIS BLILER, JAKO'S HUSBAND: I think about it probably more than I should.

JAKO: He spends a lot of time wondering if he's going to be a good dad.

BLILER: Yes.

JAKO: Just hoping that he does all the right things.

CHO: Just like any other couple, except this one is learning to live with HIV.

JAKO: I look at every day as golden. I get to have today. I get to have the time that I share with my family or my friends. I get to have a good day today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHO: She has a really great attitude. Jako says she hopes to live to see her child graduate from high school. Her doctor says, not so fast, she needs to start looking forward to being a mother, a grandmother and saving up for retirement. Jako is really representative of the changing face of AIDS. But there is still a long way to go. Her doctor tells us he doesn't believe there will be a cure in her lifetime but there is hope of a vaccine and that, Soledad, would go a long way toward preventing more new cases.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Let me ask you a couple of questions about -- since she's pregnant.

CHO: Right.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Do we know if her baby is going to be HIV positive yet or not? Do you have to wait until the baby's born?

CHO: You have to wait until the baby's born. And beyond that, you know, we told her, listen, the baby is due in July. We'd love to come back for a follow-up. She lives in Portland, Oregon. And she said, that would be great. But try to come back in November because that's when we'll know for sure. They'll be monitoring very, very closely.

One thing to keep in mind, she's just like a normal mother except she cannot breast feed. Remember, it's a bodily fluid and it can be as . . .

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: So the virus passes through the breast milk. CHO: That's right. And there's a chance that she could, but she doesn't want to take that chance. And I don't blame her, frankly.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Did she have in vitro -- does that have anything to do with the fact that she is HIV positive or was just that they had troubles get pregnant that they did the in vitro?

CHO: No. She had to do that. She does not want to risk passing on the virus to her husband. They've practiced safe sex for the nine years that they've been together and certainly they will for the rest of the time that they are.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: All right. Alina, thanks. Seems like a pretty remarkable woman.

CHO: It is.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: Let's check back on the weather now. Rob Marciano's in for Chad.

Hello, Rob.

(WEATHER REPORT)

MILES O'BRIEN: We've been telling you about these killer alligators. You know, in 58 years, there have been 17 deaths in Florida due to alligators. We've had three in a week. So what is going on? We're going to check in with an expert on this. As a matter of fact, let's see if we can -- well, that's not the expert. There's the expert. Mr. Corwin, sir, good to see you. Jeff Corwin of "Animal Planet." You know who he is. And he's brought himself, you know, a little gator. And this is part of the problem. People see them at this stage and think, oh, they're cute, let's get a pet. Bad idea. One of the many things we're going to talk about. Another question we'll answer, if you're being pursued by an alligator, what should you do?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Run.

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Run.

MILES O'BRIEN: But in what way?

SERWER: Up a tree. Not towards it.

MILES O'BRIEN: Zigzags or not?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: There's that zigzag thing. We'll find out in just a little bit.

SERWER: Oh, interesting stuff.

MILES O'BRIEN: Andy, what do you have?

SERWER: I have some business news coming up.

Merck has a new cancer vaccine. But does the religious right have a problem with it? We'll get to that coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Coming up this morning in our 9:00 hour, we're going to continue our series "30, 40, 50." We're talking about relationships and marriage and dating and friendships and divorce. The number where you can reach us, 877-AM6-1300. Send us an e-mail at am@cnn.com. We'd love to hear your questions.

MILES O'BRIEN: If you're in your 20s or 60s, you can listen, too, you know.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Well, you're heading into your 30s or out of your 50s.

MILES O'BRIEN: Or -- yes. And if you're thinking young and you're 60s.

SERWER: If you're 12 you might not want to watch.

MILES O'BRIEN: No.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: You should be in school.

SERWER: Yes, go to school.

MILES O'BRIEN: Get to school.

SERWER: Right.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the drugmaker that's making business news today.

SERWER: Yes, Soledad, Merck, which has, obviously, had its share of problems over the past year or so, is involved in an interesting new drug called Gardasil and it's an awaiting the FDA -- word from the FDA over whether or not this drug will be approved. This is a drug that is a vaccine against human papillo . . .

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: HPV is what they call it.

SERWER: HPV is what it's called, yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: For good reason, obviously.

SERWER: And what it is -- yes, that's right, for good reason they call it HPV. And this is a virus that causes cervical cancer. And there's an interesting controversy here because it would be given to teenage girls. And the religious right has some concerns here that this would encourage premarital sex. And Merck went out on an education campaign to convince various groups that it would not. And apparently it has gotten the sign-off from various groups who say here, for instance, the Focus on Family and Family Research Council says the HPV vaccine does not in any circumstance negate or substitute God's plan for sexuality, which is sexual abstinence until marriage.

So interesting that's an interesting come back, I think. And this is an important drug because this type of cancer -- this type of virus, I should say, causes cancer in 4,000 women or kills 4,000 women in the U.S.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh, it's deadly. It's so aggressive.

SERWER: And nearly 300,000 worldwide.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Cervical cancer, so aggressive.

SERWER: And this causes that in 70 percent of the cases. So it could be a very interesting development.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: It's interesting how they did this education thing because, of course, you'd need the vaccine as a teenager to protect yourself later in life, obviously.

SERWER: Right.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: And I think that education thing kind of helped bring everybody on board. SERWER: Right. Exactly.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: All right, Andy, thanks.

SERWER: Thank you.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: Gator attacks. In the last 58 years in Florida there have been 17 people who have died as a result of alligators. We've had three just in like the past week. What is going on? Too many gators? Too many people? A little bit of both? "Animal Planet's" Jeff Corwin walking into the studio now with a live gator. We'll find out about the myths on gators and what you should do should you find yourself pursued by such a reptile. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: So how do you catch an 11- foot, 4-inch, 407- pound call gator? Very carefully, right? Well, that's pretty much the drill. And that's exactly what trappers did just the other day in Marion County, Florida, yesterday. This is a gator they believe attacked a Tennessee woman while she was snorkeling in a recreation area there and killed her. One of three fatal alligator attacks just in the past week. And as we've been telling you, there have been only 17 total in the past 58 years in the sunshine state. So what's going on in Florida? We wanted to go to an expert. Who better than Jeff Corwin from "Animal Planet." He's brought a little friend with him.

JEFF CORWIN, "ANIMAL PLANET"/WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST: I did, yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: "Corwin's Quest" is the program, by the way. We want to get that in there.

Thanks for coming.

CORWIN: My pleasure.

MILES O'BRIEN: And this is Gumbo.

CORWIN: This is Gumbo and he's an American alligator. So this basically is the species that's potentially behind these attacks.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. And here's the thing. You look at Gumbo there. This is about a 5-year-old gator, right? Potentially could grow to what size? There's really no limit, is there?

CORWIN: Basically these animals just keep growing throughout their entire lives. As long as they're eating, they're in a nice environment and they're not stressed, the creature like this will put on about a foot every year. So he's probably about a 5 or 6 years old animal, depending on his size. And as they get bigger, they tend to slow down in size.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes. And you can see how somebody would looks at that and see that little thing and say, that's kind of cute, I want a pet. Bad idea, right?

CORWIN: Bad, bad idea. First of all, these animals are protected by the government, both in the state of Florida and nationally. These creatures were once critically endangered. Pushed to the brink of extinction. And one of the cause for that was people trying to keep them as pets, including this one right here. Do you know the history of Gumbo?

MILES O'BRIEN: No.

CORWIN: Someone had him as a pet.

MILES O'BRIEN: Really?

CORWIN: And they - hear that sound he made? That's actually a sound they make when babies make when they're calling for their mother.

MILES O'BRIEN: Right. So he's in distress now?

CORWIN: No, he's all right. He pretty cool. Yes. He thinks I'm his mother.

MILES O'BRIEN: Congratulations, I guess.

CORWIN: But, hey, you know. But someone had him as a pet and they let him go into a pond in upstate New York and he was rescued. And now he's used as an education animal to teach people about alligators.

MILES O'BRIEN: Interesting. Now he has not taken his eyes off of me. Before we get into some of the many things . . .

CORWIN: Maybe he thinks you're his mother.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, or maybe so. In any case, before we get into some of the myths, what do you think is going on in Florida? Obviously more people. It's a state with a tremendous amount of growth. And what has happened there, I remember living in Florida in the mid-80s, they just started getting back to hunting alligators because they had been so successful after being put on the endangered species list. Are there to many gators, to many people or both?

CORWIN: That's exactly what's happening here. This is not a strange environmental situation occurring. It's not global warming. The stars aren't lining up. You know? What's happening is, is 4,000 people move to Florida every month. OK. Gators . . .

MILES O'BRIEN: Every month?

CORWIN: Every month 4,000 people move to Florida. The population of alligators have stabilize. And there's two things that alligators and people share in common. They like water. The place where these animals like to swim or they like to hunt, where they survive, is the same place where human beings like to fish, like to rubber tube and like to recreate. So they're competing for the same resource.

MILES O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right. And you mentioned that. One of the things we ran into just a couple of weeks ago on the program here was a guy who was going after golf balls in a pond on a golf course. His name is Stephen Martinez. He encountered a gator. Listen to what he did for just a second.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN MARTINEZ, ALLIGATOR ATTACK VICTIM: So I was going to pull my hand out and I thought about it. As tight as he had me, it would have ripped my hand to shreds. Luckily I thought it through, rode with him for a while. He started pulling me towards the middle of the lake and I started punching on him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MILES O'BRIEN: He punched. He lived to tell the tale. He had a cut. Did he do the right thing?

CORWIN: He did exactly what you're supposed to do. First of all, you have to put this in perspective. You're chances of being attacked by an alligator are very rare. I mean since the history that we've been looking at this, only 17 people have ever been attacked by an alligator. Seventeen people are bitten by dogs every month in the state of Florida.

But he did what you're supposed to do. The best thing to do is to avoid being attacked by an animal. So you want to know where you're going. You just don't want to wonder into a pond that you're not aware about. You want to call the recreation department, the parks department and say, we want to go rubber tubing in that pond. Is that a safe place to hang out? If they say there are big gators there, I wouldn't be swimming there. OK.

MILES O'BRIEN: There you go.

CORWIN: Want he did was the right thing. He got attacked and he defended himself. The last thing you want to do is have a monster gator drag you into the water. When that happens, game over because you're in his world when you're in the water.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. Can I -- I've got to hold him here.

CORWIN: Absolutely. Sure.

MILES O'BRIEN: And as go here, I've got to ask you . . .

CORWIN: You are insured, right?

MILES O'BRIEN: They do have good eyesight, right?

CORWIN: They have excellent eyesight.

MILES O'BRIEN: And the other thing is, don't do the zigzag routine, right? Just run straight.

CORWIN: I don't know where that cams from, the whole zigzag thing. You know, if you were to be attacked by an alligator, what I would do is avoid being taken into water. I would avoid having my limbs being exposed to the mouth of the creature.

MILES O'BRIEN: Good idea.

CORWIN: Because, you know, if an alligator grabs on to you and he twists around, what they do is they'll grab on and they'll twist and they'll actually try to, you know, pull your limbs off. So that's what you want to avoid. But the best thing to do is to stay out of alligator habitat if you don't have a reason to be there.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. We've got to go. Out of time. Jeff Corwin and Gumbo, thanks.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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