Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

New Cancer Treatments; Same-Sex Marriage; Shark Tales; Paying The Price

Aired June 05, 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: Happening this morning, President Bush throws his support behind a gay marriage ban. A constitutional amendment will be debated in the Senate today and will be voted on this week.
An Amber Alert out for a five-day-old baby in Texas. Her name, Priscilla Maldonado. The suspected kidnapper posed as a hospital worker and befriended the baby's mother. Little Priscilla has jaundice and she needs medical attention.

You can add 50,000 active duty members of the National Guard and Navy to the list of people who's personal information was stolen on that V.A. laptop we told you about last week. The first report of 26.5 million people at risk included mostly veterans discharged since '75.

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

S. O'BRIEN: And I'm Soledad O'Brien.

A major international cancer conference is underway in Atlanta. Doctors there are focused on targeted treatments, honing in on what makes cancer grow and new drugs to fight it. Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us from the CNN Center in Atlanta with details on this.

Hey, Elizabeth, good morning.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Soledad, what researchers are trying to do is outfox a cancer cell. They want to try to figure out what makes these breast cancer cells tick and then actually go in there and stop the process.

Let's take a look at some results of a trial for a new drug called Tykerb. Now it's interesting because this drug will only -- it only has possibilities for one out of five women. Only one out of five women will have the type of breast cancer that this pill might possibly work on.

So given that, what it does is it targets a HER-2 protein inside the breast cancer cell. And what they found is it may prevent the cancer spread to the brain. Because the drug, unlike some others, is able to cross that blood-brain barrier.

Now it is not a cure and that's very, very important to say. It is not FDA approved at the moment. It is still experimental. The reason why it's not a cure is what they found now is that this drug will help slow tumor progression. For example, these women who took this drug, plus chemotherapy, they went for about eight and a half months or so without tumor progression, which was about a little less than twice as long as women who didn't take it. So they certainly did better, but it doesn't mean that their breast cancer went away altogether.

Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: But then would Tykerb be essentially always used as a backup drug or would there be any scenario when you would just take the Tykerb and not go ahead and use it as the backup?

COHEN: The way they envision Tykerb right now, Soledad, is that you would use it in conjunction with chemotherapy, which is very important, and you might also want to use it in conjunction with a drug called Herceptin. That's another drug that target this HER-2 new protein. These are proteins that are found both on the surface of the cell and inside the cell.

So what doctors are thinking is the cancer's going to have sort of a drug cocktail approach, which many of us are familiar with from how HIV is treated. So you probably end up using it in conjunction with other kinds of treatments.

S. O'BRIEN: Elizabeth Cohen for us this morning in Atlanta. Elizabeth, thanks.

COHEN: Thanks.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

COHEN: With their fortunes flagging and an election looming, Republicans are putting a key conservative issue on the front burner, a constitutional ban on gay marriage. The president will use the bully pulpit today to offer support and lawmakers will push for a vote in the Senate this week. Why this divisive issue and why now? Tony Perkins is president of the Family Research Council. He joins us from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Good to have you with us, Mr. Perkins.

TONY PERKINS, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Good morning, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: I suspect you're a little disappointed that the president hasn't uttered a peep about this since the election until this moment.

PERKINS: Well, there has been some concern that this was an issue that was important enough to campaign on in the 2004 election cycle by Republicans in general, but it's not been important enough to act upon yet. So there has been some concern, but there's encouragement that the president is stepping up his support of the amendment publicly, beginning with his radio address over the weekend. M. O'BRIEN: Let me ask you this. In the interim since the election, when you've called up your friends at the White House or had those who had opportunity to talk to the president, what did they say to you? Just be quiet about this for now? Your time is coming.

PERKINS: Well, I think there's been a number of pressing issues that the administration has had to deal with. There's been some issues that the president has taken on voluntarily that his -- as I said, caused some concern. For instance, the day after the election, the president took on reform of social security, which was not central to the 2004 election.

And so I think there was some concern and people have been waiting on these issues. I mean if you'll remember, nearly half of the president's support, those that supported the president in his re- election, did so based upon the issue of values, moral values. And top among them was the issue of same-sex marriage. So this is an issue that certainly was important in the 2004 election and I think people are now encouraged that the president is taking a more public position in support of the amendment.

M. O'BRIEN: Now when you say that, though, I look at the numbers and it doesn't seem to jive. Let's look at -- there's a recent poll that we have, some number that is came out. This was conducted by CBS May 16th through the 17th. And when they asked Americans, what are the most important issues? Top of the list, war in Iraq, 28 percent, economy and jobs then, immigration, gas crisis, terrorism. A gay marriage ban or constitutional amendment, whatever, doesn't even rise to the level of getting a digit on that poll. So where is this huge upswell of concern over a gay marriage ban?

PERKINS: Well, Miles, I don't know that poll that you refer to and I don't know how the questions were asked. But I do know that in the 2004 election, that all of the exit polling showed that 44 percent of the president's support did so based upon moral values. And the number one issue exceeding the war in Iraq, exceeding terrorism, was the issue of same-sex marriage. So, this is not the . . .

M. O'BRIEN: I'm sorry. Where did those numbers come from? Where do those numbers come from?

PERKINS: That was the Pew Research Foundation did that poll following the 2004 election.

So this has been an issue that as -- it was a threat in 2004, but the threat is greater today because we've actually had 19 state that is have passed marriage amendments to their state constitutions with, on average, a 70 percent voter approval. But what's happened is we've had courts that have now struck down those amendments, including the state of Nebraska where a federal judge struck down that amendment. So no longer can Congress and others say that let's let this be -- let's just let the states deal with this issue. The states have dealt with the issue but the federal courts continue to step in. The only way to stop the courts is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

M. O'BRIEN: The feeling on the Democratic side here is that everybody's sort of on record on this. Let's listen to Senator Joe Biden yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN JOSEPH BIDEN, (D) DELAWARE: I can't believe the American people can't see through this. We already have a law, the Defensive of Marriage Act. We've all voted. Where I voted and others said, look, marriage is between a man and woman and states must respect that. Nobody's violated that law. There's been no challenge to that law. Why do we need a constitutional amendment?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: And I'll put the question to you. Why do we need a constitutional amendment?

PERKINS: Well, with all due respect to Senator Biden, that's not true. There have been challenges to the Defensive Of Marriage Act. In fact, there are seven legal challenges right now in various states. And if we wait until this has made its way through the courts to let's say the Supreme Court and let's say they decided it the wrong way and they force same-sex marriage on the country, the time it would take to pass an amendment and have it ratified by the states, it would be too late.

You know, leadership is not looking in the rear-view mirror to deciding where we should have gone. It's looking forward, saying marriage is under attack in America today. And from a public policy standpoint, there's nothing more important than encouraging strong marriages and families. And central to that is marriage between a man and a woman.

M. O'BRIEN: Can I just -- just a final thought here. How is marriage under attack? I see a marriage alive and well. I see a divorce rate which continues. But I see an institution which is doing fine.

PERKINS: Well, you mentioned no-fault divorce, which was passed back in 1969 and that was a public policy decision that's had significant ramifications upon family and marriage in America today. In fact, we now have almost 30 years of research that shows the impact it's had upon children. And without question, the best environment for children is to be raised in a two-parent home. A two-parent home of a mom and a dad.

M. O'BRIEN: But how is marriage under attack, though?

PERKINS: Well, we saw in Massachusetts where that court in that state imposed same-sex marriage upon that state. And as the Defense of Marriage Act is being challenged, it will be imposed upon other states.

M. O'BRIEN: But how does that hurt heterosexual marriages?

PERKINS: Oh, well let's go back to Massachusetts and see what happens there where now it's the public policy of same-sex marriages as a public policy. In the elementary schools, kids are being thought that homosexuality is the same as any -- as heterosexuality. They're being taught from a book in elementary school called "King and Kings" where parents, when they object to their kids being taught the two princes get married and have kids and that's normal, they're told that they have no right to object because that's the public policy of the state. So it has a significant impact on the way children are raised and taught in America and it has a significant impact on devaluing the institution of marriage.

All we have to do is look to places like the Netherlands where same-sex marriage has been around a little bit longer and we have seen a significant decline in marriage as a result.

M. O'BRIEN: Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. Out of time. Thank you very much.

PERKINS: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: President Bush expected to continue his push this afternoon. CNN will bring you his remarking at 1:45 Eastern, about 15 minutes before the Senate debate is set to begin.

Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: It's about 20 minutes before the hour. Let's get another check on the weather and Rob Marciano, who's on a little bit of a field trip for us this morning at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.

Hey, Rob.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Soledad.

Always nice to get out of the office or out of school for a field trip. And you can learn tons of things here at the Georgia Aquarium. But the reason we're here, the big deal that's going on here at the Georgia Aquarium, is that just late Saturday night, Alice and Trixie arrived. They're two big whale sharks. They're females. They're here to joining Ralph and Norton who have been here for about a year. So Ralph and Norton, larger male whale sharks, actually have girlfriends. And hopefully they'll get along.

Behind me, you can see the -- this is the main display here at the Georgia Aquarium. All sorts of wildlife. Oh, up there at the top there it looks like to be one of the bigger guys. That looks to be Ralph or Norton. The whale shark making its way around. Golden Trivail underneath him, Grouper. All sorts of wildlife in this thing. And 6.2 million gallons of water. Two-foot thick glass. Sixty-three feet wide by 29 feet tall. All in all the size of a -- the surface area of a football field. And big enough to hold six of these whale sharks in their full adult grown state.

Unbelievable ride here from Taiwan. Thirty hours all in all rescued from a farm over there when they literally would have become fish food.

(WEATHER REPORT) MARCIANO: Miles, you've seen this, right? It's pretty amazing.

M. O'BRIEN: I have not been there yet.

MARCIANO: Come on.

M. O'BRIEN: I haven't been.

MARCIANO: You have not?

M. O'BRIEN: No, no. I mean I'll have to check it out this summer.

MARCIANO: Come on. You know, you move to New York and forget about everything here.

M. O'BRIEN: No, they opened it up after I left.

S. O'BRIEN: It's so beautiful.

M. O'BRIEN: I'd like to go diving in there. Have you ever thought about that?

S. O'BRIEN: With a the whale shark in there?

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, it would be cool.

MARCIANO: Yes, I have actually. That would be cool.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, that would be kind of neat.

MARCIANO: All right, we'll see you guys in a little bit. Maybe we'll jump in.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, we'll see you. I'd like to see that.

S. O'BRIEN: There we go. Now you're talking.

MARCIANO: No.

S. O'BRIEN: Come on. Chicken.

M. O'BRIEN: He's a tease.

Coming up, Rob Marciano in the tank.

All right, still to come, our special series, "Paying the Price." Dan Lothian is in Iowa.

Hello, Dan.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Good morning, Miles.

I am in Adel, Iowa, where we're getting ready to talk to a farmer in Adel. That's right, a farmer in Adel. I won't sing the song, but I'll tell you his story ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Filling up your car this morning? Here's the latest CNN gas gauge. A gallon of regular unleaded will cost on average about $2.86. Down a nickel from a month ago when a gallon cost $2.91. But it's up pretty considerably, in fact, from a year ago when we were paying $2.10 a gallon. Today we begin our five-part series on AMERICAN MORNING. It's called "Paying the Price in the Heartland." We're taking a look at the impact that rising fuel costs have on every day Americans, starting in Iowa. AMERICAN MORNING's Dan Lothian joins us this morning from Adel, Iowa.

Hey, Dan, good morning.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Well, we have been in Iowa since late last week, as you mentioned, trying to get a sense of how folks here in the heartland are dealing with the high costs of fuel. Just to give you a sense, the reference point, in Iowa this morning a gallon of regular goes for $2.73. The mid price is $2.87. And then Diesel is $2.83. Obviously, this is not as high as what you find in New York or Boston or even Los Angeles. But out here for people like the farmer that we're about to talk to, every cent counts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN, (voice over): The weather may be a farmer's best friend and worst enemy, but fuel is also proving to be a two-edged sword for farmers like Randy Kreager.

RANDY KREAGER, FARMER: The residue from last year's corn crop.

LOTHIAN: From tending to his fields, to caring for the cattle, Kreager is feeling the pressure.

RANDY KREAGER: We're just having to try to trim our costs of production down even further than we have already done in the past.

LOTHIAN: In order to raise corn and soybeans, Kreager needs lots of diesel to run his big machines. But the price per gallon, he says, has jumped by a dollar since last year.

RANDY KREAGER: Typically when we're harvesting corn we are running a combine, a tractor with a grain cart to catch the corn off the combine and then we run two semis to haul the grain from the field to the elevator. It wouldn't be uncommon at all in a situation like that if we were running a full day of corn to probably burn up about 300 gallons of diesel fuel.

LOTHIAN: That's roughly $800 a day, yet the price he gets for his crops has not gone up significantly.

RANDY KREAGER: An old saying that I've heard is that we are price takers not price makers. And that's referring to farmers. LOTHIAN: So you have to take the pay.

RANDY KREAGER: Exactly.

LOTHIAN: To make matters worse, he raises cattle on land about 15 miles away, down a winding, dusty road, across a stream, and into the middle of nowhere.

RANDY KREAGER: There's always a tendency to cut corners, particularly with cattle in this example. You may say, well, fuel is so expensive and I'm just going to, instead of checking on them every other day, we're just going to start checking on them once a week or every other week. And, you know, you may get by with that and you may not. If you would end up losing just a couple of calves, well, then your gamble didn't pay off.

LOTHIAN: It's not unusual for Kreager to travel more than 300 miles per week in his pickup. It's hard work and fuel costs are slicing already thin margin. But this third generation farmer is determined to make it work.

RANDY KREAGER: I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't love it.

LOTHIAN: Everyone in his family is having to pay the price. Kreager and his wife Amy have decided only their three-year-old daughter Jordan will attend day care full time this summer.

AMI KREAGER, FARMER'S WIFE: Our oldest is only going to go to day care one day this summer. It's $25 a day for him and it's just saves a little bit.

LOTHIAN: So seven-and-a-half-year-old son Dallas will work on the farm with his dad, learning about crops and cattle and perhaps some of the hurdles that make the job so challenging.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: So Kreager operates in about 1,600 acres across this area. As I told you in that piece, 15 miles from here is where he keeps his cattle. Obviously he'd like to see one of two things, the price that he gets for his corn, he'd love that to go up, or the price of fuel go down.

Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes. It would be great if both things could happen at once.

You know, when you see it really affecting the families decision about sending their kid off to day care, it really is very serious. Crunch some numbers for me. What have you spent so far on gas?

LOTHIAN: Well, that's right. As you know, everything is so far away from here. Once you move out of Des Moines, you have to take quite a bit of a hike in order to get out to some of these areas. So I just want to sort of tick off some things. Miles so far we have traveled, 618. That's since about last Thursday. We have purchased 39 gallons of gas. And that, of course, doesn't include what was already in the vehicle when we rented it. We spent $105. And the average that we've paid for gas $2.68 a gallon.

S. O'BRIEN: You know, and as expensive as that is, it's actually better than it is here in the northeast right now.

LOTHIAN: That's true.

S. O'BRIEN: Sad but true. All right, Dan, thanks.

Tomorrow Dan's going to travel to Des Moines. People there commonly drive 100 miles every day just doing their family chores. Gas is 70 cents higher than it was last year per gallon. He's going to talk with the Firebaugh (ph) family. Their $700 gas bill last month, believe it or not, was enough to make them part the pickup and get an economy car. "Paying the Price in the Heartland" continues right here on AMERICAN MORNING tomorrow.

Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: I feel like we just saw Dan's expense report right there. I'm approving it, Dan. It's OK.

Up next, Andy.

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, some Vonage shareholders are fighting mad. Do they have a legitimate beef?

Plus, soaring copper prices have created a new form of American deviant. We'll tell you about that coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: So Vonage with a big public offering. You told us about that last week. And everything's fine, right? Not.

SERWER: Well, not. The stock . . .

S. O'BRIEN: Less than fine.

SERWER: Yes, less than fine. The stock hasn't done well. Basically this is a story, the road to that hot place is paved with good intentions. When Vonage went public a couple days ago, they allowed some of their customers to get in on the action, offering shares to Vonage customers. Well, the stock went down and now, guess what, those customers are suing the company. You know what, you make your own choices in life and you can't always sue. But that's just my personal take.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, do they have a leg to stand on?

SERWER: They're saying they were crammed in. They weren't forced to. They decided to join in on the IPO and buy stock. I just . . . M. O'BRIEN: Seems straightforward, let's put it that way.

SERWER: Yes, it does.

Now want to tell you about a story that's in "USA Today." A real sign of the times. Copper prices soaring. You can get about $3 a pound for scrap. And we've created a new form of American deviant, the American copper thief is alive and well. They're back. In Sumpter, South Carolina, thieves stole flower vases out of graveyards. OK. Nice. Customers in Maine reported power outages after thieves broke into substations and stole copper wires. In Oregon, they've been peeling copper off of small bridges. And, of course, we have this sad thing to report. A 21-year-old West Virginia man died in May when he was electrocuted while stealing copper cables from power lines. So be careful. Don't do this. It's stupid. There's better ways to make a living.

S. O'BRIEN: They have to know it's stolen. I mean if someone comes to you with a big armload of copper, like clearly its hot.

SERWER: The guy in the scrapyard wants to make some money, you know?

S. O'BRIEN: It's weird. It's weird. All right.

M. O'BRIEN: Looking for some hot pennies myself. Anyway.

S. O'BRIEN: Thanks, Andy.

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Going to take a look at the top stories right after this short break. We're back in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dana Bash on Capitol Hill where the Senate takes up a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Why that debate now? I'll tell you coming up.

M. O'BRIEN: Shades of Abu Ghraib? After Haditha, how can the U.S. win hearts and minds in Iraq? Some answers from the former head of Abu Ghraib.

KAREEN WYNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kareen Wynter along the U.S.- Mexico border in Arizona. It's the first day on the job for newly deployed National Guard troops who will be patrolling the border. They're already voicing concern. The details coming up.

S. O'BRIEN: And ousting the Taliban. It was supposed to open up Afghanistan for women's rights. In many ways, though, times haven't really changed. We'll take a look this morning.

MARCIANO: And I'm Rob Marciano live at the Georgia Aquarium where the two newest residents of this big pool behind me arrived over the weekend. They are big. They move real slow but they're really cool to look at. We'll show you coming up on this AMERICAN MORNING.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com