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American Morning

Nine Suicide Car Bombings in Iraq; Wolfowitz Out? Negotiations With World Bank; Expanding FluMist for Toddlers

Aired May 17, 2007 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Road rage. You'll pay more for gas this morning than you did after Hurricane Katrina.

KEN COOPER, CHICAGO CAB DRIVER: It's just going up so fast, we can't even catch up.

CHETRY: Plus, easy fix. More teens buying dangerous prescription drugs online.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Main Street Pharmacy (ph) delivered them to our home. I was in shock.

CHETRY: The desperate call for a crackdown on Internet pharmacies on this AMERICAN MORNING.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: And thanks so much for joining us. It's Thursday, May 17th.

I'm Kiran Chetry, here in New York.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm John Roberts in Washington.

(NEWSBREAK)

ROBERTS: We start with a developing story out of Iraq this morning. Nine suicide car bombs exploding overnight in and around Mosul, up in northern Iraq. Officials say it's the largest coordinated attack of its kind in at least seven months.

CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr joins us now live from the Pentagon with the very latest.

Give us the numbers here. What are we looking at in terms of the size of this attack, Barbara?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, as you say, U.S. military officials confirming this is the largest attack in Mosul since October of last year. Quite significant.

Nine suicide car bombs planted across the city last night between 5:00 and 11:00 p.m. They tell us the targets of these nine suicide car bombs, a number of bridges, as well as some Iraqi police stations and prisons.

Eight of the nine suicide car bombs detonated. Some 30 Iraqis were wounded. This is something the U.S. military at this hour is looking at very closely -- John.

ROBERTS: Now, in the official press release, Barbara, the U.S. military is really playing up the idea that the Iraqi defense forces handled this. Was the U.S. military involved at all in the response, or was this purely an Iraqi operation? Do you know?

STARR: It's our understanding at this early hour, the U.S. military was involved in some backup. The Mosul city police put out their own information saying that nearly 250 gunmen fanned out across the city late yesterday, part of the effort to launch these attacks.

The U.S. believes at this point the Mosul police, the Mosul authorities were pretty good on trying to keep a lid on it, but still dozens of Iraqis wounded, some killed. And make no mistake, it is a very serious situation up there -- John.

ROBERTS: All right. Barbara Starr, thanks for that. We'll get back to you a little bit later for more details on that.

Still no sign of three missing soldiers in Iraq. There's a $200,000 reward, and troops are handing out about 50,000 leaflets listing the number of tip lines in the Sunni stronghold known as the Triangle of Death. The soldiers were ambushed and captured over the weekend.

CNN is embedded with the troops on the search. Our Arwa Damon is going to check in with us just ahead. She just came back from the area where those troops were actually kidnapped from -- Kiran.

CHETRY: Yes. It will be interesting to hear Arwa's perspective and to give us an update on that.

Also another top story today, the gas prices, a record high. And Congress is putting the heat on big oil. The House Judiciary Committee's Antitrust Task Force asked analysts, with oil companies making record profits, are they gouging us?

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL SANKEY, DEUTSCHE BANK: No company I cover -- and I told you there's a big range of them -- is stupid enough to try and make money by gouging the U.S. consumer. The simple fact is they don't need to right now, frankly. They are making so much money just by the nature of the market.

GUY CARUSO, ENERGY INFO. ADMIN. ADMINISTRATOR: I'm sorry to have to say that it's probably likely that you will see me here again next summer explaining why higher prices have again occurred for some reason which we can't even determine now, whether it be hurricanes, industrial accidents, or a robust global economy. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: And one consumer advocate said that the oil companies are purposely keeping supplies tight. We're going to be talking about that in more depth a little bit later.

And you don't have to be a millionaire to run for president, but apparently it helps. The candidates filing financial disclosure forms with the Federal Election Commission. More than half of them are millionaires.

Democratic hopeful John Edwards says he is worth around $30 million. Fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton has not filed yet. She received a 45-day extension.

So did Republican Mitt Romney. He asked for an extension as well, but his campaign estimates he's close to $250 million.

Rudy Giuliani, who left office with a mere million dollars, poor guy, five years ago, is now somewhere between $20 million and $70 million today.

A reminder, by the way. CNN will be hosting both Democrats and Republicans. They're going to be some great debates. You will want to see these.

June 3rd, the Democrats take the stage. June 5th, it will be the Republicans. All of it live from New Hampshire.

ROBERTS: If Al Gore gets back in, too, he'll be another guy who went from having literally nothing to a ton of money.

And sources say the White House is trying to broker a deal that's going to get Paul Wolfowitz out as president of the World Bank.

CNN's Zain Verjee is here with that now.

So, where do they stand? Apparently, Wolfowitz in negotiations, wants certain conditions. Do you think he's actually going to get this deal cut?

ZAIN VERJEE, CNN STATE DEPT. CORRESPONDENT: Well, it seems as though the situation right now is really in a deadlock, with the U.S. and Wolfowitz on one side, really staring down the World Bank board on the other.

What administration sources are telling us is that they are in negotiations right now. And what they really want to do is find a face-saving way out for Paul Wolfowitz.

The proposal on the table is basically this: Paul Wolfowitz resigns, and the World Bank accepts some culpability and responsibility for the way of the handling of the promotion and pay raise of Shaha Riza, Wolfowitz's companion, when she was transferred to the State Department. Administration sources are also telling us that a decision could come very, very soon. Wolfowitz's lawyer, Robert Bennett, is saying that he's not going to resign under any cloud.

ROBERTS: Right. And what is the White House's position on all of this?

VERJEE: Well, the White House seems to have concluded that he just can't stay. The one holdup seems to be Vice President Cheney, who still is behind him.

But Ed Henry spoke to one administration official who said, look, overall the situation is grim. He can't recover. But he said this: "We want it over one way or another. If you can't win, you can't win."

ROBERTS: Right. Now, if Wolfowitz doesn't get this deal cut and keeps holding out for these conditions, could the World Bank just say fine, you're fired?

VERJEE: Well, yes, they could. I mean, it seems as though the World Bank board has the majority that they need to fire him. But it doesn't seem as though they want a situation like that, because it would leave the United States isolated. But what it would also do is rupture transatlantic relationships between the Europeans and the United States.

And they don't really want that now. You've got the G-8 coming up, dealing with Iran on sanctions issues. There's a lot of economic and trade cooperation. So, to poison the atmosphere right now over this, they may be calculating just isn't worth it.

ROBERTS: It sounds like the U.N. I imagine they are coming down to the short strokes on this, though. Are they?

VERJEE: Yes, absolutely.

ROBERTS: All right.

Zain Verjee, thanks very much -- Kiran.

CHETRY: There's new approval now for a way to protect your toddler from the flu without the pain of a shot.

And for more on this, we are paging Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

And you have a new little one, Sanjay, so you'll probably be dealing with having to hold him down while they get a million little vaccines, it seems.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I don't know, you know, if getting rid of just one shot is going to make a big difference to little Sage (ph) or not, but they don't like shots, that's for sure.

Not approval yet. The FDA advisory committee, which the FDA usually follows, is saying that you might be able to use what's called FluMist. That's that nasal spray for children as young as 2 years old. The way it stands now is that they recommend a flu shot for children six months and older. Just to keep that min mind. And the FluMist is only approved for children over the age of five. So, this advisory committee has sort of been looking into it and found some good things and some not so good things as well with regard to FluMist in the younger population.

First of all, they studied 12 to 59-month-olds, and they found that the FluMist was actually more effective than the flu shot. So that was good news. Again, this is 12 to 59 months. And it was also safe for children specifically with no history of wheezing.

Now, when they sort of stratified this a little bit more and they looked younger, children 6 to 23 months, they started to find some serious concerns about safety, specifically something known as bronchospasm. Kiran, you might know what that is.

Basically, your airways get pretty irritated, and the kid might start to develop wheezing, significant wheezing, which could be a problem. So, really, it's sort of a case of good news-bad news here.

The recommendation that they're making is for children 2 to 5 -- 2 and older, I should say. They might even look at younger than that as well.

CHETRY: OK. So, just to clarify, FluMist is made up of something different? It's different than the conventional flu shot?

GUPTA: Yes. It's important to distinguish that.

The FluMist is specifically made up of what's called a live but a tenuated virus, whereas the flu shot is an inactivated virus. So, FluMist has always been a little bit more of a concern, for example, with people with immunosuppression, pregnant women, people who have had some sort of problem with their immune system in the past, whereas the flu shot seems to be more safe for that population of people.

CHETRY: So, flu shots, though, are recommended for babies of any age?

GUPTA: Six months and older. And, you know, this is interesting, because this has shifted even over the last several years. But, yes, the flu shot, the inactivated virus, 6 months and older you can use that.

And as you know, it's so important, especially in that age group, Kiran, because like older people, very young, at the young end of the spectrum, they have almost the same rate of hospitalization as older people. They can get very sick from the flu and develop some of the significant complications of pneumonia.

But even more than that, part of the reason that it's so important to get these young -- very young children some sort of flu vaccine is because they are these little Petri dishes. They are these transmitters. They hang on to the virus and they just spread the virus all over the place, to their entire families, and entire schools as well. So getting them inoculated can really cut down dramatically on the number of cases of flu in this country.

CHETRY: All right. Good stuff. Sanjay, thanks so much.

GUPTA: Thank you.

CHETRY: By the way, a little bit later, Sanjay's going to go into the mailbag in our next hour, answer some of your medical questions. And we'll bring that to you coming up a little bit later on AMERICAN MORNING.

(NEWSBREAK)

(END VIDEO CLIP) O

(WEATHER REPORT)

ROBERTS: Turning now to the legal battle surrounding the CIA leak case. A court hearing is scheduled for today in Washington. CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson is filing a civil suit, saying that her constitutional rights were violated when her identity was leaked to reporters.

She is demanding compensation from some big names in the Bush administration, and some people who used to be in the Bush administration. But the defendants are calling the whole thing a political vendetta.

Court TV's Savannah Guthrie joins us now live.

Good morning to you.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, COURT TV: Good morning.

ROBERTS: So this is opening up this whole box again for the White House, a box that they thought that maybe they got the lid back on.

GUTHRIE: They would like Pandora's box to stay closed, and yet, if this civil suit goes forward, this would open it all up again. And even more than the Scooter Libby trial did, because this would present the central question whether or not these administration officials -- Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby -- set about to damage Joe Wilson and his wife by outing Valerie Wilson.

ROBERTS: So what exactly are they charging in this suit?

GUTHRIE: Well, they are saying that their constitutional rights were violated. And so, they're suing these people in their personal capacities. So, in other words, if they won this lawsuit, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Richard Armitage, would have to reach into their own pockets and pay. The law allows that, but you have to overcome some pretty big hurdles. ROBERTS: So what are people like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney saying about this? Through their attorneys, I guess, because they won't be in court today.

GUTHRIE: Right. And this is -- this is the big day for the defendants to come out guns blazing and saying this lawsuit should be thrown out of court.

One thing they say is there were no constitutional violations here at all. Secondly, they're entitled to qualified immunity. And actually, the vice president has absolute immunity. So that's a very strong argument for them. They'll say, unless the constitutional violation was so obvious that any reasonable person would know about it, they're out of court.

ROBERTS: Now, one of the things that they're charging is that their privacy was invaded. But when you see pictures like this from the "Vanity Fair" magazine article, where even though Valerie Plame is in a little bit of a disguise, they're out there in the public eye. How can they make that claim?

GUTHRIE: Well, don't you expect something like that to be defense exhibit number one? They'll say, invasion of privacy? Are you kidding me?

I think what the plaintiffs will argue is, what they did after she was outed is really neither here nor there. They didn't choose to be outed. On the other hand, the defendants can say, how you claim you're damaged by a loss of your privacy when you're out there, now you're the media darlings, you're showing up at all the events. You are the most photographed couple in Washington.

So, we may expect some of those kinds of arguments today.

ROBERTS: As we saw in the O.J. Simpson trial, the outcome of a civil case can be very different than the outcome of a criminal case. So the fact that no one was found guilty in the Fitzgerald prosecution of outing Valerie Plame, will that have any effect on the arguments and the potential outcome in the civil case?

GUTHRIE: Well, you know, I think the Fitzgerald prosecution will be relevant here because of some of the information that came out, testimony that happened in the Scooter Libby trial. You know, if the opposite were true, had Fitzgerald decided to prosecute some of these people for the leak, then I think that would help the civil case. The fact that he didn't, I don't think it helps the civil case so much.

ROBERTS: Well, we'll see. Do you think this thing is going to go forward?

GUTHRIE: Don't make me guess. Don't make me guess.

ROBERTS: Give me a guess. Put some money on it.

GUTHRIE: I take the Fifth.

ROBERTS: Thanks, Savannah.

Savannah Guthrie from Court TV.

Appreciate you being here.

GUTHRIE: You bet.

ROBERTS: Good to see you.

CHETRY: Big oil under fire on Capitol Hill. Should they bear the blame for record-high gas prices?

Ali Velshi is "Minding Your Business" up next.

Cracking down on online pharmacies. Are hard drugs only a mouse click away? The fight going all the way to Capitol Hill.

Stay with us on this AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Well, gas prices are at a record high, but they apparently won't keep us off the roads. Next weekend for the Memorial Day holiday, AAA says that Americans will be traveling even more than they did last year. Thirty-eight million Americans expected to go more than 50 miles from home. That's up 1.7 percent from last year, and of all the travelers, more are driving to their destinations.

Where else would they be driving?

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're driving -- some are driving randomly still.

CHETRY: Yes, some of them are driving in circles, eating doughnuts in a driveway.

Well, in a sign that energy costs do affect behavior, AAA is saying that people are planning shorter trips and they're not -- they're not using...

VELSHI: Not really getting to their destinations. Not getting all the way. They're going halfway.

CHETRY: And they're not using the AC.

VELSHI: Gas is too expensive. I'm not going to go to Boston. I'll just go to upstate New York.

CHETRY: Right. But seriously, it is -- as you said, it's almost that threshold in the mind. If it's more than $3 a gallon, I might start to change my habits.

VELSHI: Right. Right, which means you might -- I mean, I've got to say, I rely on AAA for a lot of information. They've never said people are driving less. I don't know why the trend toward driving so much continues when we have gas at $3.11 a gallon, but they will. People will change decisions in terms of what they drive, in terms of how they commute, because in the end we can talk all about refineries and oil companies, but your cost of gas is affected by how much you consume. If you don't consume gas or you don't consume as much, you're not feeling this.

Every driver knows the price of gas. Now it should influence some of your decisions, including decisions to shop and spend money, which subsequently should affect the stock market, because if you are spending less at stores, the stocks should go down. But they're not.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

ROBERTS: Top stories of the morning are coming up next.

Kids don't need to go to the streets to find drugs. Parents say all they need is a credit card and a computer. What they want lawmakers to do to put a stop to it. Emotional testimony coming up ahead.

Also, how safe is the food that you and your family eat? Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks at the lengths that some farmers are going to to protect your produce.

Plus, could you live on $21 worth of food a week? Many Americans do, and now four U.S. congressmen are take the food stamp challenge.

We'll report on how they're doing.

You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: A picture from Rosalynd (ph) looking across the Potomac River into Washington. You can see the Washington Monument there.

This is called the three bridge view. You've got the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge, you've got the Memorial Bridge to the right, then the 14th Street Bridge to the right of that. That's what they call in the Arlington side of the area the million-dollar view.

It's Thursday, May the 17th. I'm John Roberts in Washington. Good morning to you.

CHETRY: Nice to see you, John.

I'm Kiran Chetry, here in New York.

And if we can show that picture one more time, do you see the rays of sun coming through?

ROBERTS: Yes.

CHETRY: In Hindi they call that the Kiran. That's why my parents named me Kiran.

ROBERTS: Very nice. You know, you can also see those scalloped clouds, which are suggesting that some rain is moving in a little bit later on today.

CHETRY: And you also told me what your name meant. What was it again?

ROBERTS: Oh, it doesn't matter.

CHETRY: All right, fine.

Well, some stories on our radar this morning.

Prescription drugs easily purchased online. Kids can just log on right there at their home computers and buy dangerous pills. Parents discovering this and now calling for a crackdown. We're going to find out how this could go on and just how dangerous it can be.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR, AMERICAN MORNING: It actually means God's gift but it doesn't apply to me.

CHETRY: You are so humble. I knew it meant something good.

ROBERTS: I know me better than you do. A closer look at food safety this morning. Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes us to a produce farm in California and shows us how vulnerable spinach and other leafy greens are to another outbreak of e. coli. Remember the one last year? Why safeguards can't be 100 percent effective. Watch for Sanjay's report coming up in just a few minutes.

CHETRY: And reunited and it feels so good or does it for those of that have to think about it. Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher back together? Is it really love or is it a reality show? They apparently sat down last night to dine, 15 years since their highly criminal affair ended with the shooting -- Amy shot Joey's wife, both of them going through divorces right now and some say this is all just a ruse to get an Amy and Joey reality show off the ground because of course nothing says romance than dining with a camera crew following you.

ROBERTS: You are so skeptical Kiran. If you've got anything that you want to know about the news or anything that you want to tell us about the stories that we cover, e-mail us at askam@cnn.com. That's askam@cnn.com. We'll look at the questions; we'll give you the answers.

CHETRY: We have a couple of good questions coming in that we're going to get the answers to for you in just a couple of minutes but meantime, there are new pictures just into CNN of chaos in Gaza after an Israeli air strike. A large explosion hitting a Hamas compound in central Gaza City today wounding at least five people. Palestinian witnesses and medical officials are saying that that is the case and that's what happened. The air strike was in retaliation for a Hamas rocket attack on Israeli towns right outside of Gaza.

To Capitol Hill now and the debate over funding the war in Iraq. A Senate vote today is expected to set the stage for another round of negotiations with the House and the administration. CNN's Dana Bash is live on Capitol Hill with more and what are they expected to do today Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, today crunch time really starts John. Yesterday lawmakers were able to express their varying degrees of frustration with the war in a series of Iraq votes. Now they really have to get down to figuring out how to find compromise on a war spending bill that they need to send to the president all sides agree by Memorial Day. That makes it an urgent task because Congress is planning to leave for recess by the end of next week.

ROBERTS: Dana, out of all of the measures that were voted on yesterday and they were all symbolic, none of them got enough votes to pass, the one that did get the most number was this Republican- sponsored measure to set benchmarks for President Bush and for funding in Iraq. What does that suggest as to where this whole thing is headed?

BASH: That really is an important guide post for these negotiations that really get under way in an intense way today. What the Republicans said is we will make benchmarks for Iraqis that they must meet to show progress on the military front, on the political front and require the president to come to Congress and revise his strategy if Iraqis don't meet those benchmarks. The bottom line John is Democrats know full well they're not going to get what they want, which is to condition this money on troop withdrawal and the president said we won't sign it. So what they are doing right now is figuring out a way to get some kind of concession from Republicans so that they can tell their constituencies that they are not going to give the president what they call a blank check, money for the war without some kind of conditions on it.

ROBERTS: There are some political analysts who are saying that the Democrats really don't want this war to end because if they did it would take away a very big stick for the 2008 elections for them. Dana Bash, thanks very much. I know you will be working your sources. We'll get back to you this morning. Kiran?

CHETRY: This week four members of Congress are trying to get by just like millions of Americans on nothing but food stamps. More than 25 million people living at or below the poverty line get food stamps. The national average though equals about $21 a week per person. So it's about a dollar a meal. Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan is taking the food stamp challenge and he joins me from Washington. Congressman, thanks for being with us.

Good to be with you.

CHETRY: You and your colleagues wanted to highlight some of the challenges for people living at the poverty level that are taking advantage of the food stamp program. So let's look at how you spent your weekly $21. This would be per person if you were living alone, correct?

REP. TIM RYAN (D), OHIO: That's correct. CHETRY: We have here a bag of corn meal, cost you about $1.50, two jars of strawberry preserves, $4 bucks, a jar of chunky peanut butter, $2.48. We'll look at the next one. You got some angel hair pasta. You got some coffee. You need coffee, of course.

RYAN: Had to have the coffee.

CHETRY: Three jars of tomato sauce and then let's keep going, cottage cheese, bread and a clove of garlic. You came under at $20.66. But some of the things we notice, where is the protein and where is the fresh fruit?

RYAN: That was the major challenge, was trying to get your fruits, your vegetables and then protein. We were at the Safeway in DC. and another problem that became apparent is a lot of these folks can't go to Costco. They can't go to Sam's Club. They don't have memberships there, so you are stuck at the local grocer, whatever neighborhood you happen to be in, regardless of what the price is. So it's no fruits or vegetables. It was hard to get protein and basically you're living on empty calories.

CHETRY: There's an interesting study that also came out and it talks about where fresh fruit and produce, vegetables that are so vital and important to our health are available. Some of the findings they found that only one in three stores in Harlem would carry fresh fruit where as you would see a much, much larger percentage in a place like the upper east side, if we're using Manhattan as an example. Is there a problem there as well, that in some of the lower income neighborhoods these types of things are not available?

RYAN: Absolutely. We asked our young kids and those people who live in these kind of circumstances, hey, we got to compete in the global economy. You got to pick yourself up by your boot straps, which I think we all believe. At the same time you have got to have a belly full of food and you've got to have some good nutrition if you are going to concentrate in school and especially during the summer when a lot of these kids aren't eligible to get the in-school meals that they normally get. There's always a spike in hunger among kids in the summer and that's something that's just intolerable. We obviously have a system here, my district is just outside of Cleveland, we have a system where we have the Cleveland Clinic, one of the most prominent health care research institutions on the planet and right outside there is the poorest city in the United States of America. So the whole system needs revamped but the end result are these kids.

CHETRY: And let me ask you this, the USDA says look, we would welcome - they run the food stamp program - we would welcome it if you guys want to give us more money. They also point out though that this is meant to be a supplement to money that families would be putting towards food. Do you agree with that argument?

RYAN: Well, it is a supplement until gas goes to $3.19 a gallon and they have all the additional costs that go with that and other stressors to their bank account. It was supposed to be a supplement but in many instances many families are relying on this for the sole food source.

CHETRY: You guys are there. You can change it. Are you going to put forth some bills to see if we need to get more money in some of those places?

RYAN: Yeah, Congressman McGovern and Emerson and Schakowsky those of us who are participating in this, we are trying to push legislation that's going to increase funding for the food stamp program. But I also think we need to look at like how we can utilize our farms and our farmers markets to make sure that the fruits and vegetables are provided. So it can't just be the traditional food stamp. We need to kind of get out of the box a little bit and figure out new solutions to this problem.

CHETRY: All right. Boy, you certainly gave us an interesting look and really put it into perspective. Congressman Tim Ryan, thanks so much for being with us.

RYAN: Thanks for having me.

ROBERTS: Thirty seven minutes after the hour now, coming up, Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the farm on a special investigation. He is getting a firsthand look at how spinach farmers are trying to stay ahead of another e. coli outbreak and keep your dinner table safe.

Plus a scare at LAX. What are mortar shells doing at the airport? That story coming up. You are watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Forty one minutes after the hour now. How safe is your food? There's a call for increased safety measures for fresh leafy greens after that deadly e. coli outbreak last year. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been doing some firsthand reporting on this, literally firsthand reporting, getting his hands dirty. How one farm in California is trying to protect your produce. What did you find out Sanjay?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been an amazing process over the last couple of months working on this documentary after the weekend. Even during the time that we were working on the documentary, you had more food outbreaks. You had salmonella in peanut butter and then most recently melamine obviously in the pet food, now in the fish as well. We really wanted to get a sense of just how safe the food is now and has it become any safer than it was last year? The best way John as you know is to actually go to the source. So we visited a farm that's trying to rebound after the spinach outbreak of last year.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): Rod Braga farms an 800-acre ranch in Soledad, California. It's nestled in the Salinas Valley. Since 1995, more than 20 outbreaks stemming from the deadly e. coli 0157h7 toxin have originated in California, contaminating leafy green crops, most recently spinach.

You take a look at the spinach, which is -- looks beautiful, what are the particular vulnerable points here?

ROD BRAGA, SPINACH GROWER: Making sure that we don't have intrusion by animals or people that are not supposed to be here.

GUPTA: When you look around here in what's called the world's salad bowl, you realize just how huge, how vast it really is. Keeping an area this big safe seems like an awesome task. You do have a fence here.

BRAGA: Right.

GUPTA: So this does two things. It keeps potentially animals out, but if something did break through --

BRAGA: You're going to know about it.

GUPTA: Many e. coli outbreaks begin in cow pastures which in the Salinas Valley often neighbor produce fields. Cows carry the deadly strain of e.coli 0157 in their intestinal track.

MICHAEL DOYLE, U. OF GA, CTR FOR FOOD SAFETY: And the cattle feces somehow would then have to get into the growing fields.

MANSOUR SAMADPOUR, PRESIDENT, IEH LABORATORIES: You could have, for example, a few birds feeding on animal fecal material that has e. coli 0157. They land somewhere in the field. They contaminate a small area.

GUPTA: Only a few e.coli 0157 cells can taint an entire crop. One parcel of spinach tainted by e. coli, harvested, processed and mixed with other spinach, then shipped around the country could potentially poison thousands, even millions of people. Farmers like Braga are abiding by stricter rules and safety programs to curb the area's own sobering track record.

BRAGA: I know that we're doing everything we can, following every food safety good agricultural practice to make sure everything is safe.

GUPTA: The question this season, will that be enough?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: The amazing thing here and I think the thing that was most eye-opening to me in the documentary was that all these outbreaks have been happening for over a decade now John. We just don't know that the food is going to be any safer this year and even more important, we're not even sure what the science is exactly to make the food safer. This is far behind the cattle industry which actually was able to get some improvements in terms of food contamination. We are just not seeing that in the produce industry which is really remarkable to me. ROBERTS: At the end of that segment Sanjay, you said that they are observing new rules to try to make the food safer. What are those rules and do they appear to be working?

GUPTA: Let me just say off the top that the rules are voluntary. So these are voluntary rules. They are not mandatory. They can sign on and say we're going to abide by these rules, but they have to, essentially to try to do a simple thing, try and keep the potential source of e. coli out of cow manure quite frankly from the fields. That may be involve making a buffer zone for example around some of these farms. It might also mean that sometimes you get water run-off coming into the farms, testing that water as well, things like that. Then certainly there's sanitation standards for everyone that's working on the firm as well. Rod Braga's farm does a good job. They were not the source of the outbreak but there are other farms out there that may not do such a good job and it becomes a very mixed bag. You get just one clump, one area of contaminated spinach and it can infect lots and lots of people John.

ROBERTS: As you said, it almost multiplies as it goes out there to market. Sanjay, thanks, really interesting stuff.

GUPTA: Thank you.

ROBERTS: Be sure to catch Sanjay's special "Danger: Poisoned Food" It's going to air on Saturday and Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

And Sanjay, we're also going to be seeing him next hour, answering questions from the mail bag, so make sure that you stay around for that. That's coming up in a little less than an hour from now.

CHETRY: Things are back to normal this morning after a scare at Los Angeles international airport. One of the terminals was evacuated last night after a baggage screener spotted what looked like mortar shells. The shells turned out to be fake. People were allowed back into the terminal after two hours. Turns out I guess somebody bought two replicas John that apparently were bought at a novelty shop. But what part do you think, it would be smart to maybe bring fake ammunition to go through the baggage check.

ROBERTS: There was one time when I was leaving Baghdad and I went through the final screening before I got on the plane, there were actually two live rounds in my luggage. And I still to this day haven't figured out how they got in there.

CHETRY: Baghdad is a different situation than LAX, but, boy, you got lucky. You got through eventually. We're going to find out how easy it is to find drugs to get high. Some say that you have to look no further than the Internet, right there at your home computer, for legal prescription drugs that can have devastating effects, parents demanding a crackdown. We're going to hear from one mother.

Plus, it could be the word that millions of men have been waiting for, are scientists hot on the trail for a baldness cure? How about that? There's some cheering going on in the studio. Stay with us on AMERICAN MORNING. We'll be right back.

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CHETRY: Some health headlines this morning and I'm not really sure if this is good news or not. But if mice can do it, maybe we can, too. There is a new study proving that mice can regrow hair and now scientists are hoping that the same molecular process they used to trigger the hair growth in mice can be used for human results. There is a downside though and that's the hair that mice grew didn't have any pigment. Also, I have never seen a bald mouse, so I don't know how they made that comparison.

You must be 18 years old to buy cough syrup containing DXM from Giant foods and three other supermarket chains. Teens can use cough syrup with DXM to get high. The FDA says that DXM can also cause brain seizures and a loss of consciousness as well. Customer now have to go to the store's pharmacy to show ID and you have to do that John with the Sudafed, the sudafedrine (ph) behind the counter to get that.

ROBERTS: On the other story, what's wrong with growing hair without pigment?

CHETRY: I think it's great.

ROBERTS: I see nothing wrong with that.

CHETRY: I think it would be wonderful. But the only thing is like I said, I have never seen a bald mouse, so I don't know how they make that comparison.

ROBERTS: Those scientists, they can do so many things. These days by the way, if somebody is looking for drugs, they don't need to go to a street corner or even resort to phony prescriptions. All they need is a computer and a credit card and now Congress is learning about the dangers of online prescription drugs. Kathleen Koch joins me now with more on this. How bad is the situation out there?

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, it is really frightening and in just a second, I will use a screen and show you just how easy it is. Yesterday Congress heard the story of a young man who did just that. Eighteen-year-old Ryan Hayes (ph). He was a star student at his high school in California. He was a top athlete until six years ago when his mother found him dead in his bedroom. He'd taken an overdose of the painkiller Vicodin. He'd gotten it right off the Internet.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANCINE HEIGHT, MOTHER & FOUNDER OF RYAN'S CAUSE: Ryan had made up a story. He had said he was 21. He said he had been in a car accident and had back pain and he made up a doctor's name, Dr. Thomas which happened to be his middle name. Dr. Robert Oogle (ph), whom Ryan never saw and was never examined by prescribed them in an Internet pharmacy. (INAUDIBLE) of Main Street pharmacy delivered them to our home. I was in shock.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KOCH: ... get these drugs off the Internet. We typed in here Vicodin, no prescription. When you search that on Google, look what you get, 1,980,000 different options. Some of them warn you not to do this, not to get drugs off the Internet without a prescription. But most of them are like this, no prescription, no problem. So easy to pay, they say use a credit card, use a check, very easy for kids, too. You go to these sites, many of them are overseas. They feature pictures of doctors, pharmacists. They make it all look very above- board. And most of them, though they only make you fill out a questionnaire and then you have access to this kind of an array of pharmaceuticals.

ROBERTS: When you talk about them being overseas, is there one particular area that they're concentrated in?

KOCH: All over the world John and that's the problem is that many in Congress when they want to crack down on it require that a doctor examine you before you can get any drugs over the Internet. Try to get Internet service providers, credit card companies involved in stopping some of these bogus transactions, but these companies are not controlled by U.S. law. There's very little they can do.

ROBERTS: It's interesting because you do have laws prohibiting the re-importation of drugs. How does this slip through that crack?

KOCH: Because again these are based overseas, these companies just simply do slip through the cracks, but Congress is doing what they can, but again, this mother that we saw before Congress yesterday was just heart broken. She doesn't want this to happen to anyone else.

ROBERTS: Good information. Kathleen Koch, thanks very much. Kiran.

CHETRY: Coming up, she shot his wife, went to jail for it, but now Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco apparently can let the past be the past. They're getting together again. They had a romantic meal with the cameras rolling. What's behind all of that? You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. Much more news ahead here on CNN.

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CHETRY: It's the love affair that people probably don't feel like hearing about. But it's splashed all over the New York papers today and that is Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco 15 years later going out on a date. You may remember she was the so-called Long Island Lolita. She claimed that he encouraged her to kill his wife. She ended up shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco back in 1992. Last night bygones were bygones. They dined at a swank restaurant in Long Island. His current spouse and her current husband both recently served them with divorce papers, how about this for spooky, the same exact day apparently about a week or so ago. So was it love or was it money because apparently a TV producer is shopping this as a reality show and accompanied them on the date.

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Someone will buy it. Someone will watch it.

CHETRY: (INAUDIBLE) So we are talking about vacation time and if we could all choose here in the U.S. how much do we think you deserve a year?

VELSHI: How much do you think you're legally entitled to a worker?

CHETRY: Legally, I would say at least a week or two.

VELSHI: Zero. There is no law that says, there's no Federal law that says American workers should get any vacation. Look at how we rank against other countries in the world. Finland is at the top of a list compiled by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, 38 days is the combination of vacation and holidays, France, 30, Canada, 18, Japan, 10. The United States, zero. Now the average time off that American workers do get, not because it's mandated but because companies give them, 90 percent of U.S. firms do actually give vacation. There's no guarantee of it. You get nine vacation days which means you can choose them where you want typically and six holidays for a total of 15 days. But one in four workers in the private sector, take out government, one in four workers in the private sector, that's 28 million Americans, get no paid leave at all. You're sick, you need to take time off, you do it yourself.

CHETRY: Wow. The other thing is it seems a lot of people choose not to use their vacation.

VELSHI: That's a whole other thing. That's a bad practice. Use your vacation. I do.

CHETRY: That's good advice. The next hour of AMERICAN MORNING starts right now.

Gun rage. The Feds shut down a store they say fuelled a violent crime wave. Will it bring peace to New Orleans?

Plus urgent rescue. The race to save a mother whale and her injured baby.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are very concerned about the animals, especially the young calf.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: How music for humpbacks might help get them home on this AMERICAN MORNING. Good morning. Thanks so much for being us with on this Thursday, May 17th. I'm Kiran Chetry here in New York.

ROBERTS: And good morning to you Kiran. I'm John Roberts here in Washington. Other stories on our radar this morning, gas prices hit another record, $3.11 a gallon, more expensive than the days after hurricane Katrina and even more expensive than it was back in the early '80s when adjusted for inflation. Congress now looking into claims that the oil companies are taking us for a ride. But aren't these the same complaints and the same investigations that we have every year?

CHETRY: You would think so you're right. But it's unbelievable that we are paying more now than we were in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina when there was a lot of problems at those Gulf Coast refineries.

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