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GAO Finds No Follow-Up on Some Fast-Tracked Drugs; Jane Doe Identified; Bombing Victim Wants Terrorists Killed

Aired October 26, 2009 - 13:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Too much flu, too little vaccine. H1N1 isn't waiting for the stockpile of serum we were supposed to have by now, but the rest of us are. It's a national emergency.

Plus a Pakistani student who stood up to the Taliban is laid low, caught in a bomb blast, but still speaking out. We're live in Islamabad.

Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips, live in New York. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

All right. Your health is our top story. And it begins with America's battle against the pandemic. Swine flu is everywhere, but the vaccine isn't. And the feds prescribe patience and persistence still. And while leaders of Congress make critical decisions on reform, a Wisconsin man fights to get insurance for his cancer- stricken wife, and I do mean fight. You'll see what I mean in a minute.

Meanwhile, are cancer and other drugs really as effective as drug makers claim? The FDA may have no idea.

Now, when I say H1N1, the so-called swine flu is everywhere, here's what I mean. The virus is considered widespread in 46 states. See all the red? You'll see it in a minute. It's lurking in the others, too, but localized.

Since April, more than 20,000 swine flu patients have been hospitalized in the U.S. out of millions who have been infected. Now, more than 1,000 U.S. patients have died, including 100 children. It's no wonder President Obama has declared H1N1 a national emergency, and that only adds to the questions that we're hearings from viewers.

CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins me now to answer some of those.

So Elizabeth, what exactly is a national health emergency? This is something we haven't heard for quite some time.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, that's absolutely right. Let me start out by telling you what it's not. It is not an occasion that anything has changed in the past couple of days. It's not an indication that this outbreak has gotten wildly worse in the past few hours.

What it means is this is a way for the government to make rules so that when there is a huge upsurge of sick people, hospitals can deal with them more efficiently.

For example, let's say here in Georgia all of a sudden there were many, many cases of H1N1 flooding the hospitals. With this provision that they've given, it would allow doctors to come in from Alabama and take care of people in Georgia without having to get licensed in the state of Georgia. So this is a procedure action more than anything else.

PHILLIPS: All right. Well, two questions just to follow up. Once again let's remind our viewer of the symptoms of H1N1, and then let's move into what you do next.

COHEN: OK. Let's go over the symptoms of H1N1. And I think you'll see something interesting when you see the list, Kyra. Symptoms include fever, include a cough, include congestion, include running or stuffy nose, body aches, headaches, chills, fatigue, and sometimes vomiting and diarrhea.

Now, I bet everyone looking at this says, "Hey, I've felt that way at some point, or I feel that way now. Do I have H1N1?" Not necessarily. You may have some other virus. However, what's probably going to happen is you're going to go to the doctor, because that would be symptoms, and the doctor is probably going to say, "You know what? You likely have H1N1, because there's so much of it around.

But in a way, it doesn't matter whether you have H1N1 or some other virus. The advice is going to be the same: go home, take care of yourself, take some Advil or some Tylenol and wait it out. And don't go to work and don't go to school.

PHILLIPS: All right. So most people then get relatively minor case of H1N1, so how do you know if you have a serious case?

COHEN: Right. For most people that advice, to go home and rest and take Tylenol and Advil, really is just fine, and they'll be better in three, four, five days. However, a very small percentage of people will become horribly ill, sometimes even deathly ill.

So the symptoms that you have to be vigilant about, especially with children, is do you notice that the person is getting wildly worse? Have you noticed that the person's gotten better and then worse? Have you noticed that the person is turning blue at all in the lips, in the hands, in the feet? Do they complain of any numbness? Do they have trouble breathing? All of those things are things you need to look out for.

So I know this sounds a little contradictory. On the one hand H1N1 is usually a relatively mild illness, but you have to be really vigilant, because it can turn into a deadly illness quickly. I mean, within a matter of hours.

PHILLIPS: All right. So once again, who should get vaccinated?

COHEN: Anyone who wants to get vaccinated can. You want to get vaccinated and you can find a vaccine, which is a whole other story, go ahead and do it. However, the Centers for Disease Control does have a list of people who really need to get vaccinated. They're called the high priority group. So that includes pregnant women, anyone ages 6 months to 24 years of age, anyone who takes care of a baby under the age of 6 months, because those babies cannot get vaccinated, a health-care worker, also 25- to 64-year-olds who have health problems, diabetes, asthma, a whole litany of chronic diseases. Those folks needs to be vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

PHILLIPS: Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much.

COHEN: Thanks.

PHILLIPS: And be sure and check out the special H1N1 coverage on the new CNN.com. Our Josh Levs actually joins me now for a little show and tell.

Help us out, Josh.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A little show and tell, absolutely. A big day for CNN.com, big day for the millions and millions of users of CNN.com all over the world, because CNN.com has changed. It's more use-friendly. It's more exciting, a whole different look.

Let's zoom right in. I'm going to show this to you, including the special H1N1 section. This right here is the main page. For the first time you have video embedded in the main page. You don't need to go away for video. Boom, click on it right now. A special about "Mad Men" right there.

When I scroll down, you're going to see tons and tons of stories from all over the world. You can take your pick.

Now, this is our section, H1N1. Very easy to find, because at CNN.com/H1N1, or if it's easier to remember, slash swine flu gets you here. It's packed with all this special information. It also has advice from doctors, including Dr. Sanjay Gupta. It has some of Elizabeth's reporting. Here, "Understanding H1N1 Virus." Information about vaccines.

And also, Kyra, I want to let everyone know while we're here, I have posted a whole bunch of links about H1N1 and how to track what's near you here at our blog, CNN.com/newsroom. I'll show you how to get there in just a second.

One more great new feature to show you before we go away: news pulse. This shows you what are people clicking on. What stories are people most interested in? I went to the health section, and of course, a lot of them are about H1N1. You just click on the picture. It tells you some information about that. And boom, it takes you to a link to a story. But in the story, more and more information.

let's go to that graphic, folks. This is how you can see the new dot com. Tell us what you think about it. Plus this special information about H1N1. CNN.com/Josh. Also, slash Kyra will do it. She's tagged there. Facebook and Twitter, JoshLevsCNN. Let us know what you think about all of this.

And Kyra, I'll see you next hour.

PHILLIPS: Sounds good. Thanks, Josh.

LEVS: Thanks a lot, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Listen to this. A mother battling cancer without insurance. Her husband taking what some might see as a desperate step. His mission? To get his wife the care she desperately needs.

Take a look at what he's doing. Jason Carroll reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, this is a story of a family dealing with cancer, no job, no health-care insurance. One man decided the risk of his wife being uninsured far outweighed the risk of him joining the Army.

MICHELLE CAUDEL, CANCER PATIENT: That's the wedding album there.

CARROLL (voice-over): Michelle Caudel was living the life she had always dreamed of: a stay-at-home mom, happily married to her high-school sweetheart. The couple had three children. And for 21 years her husband worked at a plastics company called PolyOne, not far from their home in Sussex, Wisconsin.

Then, this past February, Bill Caudel lost his job.

CAUDEL: Technically the economy put me in this position. If his plant wouldn't have closed, I wouldn't be here right now.

CARROLL: Their situation is this: three years ago doctors diagnosed Caudle with ovarian cancer.

CAUDEL: With ovarian cancer, it's so quiet. It just kind of creeps up on you.

CARROLL: Surgery has not worked. Neither so far has chemotherapy. This past May the cancer returned. No job meant the Caudels had no insurance and few options.

CAUDEL: Kind of in May we knew that the cancer was probably coming back. And when it comes to him finding employment, insurance would be a key factor.

CARROLL: So, at the age of 39, Bill Caudel decided he would get insurance and a job by getting something he had always thought about: joining the Army.

CAUDEL: I just kind of laughed, you know, and then all of a sudden he was down there at the recruiter's office. And -- you know, and I decided because I've been through this cancer. And he's been there for me. And I would support him. He's been there for me. Cleaning the house. I mean, he'd go to work, he'd come home, and he'd clean the house. He'd make supper. He would take care of the house for me. That's when I said, I said when he left, who's going to be there to baby me?

CARROLL: A few weeks ago Caudel left for boot camp at Fort Knox. We wanted to speak to him about his family's story, but he says he wants to focus on training, and let his wife do the talking.

CAUDEL: How little you looked.

CARROLL: For her part there is frustration the economy has turned on the family, but Caudel also feels an overwhelming sense of gratitude.

CAUDEL: I'm proud of him.

CARROLL (on camera): Bill Caudel is scheduled to complete his basic training in December. At this point it's not clear what his assignment will be after that. As for Michelle Caudel's prognosis, she has beat the cancer twice. And though it has come back for a third time, she will continue the chemotherapy and hope for the best -- Kyra.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Appreciate it, Jason Carroll. Tough story to watch.

Well, he's not even 20 years old, but he allegedly tried to commit a massive terrorist attack on U.S. soil. He just showed up in court. We're going to go there live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Eighty years after the 1929 stock market crash, what have we learned? And is this a history that we're about to repeat? Part of history, rather. We stroll down Wall Street's Memory Lane -- make that Bad Memory Lane -- just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Could this be the face of a terrorist? The feds say yes. A 19-year-old Jordanian says no. We told you the nuts and bolts when the story broke: an alleged plot to blow up a skyscraper in Dallas. The suspect just entered a plea at his arraignment, and our Ed Lavandera joins us from Dallas.

So Ed, what happened in the courtroom?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, 19-year-old Hosam Smadi pleaded not guilty to two federal counts. The first one, which was attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. The second count, attempting to bomb a public place.

Now, the federal investigators and authorities in this case have lined out an extensive case against this young man, who was a Jordanian citizen, had been living here in the U.S. south of Dallas on a tourist visa that had elapsed. And he was actually in the country here illegally.

So Hosam Smadi continues and remains in detention. He will not be released any time soon, and his attorneys have asked that the trial for Hosam Smadi be pushed back. And so it looks like the earliest that this case would go to trial might be next March or April, at the earliest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER FLEURY, SMADI'S ATTORNEY: This is just the beginning of the process. Every defendant goes through with, when they're charged with a crime, the initial arraignment. We entered a plea of not guilty.

The government has given us a lot of documents and a lot of other materials. We've got a lot of work to do to sift through all of that. We have not, by any stretch, completed our investigation, so we have a lot of work to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: And Kyra, what the attorney is alluding to is a lot of the work that they will have to do centers around many hours of recordings and videotapes, messages. One include -- which authorities say that Hosam Smadi had taped what he believed were -- people he thought were going along with him in this case but turned out to be undercover FBI agents.

But federal investigators say that Hosam Smadi had even taped a message pledging his allegiance to Osama bin Laden. And we understand that his attorneys will be going through all of those tapes and those recordings with a translator to make sure that they believe that those translations of those interpretations are accurate -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: We'll keep tracking it. Thanks, Ed.

LAVANDERA: You bet.

PHILLIPS: More demand, more profits, more jobs in the future? No, I'm not telling you a fairytale. The economic slump we're in might have a happy ending after all.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Top stories now.

We're learning more about the 14 Americans killed in two separate helicopter crashes today in Afghanistan. A law enforcement source tells CNN three of them worked for the Drug Enforcement Agency. They're the first DEA agents reported killed in Afghanistan. Early reports don't indicate any enemy fire.

St. Patrick's Catholic Church of Chatham, New Jersey, reeling from the murder of its pastor and the alleged confession of the church's custodian. Investigators say that Jose Feliciano admits to stabbing 61-year-old Ed Hinds to death after the two apparently argued about Feliciano's job.

Teammates of slain UConn football player Jasper Howard are in Miami paying their final respects at his funeral. The 20-year-old was fatally stabbed eight days ago after a school-sponsored dance. Still, no arrests in that killing.

All right. Layoff. Millions of people can sum up the recession with that one word, right? But keep an eye on the want ads, because more jobs may be opening up.

Susan Lisovicz joining me now with the details. A lot of people are saying, "All right, don't pull our leg now." Speak the truth.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, and you know, it's not like there's something going to happen overnight, but this is very encouraging indeed. Because this is a closely-watched study from the National Association for Business Economics.

It showed 24 percent of the companies surveyed said they plan to hire within the next six months. OK, 24 percent is not a big number. It's better than the 20 percent that said they plan to lay off. And it marks the first time since the recession began nearly two years ago that more companies said they plan to hire than plan to lay off.

A Fed official involved with this said it is clear evidence that a recovery is under way.

What's also happening: businesses spending more on investing in their business, which is also good for the overall economy, which also creates jobs in and of itself. They're seeing more demands for the goods and services; profits are picking up. It all points to the right thing: recovery.

PHILLIPS: Nose people are saying, "OK, give me specifics. Where is the hiring? Where is it? Where do I go?"

LISOVICZ: OK. Well, what this study showed service sector. Service sector is already the broadest part of the U.S. economy. What does that mean exactly? Well, it means restaurants, entertainment. It means retail, hotels, food service, waste management, a whole bunch of things.

But close behind it, real estate, financial, insurance. Of course, we've also seen huge cutbacks there. Goods producing, everything from manufacturing, construction. Again, huge losses. Unemployment's already at a 26-year high. I mean, I don't want to paint an overly rosy picture.

And a good example of that, Kyra, is something that we got today from Caterpillar. Caterpillar makes tractors. It sells its goods all over the world. Today, it said it was going to recall 550 workers. But it was going to permanently lay off 2,500 workers. It's still not great.

PHILLIPS: Yes, it's not good.

LISOVICZ: But getting better is a good thing.

PHILLIPS: All right. So, you know, so here we -- OK, so once again it's not all good. We're still seeing a lot of layoffs. We're seeing a lot of suffering, you know, going on around the country.

And this week actually marks the 80th anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash. We learned a lot from that, didn't we?

LISOVICZ: We did. And you know, it's funny, because 1987 was the biggest one-day percentage loss, but what happened in '29 was we had a series of devastating percentage losses. Panic, no FDIC, so no bank -- no insured deposits. That's why you saw these terrible pictures of people lining up for blocks and blocks, people selling apples.

There was no Social Security. Unemployment was at a 25 percent high.

I think that's why the government was so anxious to make sure that things were put into place to make this Great Recession something that would ease up as quickly as possible. That's why trillions of dollars have been thrown at fighting this recession, because of what might be. And we know that from history.

PHILLIPS: Richard Roth takes a look back at that piece of history. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD WARSHAUER, WALL STREET AFICIONADO: This is where everything started. And for centuries, this is where everything happened.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The crash. No, not last year's stock market plunge, but the great crash. It all went down 80 years ago this week.

WARSHAUER: 1929 was the greatest fall in the Dow Jones over a two-day period. In today's terms, it would be like a 2,200-point drop.

ROTH: Richard Warshauer and lifelong friend Jim Kaplan give tours every anniversary of the great crash.

JIM KAPLAN, WALL STREET AFICIONADO: This whole area was filled with people who had come down to see what was going on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tremendous crowds which you see gathered outside the stock exchange are due to the greatest crash in the history of the New York Stock Exchange in market prices.

ROTH: Quite a shock, especially because the Friday before, following a large drop, newspapers proclaimed the stock market crisis was over. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But in October 1929, the Wall Street bubble burst.

ROTH: The historic collapse was just starting, eventually leading, many believe, to the Great Depression.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then it actually loses 89 percent of that value in the stock market crash in 1929.

ROTH: At the Museum of Finance on Wall Street, a ticker-tape machine from the crash days. The end of a mania for stocks based on easy credit.

RICHARD SYLLA, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR AND HISTORIAN: It's leverage. I mean, we learned in the latest financial crisis that firms and individuals can take on too much leverage. That's exactly what they did in the 1920s.

ROTH: A familiar replay to someone born during the crash years.

HILDA HEIN, MUSEUM VISITOR: It did have the smell of the same thing happening again.

ROTH (on camera): What are some of the more popular questions that the tours ask you about the crash?

WARSHAUER: They always ask the same question. Where did the people jump out of the windows?

ROTH: Where did they?

WARSHAUER: Vastly exaggerated.

ROTH: Never happened? No suicides?

WARSHAUER: I'm sure there were one or two, but it became part of the popular lore.

ROTH (voice-over): The crash experts say another famous story is true. At the market's peak, tycoon Joseph Kennedy, patriarch of the Kennedy clan, hearing stock tips from a shoeshine man and selling stocks short, making a fortune.

(on camera): Do you give out stock tips to anyone, like the famous shoe shine man of 1929?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I don't. No, I don't.

ROTH (voice-over): But he did shine the shoes of Kennedy's grandson, John Kennedy Jr. Lynnwood (ph) says he is the last shoeshine man left on Wall Street.

(on camera): I really had a bad year in the market, so I can't pay you right now, but I'm -- no, I'm going to pay you.

(voice-over): Richard Roth, CNN, New York City. (END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, if you have cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, you may want to listen up. If the FDA okays a drug, well, it's not necessarily going to help you. The agency now being told to tighten up on their follow-up of fast-track drugs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, you trust them to protect your health, but is the FDA failing you? A new government study now showing that the FDA did not pull certain drugs, touted to fight cancer, HIV and others diseases, off the market, even after they didn't live up to their claims.

Among those drugs investigated: ProAmatine for treating low blood pressure. Also, Iressa, to shrink lung cancer tumors. Marcia Crosse put out the report. She's the director of health care for the Government Accountability Office in Washington, D.C.

And Marcia Crosse, let me just play devil's advocate for a second. Let's say -- actually, when I first read about this, read about the report, I was outraged, thinking, oh, my God, if I had one of these life-threatening diseases or illnesses and I was taking a drug that apparently there was no follow-up on and I could be taking it for nothing, that really upset me.

But at the same time, you know, I tried to put myself in the shoes of, say, an HIV patient, and say this drug had a 1 percent chance of saving my life, and there wasn't a follow-up report, heck, I'd be -- you know, it would be worth taking the gamble for me.

MARCIA CROSSE, DIRECTOR, HEALTH CARE, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE: Well, I think the concern we have is there are a small number of drugs that FDA either has waited a very long time to get the evidence of effectiveness or has obtained evidence that's shown that the drug isn't effective, and yet has not followed up with the kind of actions that their own regulations say they would take.

So, the vast majority of the drugs that have gone through this process for accelerated approval to get on to the market more quickly to treat serious or life-threatening conditions, those manufacturers have gone on to conduct the studies. We did have concerns that FDA wasn't tracking what was happening with those studies. But the biggest concern we had was when there was a lack of evidence or negative evidence and FDA didn't act.

PHILLIPS: So, did the FDA fail us? Should there have been more enforcement, more follow-up on the studies of these drugs in the accelerated program?

CROSSE: Well, we certainly think there should have been more follow-up. FDA itself wasn't aware of the status of many of the studies that it had required as a condition of approval of these drugs. They have been taking steps to clean up their process for tracking the study status, and so they have better information right now about where those studies stand, but we did find some instances where the manufacturers had failed to conduct the studies and FDA hadn't done anything about it.

PHILLIPS: Now see, here comes the outrage part. OK, let's say I am an HIV patient, and I've been taking this drug, but the FDA, I feel like the FDA failed me, and there was no follow-up, and I'm taking a drug that really has done nothing for me. Did I miss out possibly on a drug that could have saved my life?

CROSSE: Well, we don't have any evidence of that, and we weren't looking at individual patients. HIV patients were not patients for the particular drugs we saw that were of concern.

PHILLIPS: What about lung cancer? What about diabetes? What about cardiovascular disease, all the other things that were listed in your report?

CROSSE: We have concerns about how well FDA was overseeing those follow-up studies to know the status, particularly the non-small cell lung cancer patients, which is a small group of lung cancer patients. Those patients had been receiving this particular drug Iressa that when the follow-up studies were conducted, they were shown -- the drug was shown not to be effective in extending patients' survival. And there are now other treatments available.

But FDA did take some action. They limited the drug so that no new patients could be given that drug, but they did allow doctors to continue prescribing that drug for patients who had already been put on that medication.

PHILLIPS: OK, so let's take Iressa for example. And by the way, the FDA says that millions of patients with serious or life- threatening illnesses have had earlier access to new, safe and effective treatments, thanks to this program, so of course, the FDA is standing by this program right now of the accelerated drugs.

But let's take Iressa, since you brought it up, as an example, that's supposed to shrink lung cancer tumors. Finding out what you did, and you found out that really it wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. Should drugs like that be taken off the market?

CROSSE: Well, I think FDA needs to clarify when they will take a drug off the market. If that drug had come in under the traditional approval process, not under this accelerated process, the kind of evidence that they later obtained would have been such that the drug would not have been approved to go onto the market in the first place.

We are not taking issue with the idea of the accelerated approval process. There certainly is substantial reason for FDA to allow certain drugs, as I said, to treat serious and life-threatening conditions like HIV or cancer to get onto the market quicker, and they do require that the manufacturers conduct these post-market studies, though, to follow up, to obtain the same kind of evidence that they otherwise would have had to obtain to go through the traditional approval process. Our concern is that they weren't tracking the status of what was happening with those required follow-up studies, and that when the follow-up studies weren't being completed or were showing negative information, FDA wasn't doing anything about it. That's where we have a concern.

PHILLIPS: Understandably. And we depend on the FDA to be in touch with that kind of information because it's an issue of life or death.

Marcia Crosse, interesting report. Sure appreciate your time.

CROSSE: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: So, as a consumer, how can you tell if there is a problem with the medicine that you are taking?

Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen here with some help. I think that was one of the things we wanted to know, Elizabeth. Let's say we're told that a certain drug is good for us. Is there any way to track it and see what its success rate has been or if there has been follow-up to the drug?

COHEN: Well, I'll tell you, Kyra, after hearing the segment that you just did, I bet people are wondering, how do I know? Maybe I'm taking one of those drugs that the FDA approved quickly and then didn't follow up to make sure that it really worked and was safe.

So, we've given you a link on the NEWSROOM blog for how to find the GAO report. You can look your drug up here and see if it's in this group that you were just discussing.

Now, the issue, though, is that it's not just these fast-track drugs that are a potential problem here. So, there are other drugs, too. So, the FDA Web site has an alphabetical list of drugs. You can look it up very easily, and they'll tell you about side effects. Anything with a red star -- you can see one there, see one there -- means that there's been some kind of a safety alert. And as you can see, there's quite a few red stars.

Another way, Kyra, to try to figure this out is on the FDA Web site. There's something called MedWatch. And MedWatch is a tracking system for problems with drugs. And you can type the name of your drug in and see if it's there.

Now, Kyra, I know I've just given you three different Web sites. Obviously, no one's going to remember exactly where all of these are. If you go to the NEWSROOM blog, you can see links to all these sites.

PHILLIPS: There we go. That's easy enough, NEWSROOM blog. Elizabeth Cohen, sure appreciate it.

COHEN: Thanks.

PHILLIPS: And are any of the medicines that you're taking on the GAO's report? Well, you can find out about that also. Just go to my Web page, CNN.com/kyra. We've actually got a link to the full list and the full report. You can check it out for yourself.

From culture clash to car crash? A young woman's in the hospital, and her father is nowhere to be found, a week after he allegedly took the wheel and ran her down.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Twenty-year-old woman run down in a parking lot, perhaps not an accident or road rage. Police saying they suspect that her own father ran her over. According to relatives and friends, this was a family culture clash that had been brewing for years.

The Iraqi-born Muslim dad furious over her westernized disrespectful ways. Her brother says the woman is married to a man in the Middle East but had a boyfriend in the U.S. The father thought this was disrespectful. He's been missing for six days since the incident, he daughter clinging to life in an Arizona hospital.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER-ALI ALMALEKI, VICTIM'S BROTHER: She's still unconscious, hasn't woken up, said a thing. She's moving around a little bit. They think it's spontaneous movement. He did call yesterday to ask how she was, and my mom yelled at him and hung up.

Just stop running from it. That's really the best way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Arizona police say that the father may already fled across state lines.

A Jordanian teen terror suspect pleaded not guilty in a Dallas courtroom today. Hosam Smadi is accused of trying to blow up a Texas skyscraper with a truck bomb. Smadi was captured in an FBI sting. The so-called bomb was actually a decoy provided by agents.

We just lost track of time. That's what the pilots of that wayward Northwest Airlines flight have told federal investigators. The NTSB just released the report on the flight and its errant landing minutes ago.

More with CNN's Jeanne Meserve next hour.

It's a crime scene or an accident. That's what the FBI is trying to find out as it investigates the fire at a Puerto Rican fuel storage facility near San Juan. The massive blaze was sparked by a Friday explosion. It was finally extinguished yesterday. Crews are still on standby to mop up hot spots.

Found in the fetal position on a New York sidewalk, no ID, no idea who she was, the face of a teenage Jane Doe beamed across the country, and a CNN viewer knew who she was.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: She turned up three weeks ago on a New York sidewalk, no idea who or where she was. Well, now a CNN viewer's tip has helped ID a teenage Jane Doe who somehow wandered a very long way from home.

CNN's Susan Candiotti has more on a mystery only partly solved.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Her real name is Kacie Aleece Peterson of Hansville, Washington. She's 18 years old. After her ordeal, friends are relieved she's safe. Last week, police asked people all over the country to help identify her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New York City police, they've got a mystery on their hands, a teenager who can't remember her own name.

CANDIOTTI: CNN and other media described the girl's dilemma. The publicity worked. An unidentified CNN viewer from Maryland recognized the girl, called police, and that led them to the teen's family in Washington.

(on camera): The teenager was found about two and a half weeks ago on the sidewalk outside a home for runaways in New York, but she wasn't a client there. People found her in a fetal position and called police. They described her as disoriented and guessed she was anywhere from 14 to 20 years old. They said she'd been missing for more than a month, and doctors said she appeared to have amnesia.

LT. CHRISTOPHER ZIMMERMAN, NYPD MISSING PERSONS BUREAU: Her answers to my detectives' questions so far have been "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know." Very clear and concise, but "I don't know." So, I mean, I don't know -- she was disoriented when she was found. She's a 14-year-old girl. She's definitely scared.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): This fantasy book might hold some clues. The teenager was said to have mentioned some words from a novel called "Fool's Fate" by Robin Hobb and was apparently also writing her own story. Clinical psychologist Dr. Judy Kuriansky suggests the teenager may have been lost in that fantasy world.

JUDY KURIANSKY, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: The book she had with her, "A Fool's Fate," is about an epic, almost like "Harry Potter." It's phantasmagoric, where the characters are going on a search to slay a dragon. And that fantasy is what she was also looking, perhaps, to write about and that she was living in her own life.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): A local sheriff says the teenager was once found lying by a stream without any memory of how she got there or who she was. Now, her father reported her missing a few weeks ago, and the police were reportedly following her bank activity and did not issue an Amber Alert.

So, while we no know who Kacie Peterson is, we still don't know why she vanished or how she got to New York.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, New York. (END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: The girl formerly known as Jane Doe getting a lot of attention on the new CNN.com. In fact, her story tops the news polls. Those are the links that you guys have clicked on the most in the last 24 hours.

Pushing forward to the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM and a ticket that will really tick you off. Dallas police doing some serious scrambling after a woman's cited for driving and not speaking English.

Across the state line in New Mexico, no room at the inn for Spanish speakers or for Hispanic names. A hotel manager's tactics fire employees up and turn a town off.

Oh, boy. Attention, all bloggers with potty mouths. Procter & Gamble is looking for five Charmin ambassadors in Manhattan with that special flush. You'll spend five weeks in a port-a-john in times square talking to users. Then you'll blog about why they enjoy their go. Can't make this stuff up, folks.

P&G isn't saying if TP samples will be part of the deal, by the way. But they are hoping for family-friendly video from inside the Charmin-laden rest room. And for all the hard work? Well, you bloggers will get $10,000. No word if noseplugs are included.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Fourteen Americans killed today in two separate helicopter crashes in Afghanistan. Among the dead, three members of the Drug Enforcement Agency. It's the deadliest day in more than four years for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. And for now, the military is ruling out enemy fire in both crashes.

Then back here at home, the Afghan war was topic number one for President Obama, meeting this morning with his national security team. We're still waiting for the president's decision on whether he'll send tens of thousands of more troops to the combat zone.

Now, the face of war in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, no matter where you see it, always terrifying, always heartbreaking. Our Ivan Watson has the story of a young Pakistani student who will live with the face of war for the rest of his life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Legs and arms wrapped in bandages, face shrouded in cotton. This young man, one of most recent victims of a war that's now spread to Pakistan's schools. Twenty-four-year-old Waqar Khalid, a university student who walked out of his classroom straight into the inferno of an exploding suicide bomber.

WAQAR KHALID, UNIVERSITY STUDENT: When he pushed button, right at that time, we -- I saw fire.

WATSON: On that bloody day, twin suicide bombs are attacked the men's and women's campuses of this university, killing seven people.

(on camera): Five days after the attack, workers are already repairing the Sharia law department in Islamabad's International Islamic University. The suicide bomber was standing right about here when he self-detonated, spraying ball bearings throughout this hallway. And you can see the pockmarks and some of the bloodstains from this horrific attack.

In a few weeks, this building may look as good as new. But Waqar Khalid may never fully recover from his injuries.

(voice-over): Waqar is now in critical condition. During our visit, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the lens of our camera.

KHALID: I'm looking now -- now I am looking at my face. I'm looking. I...

WATSON (on camera): It's the first time?

KHALID: It's first time. It's first time, very first time. I have no courage, no patience to see myself.

WATSON (voice-over): Before the attack, Waqar studied Arabic and English with hope of becoming an interpreter or a teacher working overseas. He was also an active member of an Islamic students association that publicly condemned the Taliban.

KHALID: And we say openly, these are terrorists which are the responsible (ph) of the Pakistani condition (ph) now.

WATSON: At the Islamic University, professors taught students a moderate version of Islam that challenged the Taliban's violent jihad. People here were shocked by the attack.

PARVEEN QADIA AGHA, VICE PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY: We never expected it, but the reason could be that to create chaos and to create psychological warfare actually going on.

WATSON: Waqar's mother is devastated, terrified that her husband, a police officer, could also become a target of the waves of Taliban suicide bombers attacking Pakistani cities.

Forever scarred by the conflict, this young man has one message for the Pakistani army.

KHALID: They should kill them. They should not arrest them. They should kill them, those terrorists who are killing innocent people.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Ivan joining us now live from Islamabad. Boy, that young man's resilience and courage, it's pretty amazing, let alone inspiring. What will he hope to do when he recover recovers, Ivan? WATSON: You're absolutely right. And he made a big personal impact on me, seeing him so horribly injured and yet so animated, and also having a sense of humor as well, cracking jokes. He is determined to recover and was asking already about going back to classes. He's very worried about missing classes. He wants to continue his education.

But he is burned over 60 percent of his body, and the doctors say that he's still in a very vulnerable, fragile period right now, very vulnerable to infection. He knows that he has to fight to survive through this delicate period, and he says he needs the bravery and the willpower to push through. And we're just going to watch and see what happens with him -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: I tell you what, I think of all the doctors here in the States and what they could do for him, all the specialists when it comes to burn victims. Who knows? Maybe somebody will offer to help. Meanwhile, does he think he knows who's behind these militant attacks?

WATSON: Well, this you may find and our viewers may find surprising. He repeated an opinion that you hear from many Pakistanis. And he thinks that the Taliban, the militants, the suicide bombers, are armed by foreigners, armed by, believe it or not, the CIA, by the Israeli intelligence, Mossad, or by the Indian intelligence.

And that is a theory, an opinion, that is repeated by very many Pakistanis around this country. They can't seem to come to grips with the idea that maybe this is a homegrown problem and that these are Pakistanis and Muslim killing fellow Pakistani Muslims -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So, just seeing this story, Ivan, you know, how are ordinary Pakistanis dealing with the threat of terrorism?

WATSON: I just got back after five months away from here, Kyra. And I have to say, people here, especially in the Pakistani capital, are spooked. You've had this attack on this university, a number of other high-profile attacks. And the city really is going to sleep at night -- it feels -- people are talking about the fear and anxiety they have.

They're calling their loved ones to check in when somebody tries to drive to work, for instance, to make sure that person gets there on time. And just moments ago on Pakistani television, we saw bulletins declaring that schools in the eastern city of Lahore would be shut down again tomorrow because the proper security conditions have not been put in place yet. People very scared that these bombers may attack ordinary kindergartens and primary schools. And some people are not sending their children to school right now -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Ivan Watson staying on the story, a very important story on many levels. Appreciate it, Ivan. Thanks so much.