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American Morning
Miners Still Trapped After Explosion; Duke Wins NCAA Championship; Iraq Killings Caught on Tape; Toyota Facing Record Fine; In-Depth Look at Prescription Drug Abuse
Aired April 06, 2010 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Thanks for joining us in the Most News in the Morning. I'm John Roberts in Raleigh County, West Virginia where we continue our special coverage this morning. The ongoing disaster of the upper big branch mine here in Raleigh where 25 miners are known dead at this point and four still trapped. Good morning Kiran in New York.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, John. Just a tragic story, and we've been getting updates throughout the morning, and we'll continue to follow that. Here are the latest developments for people just joining us and just finding out about this latest coal mine disaster. It is the deadliest mining accident we've seen in this country since 1984. Twenty-five workers killed yesterday. Two others are still in the hospital this morning. Their conditions are unknown right now.
And there are four miners who are still missing, trapped, more than 1,000 feet below the earth's surface. There's too much methane gas in the air right now so the search has been suspended. And while that methane gas could have triggered the explosion, the cause is still unknown. John?
ROBERTS: All right, Kiran, thanks so much.
What's happening right now is that rescue workers are frantically trying to get heavy equipment on top of the mountain. They have the position on the surface of where the miners are believed to be trapped and they're going to drop a bore hole down to clear out the methane gas.
Kevin Stricklin of the Mine Safety and Health Administration is with us this morning. He was in Charleston, West Virginia yesterday and got the call late in the afternoon about this terrible disaster, and he's been at the forefront of it ever since.
Tell us a little bit about what they are trying to do now. The rescuers were pulled out of the mine at about 2:30 this morning. What happens now?
KEVIN STRICKLIN, U.S. MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION: At the same time the rescue operation was going on underground we wanted to decide where to put bore holes on surface in case we were chased out of the mine. So that was ongoing. We spotted a couple of locations on the surface. And right now we're going to be in the process of pull dosing our way up to the locations and actually getting the drill holes started in the mine 1,200 feet below it.
ROBERTS: You said in one of your press conferences late last night these mine shafts are not next to a road. You've got to bulldoze your way high up on the hills to get the equipment back up there. How long is all of this going to take?
STRICKLIN: We're hoping to bulldoze our way up there today and probably a good guestimate would be about two days to get the bore holes into the mines.
ROBERTS: So that means the families will have to wait for two days now? We heard maybe 12 hours. This pushes the window out more.
STRICKLIN: Yes, 12 hours. It would not be -- we can't put a bore hole at that depth in 12 hours. It will take longer than that.
ROBERTS: You have 1,200 feet to go down and a couple of mined out areas that have to dealt with in a different kind of way, and then get down into that area and try to evacuate whatever toxic gases may be down there?
STRICKLIN: Right. We're going to put booster fans in those bore holes and actually pull the air out of the mine to ventilate it. And that's when you see clearer air coming out of the bore hole that means you've ventilated the area out.
ROBERTS: So what's your sense of what happened yesterday? You probably heard the governor say it was a massive explosion and all of these safety precautions, these rescue chambers have been stationed in the safety areas. Do you think the miners even had a chance to get to that?
STRICKLIN: Based on what I'm seeing and hearing from the people underground, I don't think they had an opportunity to get to those. All of these things were good to have in place. Unfortunately this happened so quickly and it was so strong of a force that I don't think they had the opportunity to utilize any of that.
ROBERTS: So then the question is, how did there become this enormous buildup of gas to the point where you could have an explosion this massive?
STRICKLIN: That's something that the investigation will have to lead us to. In addition to the methane, we'll look at other things that might have been involved, such as coal dust. Coal dust propagates explosions further, and that's something that we'll leave no stone unturned during our investigation to determine exactly what happened and the extent of it.
ROBERTS: Kevin, I know it's been a long night and probable a long day and another long night. We thank you for taking the time to chat with us.
STRICKLIN: You're quite welcome.
ROBERTS: It's much appreciated.
STRICKLIN: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Kiran, let's send it back to you in New York.
CHETRY: John, thanks. And as you guys were discussing, still no word on exactly what cause this to happen, but there are a lot of questions, because this mine had a list of safety problems in the past. You don't have to go that far back to find dozens or hundreds of violations.
Christine Romans is looking into that part of the story in "Minding your Business" this morning, and she joins us now. So this is Massey Energy, the owner of this mine.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And Massey is the fourth largest coalminer in the region. And this is a really big industry. Coal built this country, and coal is still what powers half of our electricity in this country. Massey Energy has been fined a number of times for incidents at its facilities, some of which were fatal.
It is the fourth largest coal miner in the country, operations in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It was 44 underground and surface mines and controls about 2.2 billion tons of coal reserves.
Just last year Massey Energy was fined $2.5 million in connection with a fatal fire that killed two miners at its facility. It also paid $382,000 in fines for violations related to its ventilation plan and its equipment at the Upper Big Branch. That's the site of this deadly branch.
Here's what Ellen Smith, who follows the industry, says about the safety issues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELLEN SMITH, COAL INDUSTRY FOLLOWER: Just what we see this year, the mine has had six ventilation plan violations since January. The last one was issued on March 30th. Ventilation violations can lead to explosions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Again, we don't know what the cause of this blast was. We don't know the cause just yet. But here's what the company is saying. Massey says in a statement, "Our top priority is the safety of our miners and the wellbeing of their families." Interestingly enough, Kiran, last year was the safest year in U.S. mine history, 2009, with 18 deaths.
This is a dangerous business. And this is one -- a business where you've got men and women going underground, standing sometimes in several inches of water in the dark. The only thing they can see with is the light on their helmet, and they are extracting coal that is literally fueling the power of this country.
CHETRY: All right. And in some cases, we talked over and over again it's a family affair. The father goes into it. He's the breadwinner of the family. The sons go into it as well. These communities are all extremely tight-knit.
But the tragic thing about this also is back in 2006 with the Sago mine disaster, they talked about -- because they were able to pull Randall McCoy Jr., and he survived and tragically the others did not. They said if only they had built these chambers where there was enough oxygen and food to allow for enough time.
Well, in this case they had them. But whether or not that makes a difference for the other four or whether this explosion was just so large and enormous and all encompassing in that area, it remains to be seen.
ROMANS: And whether these miners could get the equipment off the walls, and some of the crews initially had said when they went in there they could see some of the breathing apparatuses had been removed from the walls. Hopefully the men have been able to get to these safety chambers.
But how far away were those? What kind of damage had been done to the wall? We just don't know yet. That's why it's still this very early rescue. It will take a very long time to dig through all of this and find out what happened and where the men are.
CHETRY: Right now they are boring holes through and trying to properly ventilate to get in there and see the fate of the other four. Christine Romans, thank you.
Other stories new this morning as well -- the Obama administration revealing a new nuclear weapons strategy today. It not only reduces America's stockpile but dials the current U.S. policy on the use of weapons against nonnuclear nations. The announcement comes two days before a new arms agreement between the U.S. and Russia.
Three explosions at a Baghdad apartment complex leave more than 30 people dead and at least 100 more wounded. This was the fourth deadly attack in less than a week. Officials say that violence has spiked significantly since last month's election, which did not declare a clear winner.
And aftershocks rattling towns along the border U.S.-Mexico border after Sunday's 7.2 magnitude quake, two people were killed and hospitals and nursing homes forced to evacuate. The power was out in a number of cities as well. Scientists say that these aftershocks will likely continue for about a week.
The chief of staff for the Republican National Committee stepped down. In an e-mail RNC Chairman Michael Steele told members that he accepts Ken McKay's resignation to reassure hardworking patriots who give to the party. The RNC has been under fire over $1,900 spent by a party donor and a vendor at a sex-themed Hollywood club with topless dancers.
And a look at the NCAA tournament -- Duke back on top in college basketball, the Blue Devils beating Butler. If that shot would have gone in, Butler would have had an unbelievable story for the year. But anyway it was 61-59 Duke, quite a thriller to end a NCAA championship game.
It wasn't decided until Butler's last second half-court heave. It just missed, and that shot would have made the Bulldogs the champs, the Cinderella story. But instead, it's Duke's fourth national men's title, their first since 2001.
ROMANS: Butler didn't do it.
CHETRY: They had 25 wins on the season.
ROMANS: What a great run.
CHETRY: Almost.
Nine minutes past the hour.
(WEATHER BREAK)
CHETRY: Still ahead, it's chilling video from inside the war zone. Two Reuters journalists in Baghdad are mistaken for insurgents and shot dead by U.S. forces. It happened three years ago, but now the tape has been leaked. All details from Barbara Starr are still ahead.
Toyota now facing a record fine, accused of keeping a potentially deadly secret. Did it hide gas pedal problems from the government? Will it fight this fine? And what is the fallout for people who drive Toyotas?
Also, an epidemic of prescription drug abuse. We'll meet three young people who spent years taking a deadly gamble. It's our continuing special "A.M." series "Addicted."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. There are some new chilling video that leaked online showing how deadly a warzone to be for journalists. In it we see U.S. forces apparently mistaking two employees with the Reuters news agency. The men are shot to death by an Apache helicopter in the streets of this Baghdad suburb.
It happened nearly three years ago, but we're just seeing it for the first time. For the latest on this developing story, let's bring in our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.
It's so chilling to see the people walking in the cross hairs and to know this was a tragic mistake.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Kiran. This was back in 2007 in Iraq. You don't often see this true bird's eye view of what combat is really like and how chilly it can be.
The video we are about to show you is from an Apache helicopter flying over Baghdad. The troops onboard the helicopter, the crew thought they were simply engaging insurgents, if you will on the ground. There were coalition forces nearby taking fire. They were going after insurgents.
What they did not know is that with that group of people on the streets of Baghdad, were two employees of Reuters news agency. Have a listen to the video.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's 20 people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a weapon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Hotel two-six.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy on the two-six.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Motel two-six. Have individuals with weapons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's got a weapon too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hotel two-six. Crazy Horse one-eight. Have five to six individuals with AK-47s. I request permission to engage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger that. We have no personnel east of our position. So you are free to engage. Over.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. We'll be engaging.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. Roger, go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I going -- I' can't get them now because they're behind that building.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Bushmaster element.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's got an RPG.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. We got a guy with an RPG.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. No hold on. Let's come around behind buildings right now from our point of view.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Out of respect for the families, we are not showing what comes next, but it is the horrible reality of war. The Apache gunships, the helicopters did open fire and kill eight men on the ground including those two Reuters employees.
Now, the military fully investigated this incident at the time. It happened back in 2007 and says that the incident was justified. They regret that the journalists were there. They didn't know they were there but that weapons were found on the ground and these were insurgents engaging in activity against coalition forces. So a very chilling look, Kiran, really, at what the war is really like -- Kiran.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And also for the difficulty of, you know, the soldiers that have to make those decisions as well, those life-and-death decisions that could cost them and their fellow troops their lives as well. So it's not easy.
STARR: That is why they call it the fog of war. And that's an expression that really in its own way sort of masks this very cold brutal reality. It is tough all around. It really is.
CHETRY: Barbara Starr for us this morning at the Pentagon. Thanks.
Still ahead, Toyota ordered to pay a $16 million fine. The government says it's because they kept information from the public and from federal regulators. Deb Feyerick is following the latest on what it could mean for the automaker.
Seventeen minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Twenty minutes past the hour. We're "Minding Your Business" with some news about Toyota. The company has been ordered to pay a huge fine.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration now seeking the maximum, $16.4 million fine against Toyota. The Feds say that the company failed to notify the agency of a sticky pedal defect in its cars for at least four months. Now under federal regulations, automakers are required to inform the agency within five days of determining that a defect exists.
And in its release, NHTSA is saying, quote, "We now have proof that Toyota failed to live up to its legal obligations. Worse they knowingly hid a dangerous defect for months from U.S. officials and did not take action to protect millions of drivers and their families."
Christine is here with more on what impact this could have for the carmakers. They seem to be in a tough situation. If they just pay the fine, are they admitting that they had a defect that they didn't let people know about?
ROMANS: Or they're putting another story behind them.
CHETRY: Right. ROMANS: So that's what a lot of people are trying to ask. Until now, the biggest fine was GM in 2004. And GM's fine was a million dollars. It had been negotiated down from $3 million. That's the way our regulators have worked in years past that they will come out with a big fine and then you negotiate with a company for what they wanted to pay.
And keep in mind, 16.4 million, it would be the maximum that the government could impose on Toyota. It's still just a blink in the eye in terms of sales of this company. So it really would be symbolic. But what it looks like, many people are watching this. They're saying that this is the Ray LaHood and the Transportation Department really getting tough with Toyota because of the public outrage. So many people you know drive these cars and have been concerned about what this means.
One interesting thing to watch here, Ray LaHood said that Toyota knowingly hid this defect for four months. But some people are saying it's an interesting timing thing for Toyota because if they didn't think this was a problem, they could argue that once it became clear it was a problem, then they did notify the government within five days. So, it will be interesting to see how the timing works out either in Toyota's favor or against Toyota.
But clearly, $16.4 million, a fine levied by the United States government against Toyota. It's a big fine in terms of fine against car companies. It's a very small amount of money in terms of Toyota and its bottom line.
CHETRY: And whether this plays out though in terms of the lawsuits against the company --
ROMANS: Absolutely.
CHETRY: -- and whether they're going to use this to say, look, the government says you didn't tell us. You didn't tell us.
ROMANS: It's clearly a regulator slapping Toyota for all of the quality problems that we have seen over the eight months.
CHETRY: All right. Christine, thanks so much.
Still ahead, this country has seen an exponential increase in prescription drug use over the past decade. I had a chance to sit down with three wonderful young people who became addicted very, very early in life and have spent years taking a deadly gamble. It's the next installment of our A.M. special "Addicted.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-five minutes past the hour right now. Your top stories just five minutes away. But first, an "A.M. Original," something you'll see only on AMERICAN MORNING.
California's attorney general says that actor Corey Haim was doctor shopping for prescription drugs in the days before he died. He's expected to release the details of the investigation at a news conference later today. And celebrity drug cases make up a lot of the headlines, but addiction as we're learning doesn't discriminate. It hits towns all across this country.
This morning in the second part of our special series, my producers and I met with three young people who candidly talked to us about how prescription drug use became a way of life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty milligram of Adderall.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It tastes like orange Tic Tacs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yum, yum, yum, yum.
CHETRY (voice-over): They've been abusing prescription drugs since age 13. And one of their faces obscured.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're pretty radical because --
CHETRY: She's 18 and would only give us her first name, Melissa. Her best friend also 18 asked to go by "Sara," not her real name. Adam, who is 20, is Melissa's cousin. They live in a town in Eastern Pennsylvania.
(on camera): How did you ever discover prescription drugs, or drugs in general?
"SARA," 18-YEAR-OLD DRUG USER: First, prescription drugs was a (INAUDIBLE) in junior high. I asked people in school. They're like oh, go snort this in the bathroom with me. Like sometimes I didn't even know what it was. Like I'd be snorting muscle relaxers, like he'd give me Adderall. That's the first time I ever did Adderall.
CHETRY: How long did it take you to get addicted?
"SARA": I wouldn't really say -- I wouldn't really say that I'm addicted, like I've been on and off.
CHETRY: Do you think you could stop today?
"SARA": No.
CHETRY: Why not?
"SARA": Because I've tried. I made it -- I think I made it three days last week.
CHETRY: What about you, Melissa? How did you ever first get introduced to drugs?
MELISSA, 18-YEAR-OLD DRUG USER: My mother was prescribed the Xanax and I began taking the as well. And it was just kind of like an immediate comfort from them.
ADAM, 20-YEAR-OLD FORMER DRUG USER: Yes, I just fell in love with it.
CHETRY (voice-over): For Adam, who says he's been sober for five months, it was three Vicodin pills stolen from his mom seven years ago that started it all.
ADAM: You know, there's two sides to addiction. There's a mental and there's a physical addiction. But the mental it's just like, you need it and you don't want to do anything else and you don't care about anything else.
CHETRY (on camera): And so, how did it spiral from there?
ADAM: I just fell in love with the feeling, so I just started stealing, you know, them from her like every day. And you know, taking more and more and more. It just got really bad really fast.
CHETRY (voice-over): It got so bad, Adam, a pre-med student, was kicked out of college freshman year. After repeated arrest for drug possession, it wasn't long before he was living alone and regularly overdosing on huge amounts of pills.
ADAM: My usual routine was I'd eat like 15, 20 of them at once, then like half an hour later drop, like, you know, three or four or maybe five and a double shot of vodka and mix it up until it dissolves and take the shot. And then another couple of hours, I'd do another handful. And it was just doing that like every day.
CHETRY: One night, he took about 100 Xanax, passing out while writing a suicide note.
ADAM: When I overdosed, they said my heart actually stopped for a while and I was flat lining. And first thing I did when I got out is go right back to it.
CHETRY: It wasn't until he was thrown in jail for several months for violating probation that he made the decision to finally get clean.
ADAM: I was happier in jail than I could ever remember being, even when I was free. I didn't remember what feeling happy was.
CHETRY: Yet Melissa, after three trips to rehab and seeing her cousin Adam nearly die from his addiction is still using.
MELISSA: I'm most certainly am an addict. Like, hi, my name is Melissa. I'm an addict and I'm an alcoholic. Like I know that I am. Like, but I really do just make excuses. I need to clean my room but I have no ambition of taking Adderall, yet my room needs to be clean. That's why I took it. Yes, that's why. It's just dumb excuses, dumb reasons, just telling myself it's OK. It's not OK.
CHETRY (on camera): And so where do you, after having that type of self-realization, where do you take the next step? What's next?
MELISSA: Honestly from here, like, I don't know where everything is going to go. But I want to try. I want to try really, really hard to stop making excuses for why I do these things because it's not getting me anywhere.
CHETRY (voice-over): For Melissa and "Sara," five years after they first started experimenting with prescription drugs, regrets are now many. Still, shortly after we finished our interview -- we find Melissa and "Sara" in their car snorting Adderall.
MELISSA: Prescription pills suck.
CHETRY: They admit the shame but continue the deadly gamble.
MELISSA: I am currently high on them and it's not worth it. It's not worth it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Since the interview -- since they did the interview with us, Melissa, "Sara" and Adam's lives continue to unravel. Melissa continues to use drugs. Adam may be charged with breaking and entering and intent to deliver a controlled substance. This dates back from a crime he committed more than a year ago. He still is clean and sober but if convicted of this, he could be sent to prison.
And Sara over the weekend was caught with a suspended license and is now looking at 90 days in jail as their drug use continues to take control on their lives. We will follow their stories and we will bring you any developments.
And we also want to hear from you about this story. Go to our blog cnn.com/amfix. We'll be reading some of your comments throughout the morning. Also in just a few minutes, we're going to talk to an expert on teen drug abuse about the warning signs and what you can do to protect your kids. And you know, the scary thing is how easy these kids at age 13 came upon prescription drugs. There's a perception that there's somehow not as dangerous at first because they are from your doctor.
ROMANS: They are and parents -- they are available. You can go to grandma's medicine cabinet and get all kinds of different things there. There's a lot of prescriptions at home. It used to be that parents would lock or monitor the liquor cabinet and a lot of parents still do that. They think they are doing that. But the issue now, so many substance abuse counselors say, is you've got to monitor the prescription drugs.
Also in schools, they are small, very easy to pass them among friends. This is something that high schools and even junior high schools are taking notice to as well. How easy it is for kids to be sharing these drugs and using it in a very dangerous way.
CHETRY: And Dr. Drew Pinsky says, you know, he does a show about celebrity rehab and others, he says for parents, lock your medicine cabinets. Don't keep prescription pills around where kids can get their hands on. And you also need to have honest conversations with your kids about what they are doing. I mean in these cases, the parents -- ROMANS: They have poor judgment. They are not mature, kids are and they really don't -- many of these surveys show they really don't think they are using drugs.
CHETRY: Right.
ROMANS: They really don't think they are. This isn't booze. This isn't pot. Many times it leads to these things. But you know, these are pill that were in my parent's medicine cabinet. It's not a problem.
CHETRY: We're going to talk more about that as we sit with Dr. Kent Robertshaw, an addiction psychiatrist, in just a moment. Meantime, we're crossing the half hour now. We head back to John in Marsh Fork, West Virginia with the update on the mine explosion. Good morning, John.
ROBERTS: Hi, Kiran. Good morning to you. Marsh Fork, Virginia, it's in Raleigh County, which is the scene of this ongoing disaster with the Upper Big Branch mine. It happened yesterday afternoon, sometime between 3:00 and 4:00, a massive explosion, deep underground some 6,000 to 8,000 feet from the entrance to the mine, about 1200 to 1400 deep.
Here's what we know so far, 25 of the miners who were on shift yesterday afternoon are dead. 11 have been identified. 14 still yet to be identified. And there is another four who were trapped below. Now what happened, the rescue teams went in right after the explosion, as soon as they could get on the scene and they continued their work going through the mine. It seemed to be continuing fairly quickly until about 2:30 this morning, they hit very, very high levels of methane in a remote area of the mine where it's believed that those four missing miners might have been.
They were told by their commanders on the surface to pull back out of the mine, it's too dangerous to be in there. We have to go with plan B. Plan B now involves drilling a bore hole through 1,200 feet of rock through a couple of mined out shafts which requires its own technology to get down in there a ventilation hole so that they could try to blow that methane gas out, get the rescuers back in.
We were talking to Kevin Strikland (ph) of the Mine Safety and Health Administration a few minutes ago. He seemed to think that that whole thing could potentially take, maybe a couple of days. Initial reports were there were some 12 hours but maybe now these families will be waiting up to a couple of days to find out what happened to their loved ones.
A couple of big questions remain. That is where are these people? Are they still alive? And how did the concentrations of gas ever get to the point where this massive explosion could have taken place? This company, Massey Energy Performance Coal -- Performance Energy, a subsidiary of Massey Energy have been cited numerous times with safety violations, 122 this year, 53 during the month of March alone. Some of those for ventilation, did that have something to do with this explosion. Any way you cut it though, this explosion was so big -- we talked to Kevin Strikland (ph) about this, all of the safety practices, the new safety measures that were implemented after the Sago mining disaster in 2006 pretty much were rendered ineffective. Here's what Kevin had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN STRIKLAND, MINE SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION: But based on what I'm seeing and hearing from the people underground, I don't think they had an opportunity to get to those. All of these things were good to have in place. Unfortunately, this happened so quickly and it so strong of a force that I don't think the miners had the opportunity to utilize any of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: What he is talking about were what they call, these SCSR, self-contained self-rescuers. They're basically breathing apparatus, compressed air. They are stashed in these rescue chamber that have been built into the mines. There were a couple of them that weren't where they were supposed to be. Initially, the rescuers thought that maybe a couple of these miners had gotten in there, had gotten themselves hooked up with this apparatus and might have been able to flee deeper into the mine, in an area to get away from the gas.
But they haven't been able to find any trace of them. And as Kevin said, everything happened so quickly that it's a possibility that the 25 miners who were found dead would seem to have perished almost instantaneously. And hope while it's thin, it's very thin for these remaining miners, Kiran, one of the things that you just need to look at, which is sort of a testament to how massive that explosion was, there were nine miners who were going in -- or seven miners who were going on what's called this man trip. It's like a very low rail car, almost like a sled.
Five of them were killed instantly. Two of them survived and were taken to the hospital. But that's the power of this explosion. That man trip was at least 1,000 feet away from the origination point of this explosion.
CHETRY: Wow, that's certainly tells us a lot this morning as people continue to hold out hope in the community that they will be able to find these four miners alive. John, thanks.
Just before we heard from the three young people in our special series who have been addicted to prescription drugs, joining me now to talk more about teen drug abuse and what parents can do to prevent their kids from becoming a statistic, Dr. Kent Robertshaw. He is an addiction psychiatrist, also a professor at Columbia Medical School. Thanks so much for being with us this morning, doctor.
DR. KENT ROBERTSHAW, ADDICTION PSYCHIATRIST: Great to be here. CHETRY: One of the things that really caught my attention the Feds did a big story about this. In this report, they found that one in 10 high school seniors admitted to using powerful painkillers and also 40 percent of teens and their parents think that abusing prescription painkillers is actually somehow safer than abusing street drugs. Where did we get this mind set and this trend that it seems toward prescription drug abuse?
ROBERTSHAW: Well, I think that nowadays the teenagers are using prescription drugs as after using alcohol. So it's now replaced marijuana as the number one abused substance after alcohol and has surpassed marijuana. So it's become an epidemic. And part of that reason I think is that there's an idea that cocaine, heroin and those illegal drugs are dangerous because there's contaminants in there. And somehow these prescription drugs are somehow safer. But things like pain medication, Oxycontin, Vicodin, Percocets, it's the exact same kind of chemical as heroin, has the same addiction potential. And as we see with all these celebrities, the same overdose potential.
CHETRY: Yes. Let's take a look at these numbers also when it comes to prescribing these drugs and how doctors are prescribing them. Stimulants, number one, the total number of stimulant prescriptions, Adderall and Ritalin, in our story, we saw the girls crushing the stuff and snorting it, similar to a cocaine like high.
They increased seven-fold. From 1991 to 2001, five million prescriptions to 35 million. You look at opiates, these highly addictive prescriptions like codeine and oxycodone, 40 million prescriptions in 1991, now in 2007, 180 million prescription. It's staggering to see how much more of these are being prescribed. These aren't the illicit ones, these are the ones that are actually being prescribed by doctors. Why are doctors giving these medications out more frequently?
ROBERTSHAW: Well I think there's been a big shift in the whole idea about these medications. When went to medical school before 1991, there was a feeling that pain was only something that you would treat if you had trauma, you had surgery and only when there was only a couple of months of life to live. So that there was the perception that these opiates were very dangerous, highly addictive and had potential troubles with giving it long-term.
There's obviously been a shift in that perception in the medical profession, supported perhaps by the pharmaceutical companies that it's safe to give these medications, these pain medications over a long period of time for people who have chronic pain.
CHETRY: You talk also about the fact that it's just too jointed, there's no loop really letting physicians, pharmacists and patients know how many drugs are being prescribed to a certain individual. 43 percent of physician didn't ask about any prescription drug abuse problems when taking a patient's history and a third didn't call or obtain taken records from the previous physician before prescribing potentially addictive drugs.
And you talk about this as well. That there is almost -- it's an uncomfortable situation, a doctor doesn't want wasn't to make a patient feel uncomfortable, when they come to them, by saying "hey, are you potentially an addict?" But what needs to be done to make sure that people aren't getting these prescription that could end up costing them their lives.
ROBERTSHAW: Well, I think it reminds of like Anderson's accounting with Enron, meaning that there needs to be a kind of suspicion when things don't add up, when people are going to another doctor, coming to doctor to doctor or more importantly the pain that the person is describing doesn't seem to fit what your seeing on physical exam.
There needs to be some healthy suspicion that there's lots of patients out there either exaggerating. amplifying their pain, or worse as you are implying, going to different doctors, different pharmacies, getting pills that they themselves are taking or they are taking these pills and selling them to kids in high school.
CHETRY: All of these kids that we spoke to in our piece faked symptoms to get doctors to prescribed either benzodiazepine, anti- anxiety drugs, or Adderall, which they're then abusing and using as a cocaine like substance. In the end, what can parents do? What role do parents have in identifying, in making sure that their kids don't go down this road?
ROBERTSHAW: Well, I think and the kids that are most susceptible are ones that are socially-isolated, depressed, low self-esteem and the like. So those kinds of depressed kids are often the setup for starting to use. Once a parent sees some kind of change in behavior, changing their habits, their grades are changing. Their sleeping habits are changing. They're becoming more isolative. They're becoming more secretive, those kinds of things are red flags to the parents that something is going on with their child and they need to look into that.
And as you mentioned before, most importantly, they themselves need to look at their own use of pills and do they pop Xanax when they are anxious and do they hold on to Vicodins that they got weeks ago for surgery to take for pain. And see that their kids are looking at their behavior and the kids wonder, why are these pills around the house? Why aren't they being thrown away if they are not being used anymore.
CHETRY: A lot of good points, Dr. Kent Robertshaw. Great to talk to you this morning. Thank you.
ROBERTSHAW: Thank you.
CHETRY: We're going to head back out to John in West Virginia.
ROBERTS: We're at Marsh Fork Elementary School, which is sort of, I guess, if you will, a center piece for information that's coming out of the mine. Nobody is being allowed up to the mine. The officials are coming down here to talk to us. The governor came by just a little while ago and officials from the Mine Safety and Health Administration. And with us right now is Shawn Kline. He is a reporter with WVVA television in Blue Field, West Virginia. He was kind of our eyes and ears on the ground last night. Did a terrific job for us in giving us information. If you were watching Campbell Brown, Larry King and Anderson Cooper last night, Shawn is guy giving who is giving you the information about what was going on here on the ground.
For that Shawn, we thank you so much as we were making our way down here from Washington and from New York. You know, you've been here for a while. You really seem to know the lay of the land when it comes to mining operations. How big a blow is this to the community? 25 miners dead, four missing and hope not strong for them either.
SHAWN KLINE, WVVA CORRESPONDENT: It's devastating to the community. Everyone here knows a coal mine worker or is a coal mine worker. It's really amazing that so many people have come out to support the community here.
ROBERTS: We're talking to the governor just a little while ago. He gave a press conference about 6:00 this morning. He said that in one instance there were three members of a single family who were taken by this tragedy. I guess that's the sort of thing that you see here in this area. That so many people from a single family go into this industry.
KLINE: It's a family tradition in many places especially here, right here in Raleigh Country in West Virginia, most people they just follow their father's footsteps and they go straight back in the mine like everyone else.
ROBERTS: So what are you hearing about the rescue operations that are taking place right now?
KLINE: Right now what I'm hearing is it's a pretty devastating scene over there. What I saw last night was pretty devastating scene. Dozens of ambulances and police cars, fire trucks. They kept swarming in and out and in and out. We really didn't know what was going on at that time.
ROBERTS: Did you get a chance to talk to the family members as we were coming in? You know, because this is a dig difference from the Sago mining disaster, the families during Sago were kind of wondering around. They didn't have anybody to talk to. They didn't know where to get information. Changes put in place after that, according to the Miner's Act. The company must now designate a family liaison to look after the families. Did you get a chance to speak with anyone?
KLINE: In fact, I did get a chance to speak to two family members. One of them was actually a mine worker who is worried about his father. And from the reports that I've had so far, his father wasn't involved in this accident. So I'm pretty relieved for him. Now there was one other woman that I did speak to. And she came out of her car balling her eyes out crying, saying "where is my son? Where is my son?" I'm afraid that he's in that mine. And I have no word to say to her. I don't know if her son was there or if her son wasn't.
ROBERTS: It's a very unique breed of person who every day, goes 1,400 feet into the ground, a mile or more from the tunnel entrance to mine these seams of coal.
KLINE: Day in and day out. These guys know the risk they are taking every day. They go in there knowing that something like this could happen. But they are trained on this too. Quarterly, every quarter they take these classes that train them on mine safety. But still it can't prepare them for something like this.
ROBERTS: Right. Shawn Klein, it's great to talk to you this morning. Thanks for doing the duty you did last night. Really appreciate it.
KLINE: Well, thanks for having me.
ROBERTS: Shawn Kline from WVVA in Blue Field, West Virginia this morning. Let's send it back to New York. Here's Kiran.
CHETRY: John, thanks. It's 45 minutes past the hour. Rob is going to be along with the morning's travel forecast right after the break. Also in 10 minutes, an "A.M. House Call and a remarkable new study about breast feeding and its connection to saving almost 1,000 lives a year. But how realistic are these new recommendations for mothers?
Forty-five minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: John, thanks, it's 45 minutes past the hour. Rob is going to be along with the morning's travel forecast right after the break.
Also in 10 minutes, an "A.M. House Call" and a remarkable new study about breast feeding and its connection to saving almost 1,000 lives a year. But how realistic are these new recommendations for mothers?
Forty-five minutes past the hour.
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ROMANS: Checking the business headlines this morning. The Dow ever closer to the coveted 11,000 mark. Monday's rally in Wall Street was a reflection of strong housing market news but also the first chance investors had to react to last week's jobs report.
Remember that report that showed the first meaningful job creation in three years?
Also the weekend release of Apple's iPad. All that good news also pushed oil prices to the highest level in well over a year. Gasoline prices right there behind them. But as prices near $3 a gallon, analysts worry drivers will cut back on fuel and damage economic recovery.
What the East Coast doesn't provide, the West Coast does at least when it comes to cheap strawberries. While Friday's January cold snap ruined spring crops, a record number of berries were picked in California, thanks to the late harvest. Most prices are under $2 a pound.
KFC's new sandwich is cheap but health experts call it say salt bomb. It's two boneless chicken filets wrapped around two slices each of bacon and cheese and a squirt of special sauce. It has 540 calories and 60 percent of your entire day's sodium intake.
And our entire crew is all salivating at the moment.
CHETRY: And there's no carbs. Hey, that's the upside.
(LAUGHTER)
CHETRY: It's just two pieces of chicken.
ROMANS: But a salt bomb.
CHETRY: Isn't most fast food burgers and all that stuff --
ROMANS: Yes.
CHETRY: -- sixty percent of your sodium intake? Just --
ROMANS: Yes, everything in moderation, boys and girls.
CHETRY: There you go. All right, well, 49 minutes past the hour. Time to get a check on this morning's weather headlines. Rob Marciano is in Atlanta.
ROMANS: Good morning, Rob.
CHETRY: I mean, April and we're talking air conditioners and 90 degree weather.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, you don't want to be -- you know, laid down with that kind of heavy, heavy greasy food. Eat lightly. Drink a lot of fluids because temperatures are going to feel like they're in June and July in some spots.
And really this time of year it's kind of a shock to the system. I mean it may feel like -- maybe only 80, 85 degrees, but when you've been 30 and 40 for several months, yes, it rattles the cage just a little bit.
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CHETRY: All right, Rob, thanks so much.
Well, your top stories are just a few minutes away including praying for miracles this morning. We're going to head back to West Virginia where four miners are still missing. We're going to have the latest on when they think rescue teams would be able to go back in and attempt to save them.
After 10 minutes after the hour, whether the biggest mine disaster in 2 1/2 decades was simply an accident waiting to happen. We're going to talk to the former directory of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
And also fallout at the Republican National Committee over the tab at a strip club. So who's out? Those stories and more at the top of the hour.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. It's 53 minutes past the hour right now. Time for your "A.M. House Calls." Stories about your health.
And it's becoming even more clear that nothing can be more healthy for your bay than breast feeding. A new study now tells mothers to do it for at least six months to cut the risk of things like childhood diabetes, leukemia, even sudden infant death syndrome.
Joining us now from Boston is Doctor Melissa Bartick of Harvard Medical School and the lead author of the study.
And Dr. Bartick, thanks for being with us this morning. First of all, explain what the study found. I mean we know that the recommendation has been that it's best to breast feed your baby for six months if you can. What did this new study find?
DR. MELISSA BARTICK, AUTHORED BREAST FEEDING STUDY, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: So this study was -- for the most part -- a cost analysis. And it showed that failure to comply with the medical recommendations around breastfeeding is costing our economy $13 billion a year with 911 excess deaths, which are all in children. And these are all potentially preventable.
CHETRY: And explain how you get that number in terms of how much money would be saved and also these deaths.
BARTICK: So what we did is we took 10 pediatric diseases for which it is known that lack of breast feeding increases the risk of those diseases, and we took the prevalence of those diseases and did a cost analysis at our current breast feeding rates.
And then what we did is we projected what the cost would be if we had higher breast feeding rates, more along the lines of medical recommendations. And we found these differences, $13 billion and 911 deaths.
CHETRY: Let me ask you a couple questions just practically speaking. I mean for the most part, most women are lucky to get six to eight weeks of paid maternity leave. Many of them work outside the home, are expected to come back to their job. And of course we have modern inventions like the wonderful breast pumps, et cetera.
But how do families realistically make this happen and balance what's in the best interest of their children's health, but also in terms of what works for their family and their source of income?
BARTICK: Well, I think we really have to look beyond what families are doing because this is a much broader issue than that. The United States is the only developed country in the world without paid maternity leave. So that's one of the issues.
We really need a bigger infrastructure to support our new families in the U.S. The other thing is that most women do want to breast feed. Three quarters of all moms start out breast feeding but the rates drop off tremendously.
And part of that is because there are many things which actually undermine women's abilities to breast feed even from the moment their infants are born.
CHETRY: Also, the issue of exclusive breast milk. Is there any differentiation made if you are able to do some breast feeding but there is also some formula involved? I mean do you know how those kids fair?
BARTICK: Well, usually, the risk when we've had it measured is somewhere in between the risk of pure formula feeding and pure breast feeding. But it depends on what illness you're talking about.
The other thing to note is that introducing any formula at all in the first few weeks of life can lead the mother to -- the mother's body to make less and less milk. So that's associated with failure of breast feeding. So the mom really has to get her milk supply established first before introducing anything else.
CHETRY: All right. And you also say that it's important to note that you're not trying to pick on moms who cannot breast feed for whatever reason. That these are just recommendations that show -- according to your study -- that there would be a big difference if there were ways that we could encourage people to breast feed longer.
Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
BARTICK: Yes.
CHETRY: Go ahead.
BARTICK: You're welcome. Yes, the bottom line is, I think moms need more support.
CHETRY: Gotcha. All right, Dr. Melissa Bartick, who authored the study of the impact of breast feeding on babies, thanks so much.
BARTICK: You're welcome.
CHETRY: We're going to take a quick break. Your top stories just three minutes away.
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