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Obama Administration Expresses Frustration and Anger over BP Oil Spill; Update on BP's Latest Fix-It Plan; New Study Links Pesticides and ADHD in Children; Scientists Create First Synthetic Cell; Sarah Ferguson Bribery Caught on Tape

Aired May 23, 2010 - 16:00   ET

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

TOM FOREMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The Obama administration lays it on the line to BP, expressing frustration and anger that the massive oil spill has not been stopped in the gulf. We heard from them just a short time ago. And we'll have an update on BP's latest fix-it plan.

Plus, pesticides and attention deficit disorder in children. A new study links the two. Just how concerned should you be and what can you possibly do to protect your children? We'll have answers from an expert.

Also, a major scientific breakthrough. Researchers create the world's first synthetic cell. It's a discovery that truly could change life as we know it. The story and the controversy, coming up.

The news unfolds live on this Sunday, May 23rd. I'm Tom Foreman.

The tension is clearly and steadily mounting in the Gulf of Mexico. And in Washington this weekend over that runaway oil spill. You can see it here live, a mile down, pouring oil into the gulf waters just as it has for more than a month now. There all eyes are on preparations for the latest dramatic attempt to stop it. More on that in just a moment. But the political pressure is also building as the Obama administration comes under fire for leaving so much of the effort up to BP.

The secretary of the interior met with BP officials this afternoon in Houston and emerged with a mixed message. Saying the company has failed in its mission since day one and yet the federal government must still work with the oil giant. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN SALAZAR, INTERIOR SECRETARY: I am angry and I am frustrated that BP has been unable to stop this well from leaking and to stop the pollution from spreading. We are 33 days into this effort, and deadline after deadline has been missed. The last time that I was here, BP made it clear that they're moving forward with a junk kill that was supposed to happen on Tuesday, the 18th. Today that has not yet happened.

So I've been here since 6:00 this morning making sure that BP is doing everything that is human and technologically possible to take care of the BP spill that it has created in the Gulf of Mexico. (END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: The strategy being used right now at the site is a mile-long tube siphoning oil from the leaking well head up to a ship. BP officials say up to more than 57,000 gallons of oil have been collected in the last 24 hours. That's a sharp drop, however, from Friday when almost twice that much was siphoned out.

BP says the amount is going to vary from day-to-day. But that technique is not stopping the leak. To do that, crews are preparing for a dramatic maneuver called a top kill which they will most likely try on Tuesday. The top kill will involve rapidly pumping mud under high pressure into that failed blowout preventer on top of the well.

You can see it there. The theory is it will clog all of the leaking pipes and then a concrete seal, as you can see, will be put into place. It's never been done this deep before, a mile into the ocean. If it works it will be a technological triumph. If not, they'll turn back to that so called junk shot, which Secretary Salazar mentioned a moment ago. An effort to shoot knotted rope and pieces of tire, also known as junk, into the leak hoping it will do the same thing, clog it all up.

If it sounds a bit dicey, that's because it is. Joining us from Washington to weigh the odds, Richard Charter. He is a senior adviser from the animal advocacy group, Defenders of Wildlife. And is also an expert on offshore drilling. Mr. Charter, thanks for being here. And let's start with the odds. How much chance do you give this top kill of working?

RICHARD CHARTER, DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE: Well, because the spill did not have in place an immediate backup plan or an immediate backup equipment, the problem here is that we're left with these experimental techniques. And at this water depth that you accurately point out, this has never been tried. I think everybody in America hopes that this top kill technique will work. Because otherwise we have to wait until sometime in August for relief wells to be drilled. But the top kill even done very carefully has a certain amount of risk involved in making the spill actually worse.

FOREMAN: So let me get back to my basic question, though. What do you think the odds are that it will work with all of that said?

CHARTER: At this water depth with the immense pressure of the water column and the very cold temperatures, I think the odds are 50/50.

FOREMAN: 50/50. That's not very good. Early on when we tried the idea of lowering the dome over it to collect all of the oil, that was also a procedure that had been tried at a lesser depth and had worked. But wouldn't work at the lower depth. What is the fundamental problem here with the top kill? Is it simply the pressure? Because we know that oil has to be coming out at least 2,000 pounds of pressure to be even empty into the water column. Is that the fundamental issue? CHARTER: Well, the thing about the loss of well control is the blowout preventer is supposed to control it in the first 45 seconds. Literally immediately before the well gets cleaned out and starts to literally blow out. And that time obviously passed. There was no backup other than a remote operated vehicles which take a while to get there and may not have the equipment or the pressure or the tools to shut this in.

So now we're left with these sort of invention of the week approaches. And everybody I think hopes one of them works. Otherwise, we have a national emergency here with no end in sight. But I think the only way to find out is to try.

FOREMAN: The only alternative we keep hearing about is the idea of drilling into essentially an alternative well to cut off the flow. But that takes a lot of time. Is that more certain even if it comes two months from now?

CHARTER: I would say a relief well is almost virtually certain to succeed. The problem there is timing. There was a blowout of this nature much smaller in the Timor Sea, off of the Kimberly Coast of Australia last fall. And drilling the relief well and shutting in the rig took 10 weeks. And that was much, much shallower water. So I think we could see a solution to this in August. The problem is by August, five states may not have an economy.

FOREMAN: And we're still talking about, as you said, a great deal of time here. Is there something that we're missing? Because one of the real strong political calls right now is for the federal government to simply take control entirely from BP and say we will turn loose everything we have on this. Is there some technology out there that if you had the power, you would say let's use this?

CHARTER: Well, we don't know everything that we have in our arsenal of military assets. I would suggest that if this were a nuclear submarine from an enemy country that had strategic intelligence assets on it, we probably would have had some different equipment on it within the first couple of weeks. But, again, that equipment would need to be adapted to this particular use. Generally, the tools for this purpose are used by the oil industry, but in much, much shallower water. So once the fundamental threshold was crossed at the beginning, where the blowout was out of control, you didn't have a backup system in place at all, you move into this sort of research situation where we see the top hat and various pieces of equipment now lowered to the bottom of the sea and not doing much good.

FOREMAN: Richard Charter is with Defenders of Wildlife. But he put aside his advocacy hat for a moment or two here and simply talk about the technology. We sure appreciate that. Thank you very much.

CHARTER: Thank you for having me.

FOREMAN: One of our iReporters posted a particularly compelling report this week after journeying out into the gulf waters. Eileen Romero has been back out there taking pictures today. But we managed to grab her for a few minutes on the phone. She joins us from New Orleans. What did you see today, Eileen?

EILEEN ROMERO, IREPORTER (via telephone): Today, I've seen more damage, Tom, than I've seen yet. I went out to Grand Isle, Louisiana. And oil is just washing up on the beach. There aren't any booms out there. I don't think BP has done near enough to protect this island. There's no one even out putting out booms.

However, the military is starting to stage a plan or whatever in order to put a large dam around Grand Isle to tender more oil washing ashore. To minimize the oil that is getting to shore now. But, you know, Tom, this is something that should have been done to keep the oil from ever coming ashore. These beaches, I went to Grand Isle State Park, and the manager there took me around in her car and was talking to me, that beach, that state park, just opened since Katrina on good Friday of this year. It had to rebuild the entire beach.

FOREMAN: Eileen, I understand - I'll interrupt you for a moment. Because I understand you've also made an appeal in the name of that urgency. That you've sort of made an appeal to President Obama to say, let's have the federal government simply take over this effort. We mentioned the political pressure a little while ago that's been applied to the White House. Why do you feel confident that they could do something that BP can't?

ROMERO: I think they need to do more to protect our shoreline. And to protect our coast. The booms that BP has put out, they're half sinking. They don't float. They're not very buoyant. The navy's booms, in contrast, are about three times the size as BP's booms. I've seen Navy booms out in the Chandeleur Islands.

They have a three-foot flat that goes down into the water as well to catch some of the under oil from washing up to shore as well. I just think that, you know, our Navy, our military, our National Guard needs to step up to the plate and help us out here. I mean, BP's not doing it.

FOREMAN: All right.

ROMERO: We need help.

FOREMAN: All right. Eileen Romero, thank you so much for helping us by giving your firsthand account on what you've seen out on the gulf out at Grand Isle.

More on the gulf story later on as we keep looking at it.

Investigators, meanwhile, overseas have found the voice recorder from that Air India crash. But they still have a lot of answers that are waiting to be found about why this flight ended so horrifically. I have more on that in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: Recovery crews in southern India are searching for the flight data recorder in the charred wreckage of that Air India crash. The cockpit voice recorder has been found, however, even though it's damaged. Investigators believe it will yield important clues about what caused yesterday's fiery accident, killing 158 people. Only eight survived.

Our Sara Sidner is at the scene in Mangalore with the very latest. Sara.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Authorities are hoping that the black box will reveal the truth about what happened when a flight from Dubai tried to land here in Mangalore but ended up skidding off the runway and plunging down a steep embankment.

On that flight 158 people have been killed. Now today, Sunday, here on the site investigators spent the day shifting through the scraps of metal looking for the flight data recorder and trying to put out the fire in the tail, the only piece of the plane that really remained intact.

Meantime a few of the eight people who survived the crash are beginning to describe what they saw and heard. One survivor reported the sound of a tire bursting upon landing. And extreme rattling before the plane plunged over the sharp drop-off at the end of the runway. The airport here in Mangalore is known as a special airport due to it's very tricky terrain.

While investigators continue to search for answers, the funerals and cremations for scores of dead are beginning as more and more bodies are identified. This is the worst air disaster since 1996.

Sara Sidner, CNN, Mangalore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: In southern Afghanistan insurgents mounted a rare direct attack on NATO's biggest base in the region. But they were turned back. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack last night on Kandahar airfield. They fired rockets and mortars in an attempt to breach the perimeter. But security forces held them off. Several coalition troops and civilian employees were wounded, but no reports of deaths. Taliban insurgents hit hard at the main NATO military base in southern Afghanistan this weekend waging an eight- hour battle there. It's all around that field. It's quite the attack.

Moving on, in a new video released today, a fugitive American- born Muslim cleric is warning the future attacks against U.S. citizens. It's a big concern because of this idea of home-grown terrorism being spurred by outsiders. In this video Anwar al Awlaki justified the killings of civilians for U.S. killing women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan. An excerpt from that video was released in April. The entire video, however, has been posted on a radical Islamic website. More on that later on, too.

But one of the bigger concerns around Kandahar is the notion that we have to rely in many cases on our local allies there who are also under tremendous pressure. Our Paula Hancock goes on patrol with the police in Kandahar.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Guns poised. Ready to fight an enemy they can't see. These Afghan police look like sitting ducks, driving through the ever more dangerous streets of Kandahar.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: We've had a bit of a technical difficult there with the report. We'll get back to it in just a little bit.

Also in a little bit, Fergie. The former royal, current pitch woman for weight loss. Now she has been caught on tape, and she's not selling diet plans. You won't believe what's on the chopping block. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: As we mentioned a moment ago, the clashes are growing between coalition forces in southern Afghanistan and the Taliban. That's putting pressure not only on U.S. troops there, but also on our allies. For example, the Kandahar police. It is a very, very tough job. And one that is getting tougher by the day.

As our Paula Hancocks shows us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS (voice-over): Guns poised, ready to fight an enemy they can't see. These Afghan police look like sitting ducks, driving through the ever more dangerous streets of Kandahar.

(on camera): It takes a certain amount of guts to be a policeman in Kandahar. Now, many of the policemen have told me that they're not scared when they go out on patrol. But the fact is, quite often there are policemen dying down here every single week. And as the forces working on the periphery of Kandahar City, the insurgents and the Taliban are moving deeper into the center of the city and these men have to deal with them.

(voice-over): They've been called ill-trained, ill-equipped and corrupt. And it's fair to say they do not have the trust of the majority of the half million population of Kandahar. Police Commissioner Shafiq Afzali acknowledges the lack of support from the locals, but says it is changing as the image of the police is improving.

MOHAMMAD SHAFIQ AFZALI, KANDAHAR POLICE COMMISSIONER (through translator): He says before the police were getting $40 to $70 a month. Now they're getting around $250. He says whenever anyone's financial problems are solved, they no longer want to do dishonest things.

HANCOCKS: The police chief (INAUDIBLE) tells me of an IED attack on his car several days ago. But in the next breath tells me there's not much violence in Kandahar.

Mobile check points around the city are designed to stop the Taliban from getting in. But the police don't know how many are already there. Local estimates of more than 20 assassinations in the past month cannot be confirmed. But the estimate alone is enough to spread fear on the streets and erode confidence in the police.

Back at police headquarters, the next generation of police are being trained up. It's not often you see police doing marching drills. But it's not your regular police job here. U.S. Marines help with the training. The idea being the faster Afghan security forces are ready, the faster the U.S. can pull out.

LT. WILLIAM DERANCIS, U.S. MARINE CORPS: We'll get more advanced with them on defending themselves in ambushes. You know, if their police station is attacked by the Taliban, we're hoping that'll help them out with those defensive techniques as well.

HANCOCKS: Useful advice as a few hours after we heft three suicide bombers tried to infiltrate a police station down the road. Four policemen were injured in a gunfight. But the attackers were repelled. A fairy standard day on the beat in one of the world's most dangerous cities.

Paula Hancocks, CNN, Kandahar.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: Let's check out our top stories. Engineers are scrambling to stem the tide of ooze from the gulf oil spill now tainting delicate shorelines down there. Meanwhile, anger at BP's response to the spill is growing. The head of the EPA plans to meet with frustrated residents in Louisiana today.

Tomorrow, interior secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano will lead a Senate delegation to that region.

And in eastern China the death toll from a train derailment is rising. At least 19 people are known dead at this point. Dozens are wounded. Landslides are being blamed for triggering the accident which forced eight of the trains cars off of the tracks today. Emergency crews are still working to free passengers stuck in the wreckage.

The last time many of us saw ex-British royal Sarah Ferguson, she was a pitch woman for a weight-loss program. Now it appears Fergie may be pitching something else. Access to her ex-husband, Prince Andrew.

Take a look at this undercover video posted today by the British tabloid "News of the World."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH FERGUSON, EX-BRITISH ROYAL: On to the next thing. 500,000 pounds when you can, to me. Open doors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would be Prince Andrew?

FERGUSON: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that a deal?

FERGUSON: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: The newspaper says the Duchess spoke to an undercover reporter posing as a businessman. Ferguson married Andrew who is fourth in line to the throne in 1986. They had two children before divorcing in 1996. A spokesman for the Duchess of York says Ferguson is "devastated" and regrets any embarrassment she has caused.

Well, an exciting new study is out. And it links pesticides to ADHD in children. Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has that report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: A new study in the "Journal of Pediatrics" is the first large study to find the link between pesticides and ADHD.

Let's take a look at what they did. They looked at children and measured in their urine how much pesticides they were taking in. And what they found is that children who were taking in large amounts of pesticides were twice as likely to get ADHD.

Now, it's not clear why this would be true. There's some thought that these chemicals interfere with the way nerves signal to one another. Now, this is hardly a definitive finding. In fact, the makers of pesticides have this to say. More research is needed to ascertain if there is a direct link between exposure to organophosphate pesticides and the development of ADHD in children.

When used according to the label the EPA has determined it to be safe. Now, organophosphates is the name of the pesticides that they looked at in this study. This type of pesticide is very, very common. You see it everywhere on all sorts of fruits and vegetables.

So what are parents to do? First of all, keep in mind that more research needs to be done. Second of all, if you want to do something in the meantime, well those scientists are doing their research, there are two things you can do. One, you can buy organic. And that will limit the amount of pesticides that your children get.

The other thing is that you should wash produce. Now, just rinsing it in water will do something. Some people also use certain kinds of washes. It's not clear on which approach is really best. But certainly even rinsing in water can take away a lot of the pesticide residue that's still on fruits and vegetables. Back to you. FOREMAN: Dr. Jennifer Shu is a pediatrician and co-author of "Food Fights, Winning the Nutritional Challenges of Parenthood" armed with insight, humor and a bottle of catsup. It's safe to say this study has alarmed and maybe angered a lot of parents as they found out more about this. What do you make of this though?

Is this something that people should take to heart right now and say "oh, my gosh, there's a problem" or is this just the beginning?

DR. JENNIFER SHU, AUTHOR: Well, you know, I think it's good to have any kind of information that can tell us how to prevent things like ADHD. ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is really common, affecting almost 10 percent of kids. That's about $4 million kids in the U.S..

Adults tend to outgrow it with only half or fewer adults still having ADHD into adulthood. So it really is a problem of childhood. And I think parents really want what's best for their children. This might be some information they can use.

FOREMAN: With this question of pesticides, one thought that came to mind to me immediately was, look, 30, 40 years ago we were using a lot of pesticides. Some very, very potent ones. And there wasn't so much thought about being concerned about that on vegetables. Shouldn't we have seen a much bigger spike in ADHD back then if that were the case?

SHU: You know, Tom, it may have been that we weren't looking for ADHD at that time. And now we have ways to treat ADHD and help kids do better in school. I think it's getting diagnosed more. And definitely the pesticides, people are using them a little bit more safely now that the EPA is regulating them a lot more closely than ever before.

FOREMAN: What do you think parents should actually do with this kind of information? Because I know that for many, many people out there, the frustration is every eight months another study comes along that says, oh, it's the television. Oh, it's the car. Oh, it's the cell phones. Oh, it's the way you mow your lawn. It's something all the time. How does a parent reasonably make progress on this? Because you see parents who come in and say, what should I do? I'm worried. I don't want to make it worse for my child. How do I make it better? What's a reasonable course?

SHU: Well, the first thing to keep in mind is that any type of toxin is going to have more of an effect on children than on adults. Kids are smaller. They're still developing. So if you're going to do something to intervene, it's best to do it when the kids are really young. Even starting in pregnancy because we know that environmental things like smoking cigarettes during pregnancy can lead to ADHD.

It seems that ADHD is caused by some kind of genetic chemical imbalance in the brain. We don't know why. But it seems to be inherited in families.

FOREMAN: So you're suggesting more you can listen to reports like this, learn from them, but probably a more broad-based approach, look at what you're exposing your child to in terms of preservatives, in terms of chemicals, in terms of cell phone waves, I don't know what it is, but almost everything?

SHU: I think, you know, parents need to make the most of the information that they know at the time. This is a very early study. And so I think parents should take it with a grain of salt and be careful if they are concerned by organic and locally grown produce. Wash and peel their fruits and vegetables. This is not to say that you're supposed to stop washing or stop eating fruits and vegetables because things like fruits and veggies, water and milk are still very important for children.

FOREMAN: And while you're at it, not too many grains of salt either. So -

SHU: Exactly.

FOREMAN: Dr. Shu thanks for coming in. Trying to make sense of all this for all of us.

This may sound a bit like something from Frankenstein. But it's not. Scientists have created life from scratch. No kidding. Scientifically this is a very big deal. We're going to have a big talk about it in just a bit. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: This is something we've never been able to say before. Life as we know it changed this weekend. An American genetics research institute announced that it has produced for the first time ever a synthetic cell that can survive and reproduce on its own. It took 15 years, $30 million and a team of two dozen scientists. But Craig Venter, the man in charge of it all, says they are writing the software of life. Paving the way for dramatic new biofuels, vaccines and medicine. They are also writing the prologue to a whole new debate over the ethics of this business of creating and altering life itself. We are going to get to that in just a moment.

But first let's understand the science. We're fortunate to be joined by David Lynn he is a professor of biomolecular chemistry at Emory University here in Atlanta.

Look, I'm so glad you can be here and you say this is a big deal. The science is above my head. But this is a very big deal?

ROF. DAVID LYNN, EMORY UNIVERSITY: This is really cool, really marvelous. What they've done is figured out how to do molecular transplantation. It's like organ transplant but it is done with molecules. It's done with an organ that they've been able to move into another organism. What this paper does is show you can synthesize and move that synthetic genome out into another genome and have it function like the organism itself.

FOREMAN: So that allows us to then create these things without necessarily having to have the original cell anymore? LYNN: What they did is they took two closely related organisms, two closely related bacteria. The simplest -- from the simplest organisms we know, at least in terms of their genome, and take -- what they proved a few years ago, you can take one genome out of one and put it into the other and it would become the one that they removed the genome from. Now what they have done in this, since we know that genome, have its sequence, effectively proven the function of that genome or sequence, by making the genome separately and now moving that into the organism and converting that organism into the organism from which the genome came from.

FOREMAN: Why would this allow us -- we're talking about new biofuels and medicines and all that. Why would this allow us to do that?

LYNN: Again, I think the best analogy is the transplantation analogy. We discovered many years ago antibiotics that allowed us to tinker with what goes on in an organism that's a pathogenizing us. That really has revolutionized health care in this country. Molecular genetics, started maybe 30 years ago, allowed us to find ways of putting band-aids on things where mistakes have been made within the genome.

FOREMAN: So are you talking about this being the kind of thing that could treat, for example, a genetic problem that we see in a newborn child? You might be able to say before we reach that point, we can do this work?

LYNN: We're not -- we're not --

FOREMAN: We're a long way from that.

LYNN: We're a long way from there. I think what we can do now, we can start to do now with molecular genetics is to start to put band-aids on mistakes in cancer and diabetes and other diseases that we've got. This really is a transplantation.

FOREMAN: You say a band-aid on a mistake on something like cancer. What do you mean?

LYNN: If we have a gene, for example, that's misfunctioning. And not doing what it should has a mutation, in principle molecular genetics gives us the possibility of going in and correcting that mistake.

FOREMAN: In an individual? In a human being?

LYNN: In principle in an individual. We can certainly do it in lower organisms. In principle we can start to do that in humans.

FOREMAN: But scientifically my guess is you're going to tell us we're quite a ways from that? This is a very early step?

LYNN: We're a ways from that. I think what this discovery says is we really can now do transplantation. We can take a genome out of one cell, put it in another cell and express all the information on that genome to control what that cell does. That's -- that is -- in principle as important as transplant surgery. The same concept.

FOREMAN: On a molecular level.

LYNN: It's a molecular level. What they have shown in the simplest organisms that we know they can do that.

FOREMAN: I appreciate you being here. I have one last question; I just want a yes or no to this. Are we correct to say they have created life?

LYNN: That would probably be a step beyond what they could claim. They have created a synthetic biology in the sense that they can take a genome from one organism and put it into another. That genome they move is completely synthetic. They can go in and synthetically modify that genome in ways that they can test what it is that's absolutely required for the chemistry to make something function as a living organism.

FOREMAN: Well thanks for being here. David Lynn from Emory University. We appreciate you trying to explain something to us that's over the head of most of us.

Now let's turn to the obvious ethical questions. The Vatican is weighing in on the creation of the synthetic cell calling it interesting. But stopping short of calling it the creation of life.

Senior CNN Vatican analyst John Allen joins us now from Denver.

Sounds like they're parsing their words a bit in the Vatican, John?

JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST: I think we could say this is a yellow light from the Vatican, basically. That is to say, their concern, of course, here would be that ultimately the end of this could be a kind of eugenics like we saw in Germany in the '30s trying to decide which human traits are desirable, which aren't, trying to suppress the ones that aren't desirable. We all know how that ends.

But as long as you have safeguards in place to ensure that's not where this ends up, I think the Vatican is trying to give cautious thumbs up. They have a troubled history when it comes to the relationship with science. I don't think they want another Galileo case so they are trying to be as positive as they can while also getting their moral concerns on record.

FOREMAN: You raise a question about the ethics of this whole thing. Because I would guess for the people in religion this is tough territory. For example if this technology allowed us to say we'll keep any child - we will be able to fix something like down's syndrome before a child is born, we can solve that problem before they're born, you could make the ethical argument that you shouldn't be tinkering with this life or the ethical argument that you ought to because it's a decent, humane thing to do.

ALLEN: Yes. That's right. I think there's a wide divergence of views on the ethics of this. I think the position that the Vatican has taken since the advent of modern genetic science 30 years ago is that genetic interventions that are therapeutic. That is that are intended to correct genetic defects, to cure or prevent diseases, that kind of thing, basically speaking, they've given a green light for it. I think the concern comes when you have people who are in effect playing god. That is trying to decide which h human characteristics are desirable, which aren't.

I think that enters some territory that from the point of view of a lot of religious believers, certainly not just Catholics, and certainly not just religious believers, that enters some territory that I think a lot of people would find troubling.

FOREMAN: Do you think that this will take any of the heat off the stem cell debate if you can say we now have a way to create these cells that don't really rely on that process?

ALLEN: Well, I think it might. I think the Vatican's effort on the stem cell issue actually, is to try to make the argument that instead of using embryonic stem cells that end up being destroyed, there are actually alternative technologies. Particularly the use of adult stem cells which have proven more productive in direct therapeutic applications. Basically speaking I think the picture here is, the Vatican knows that it has a reputation for a kind of knee-jerk hostility to science. It doesn't want to do that again. It doesn't want to end up refusing one more time to look down Galileo's microscope.

So it's trying to find things that it can support that don't raise these moral sort of red flags about unethical manipulation of human life. I think both on the stem cell thing and also on this new sort of microbiology, the Vatican is going to be looking for ways that it can be positive rather than having to hurl condemnations.

FOREMAN: All right. John Allen thanks so much for your explanation and help in all of this.

Turning to another subject, the EPA says the stuff Bp is using to clear up some of that Gulf oil spill is too toxic. So why on earth is Bp still using it? And is there an alternative?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: Returning to our top story, Bp is defying an EPA order directing the oil giant to use a less toxic dispersant to clean up the oil mess in the Gulf of Mexico. This could become the battle of the news releases. On Thursday the EPZ issued the dispersant directive along with a news release. A few days later Bp shot back in a letter saying their research shows their dispersant is the best one to use.

In the meantime, as our Ed Lavandera discovered hundreds of containers of an alternate, apparently less toxic dispersant, sit idle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Hundreds of containers are just sitting here in the Houston sun. To some it's just another example of the mismanagement of the oil spill. The containers are full of a chemical dispersant called Sea-Brat #4. Why is it sitting here and not in the ocean instead? No one really knows. Especially since Bp is on record saying it will use the stuff.

DOUG SUTTLES, COO, BP: We also have a second product now identified to use called Sea-Brat #4 which we'll begin introducing into the process as well.

LAVANDERA: That's what Bp said almost a week ago. We found the Sea-Brat #4 just sitting here in an industrial park outside of Houston, Texas. You're looking at it. Almost 100,000 gallons of the less toxic dispersant. Guess who ordered it? Bp did. On May 4th, almost three weeks ago.

JOHN SHEFFIELD, PRES. ALABASTER CORP: This is Sea Brat. It's in totes ready for delivery.

LAVANDERA: John Sheffield is president of the company that makes Sea-Brat #4. Do you think its weird stuff is sitting here in the Houston area?

SHEFFIELD: It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous, you know. I think something's intentionally trying to stop us from getting our product in the water.

LAVANDERA: EPA and Coast Guard officials say there's nothing stopping Bp from using Sea-Brat #4. Sheffield says that by now he could be making 50 to 100,000 gallons of dispersant a day. But a Bp spokesman will only say the company had to use what was readily available and stockpiled and it has been asked to find alternatives to the current dispersant directive. That's what they're in the process of doing. Getting a direct answer is even hard for Congress to get as they grilled Bp executive Lamar McKay this week about the issue.

REP. JERROLD NADLER, (D) NEW YORK: Who decided which dispersant to use? Bp?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know.

NADLER: You don't know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know the individual who decided.

NADLER: I didn't ask the individual. Was it Bp who decided or was it the government who decided? Or the National Incident Committee?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know.

NADLER: You don't know. Could you find out for us?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

LAVANDERA: Easier said than done. Still no word on who's making that call while a hundred thousand gallons of potential help sits hundreds of miles away.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Houston.

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FOREMAN: A terrifying scene up in South Dakota. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

(UNIDENTIFED FEMALE): It's really freaking close to the house, Randy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: Storm chasers caught this monster tornado burning through the center north part of the state. Are more on the way? Stay tuned and find out.

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FOREMAN: Part of the St. Louis skyline is tumbling down this weekend, the four-story Washington Avenue sky bridge, look at this. Has become a victim of the wrecking ball? It's expected to take some three weeks to demolish the bridge which is connected to the St. Louis Center Mall to Dillard's Department Store since 1985. Both the mall and Dillard's having closed for several years. Many consider the bridge an eyesore and city leaders are calling this a turning point for St. Louis, hope it is the first step toward revitalizing the down town.

More rough weather on the plains.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That looks like fun, though.

FOREMAN: It does look like fun.

JERAS: Take the wrecking ball and -- yeah.

FOREMAN: Jacqui Jeras here to tell us about the weather, tornadoes out of my old home state of South Dakota.

JERAS: Oh my gosh, have you seen this video? It's amazing. This is just a huge, literally a massive tornado on the ground. Storm chasers caught the pictures of this as this thing was moving over a highway. And there you can see, this is what we would call a wedge tornado where you just see that wide, wide funnel on the ground that way. This thing is at least a half a mile wide, if not greater. It's amazing that nobody was injured in this. It was a pretty rural area, north central parts of the state near the town of Battle. And, wow, some farm sheds were damaged. One home was damaged. Nobody hurt. That's what we like to hear. Nobody hurt. All right. The threat of severe weather is still out there today. The same storm system still on the move. We have got a severe thunderstorm watch in effect for parts of Minnesota over into northwestern parts of Wisconsin. Nothing major popping just yet. But damaging winds and large hail will be a possibility. The severe weather threat stretches from the upper Midwest all the way down into the southern plain states. We don't expect a wide outbreak today. We do think hail will be the primary concern. We could see good hailstones, maybe two inches plus, as these thunderstorms develop across the nation's midsection or so.

Our other big weather story today, the temperatures. Man, we are talking extreme. St. Louis, for example, your temperatures a good 15 degrees above normal. This little heat wave is going to stick around for a while, while you're way cooler than normal across parts of the southwest. Last weather story for you, Tom, is that we're watching an area of disturbed weather; we'll call it, out there in the Atlantic which has a little potential to develop into our first named system of the year. We don't think it'll be too big of a problem.

FOREMAN: Two inch hailstones, disturbed weather. Good times.

What happens when Hollywood does a two-step to the southwest? Well it generates some big bucks and we're not talking about celebrity salaries. How and where the film industry is building up America.

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FOREMAN: Shrek forever after roared into theaters this weekend. Just one of many films heralding the start of Hollywood's rush of summer movies. But you may notice some of your favorite movies taking on a bit of a southwest flare these days. As part of our "Building up America" series, I was in New Mexico this week looking at an ambitious effort there to capture more movie magic for the state's economy. An effort that is producing lights, cameras and a whole lot of action.

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FOREMAN (voice over): What do Transformers, Indiana Jones and "No Country for Old Men" have in common?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is just a deal gone wrong, isn't it?

FOREMAN: They were all made in New Mexico. The film industry here is just going gang busters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really is.

FOREMAN: In the capital, the governor's man in charge of film, Eric Witt, is delighted.

ERIC WITT (ph): its help a lot of people in our local economy. Not just film but all the related industries.

FOREMAN: What is this place right here? WITT (ph): This is an establishment called Advantage Low's. One of the more famous bars in Santa Fe, been here for about 40 years. In this bar they shot "Crazy Heart."

FOREMAN: New Mexico has built this love affair with film through an aggressive campaign that started seven years ago. That's when the state began offering big rebates to filmmakers who would come and hire local workers, buy local products and use local facilities. Like the sprawling new sound stages just outside of Albuquerque. In addition, the state can help cover salaries for local folks being trained for film jobs. As a result, the number of skilled film workers here has gone from 100 to 3,000.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it's very high paying jobs, great benefits.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Construction has really slowed down; this has really been a good way to fill that economic void for jobs.

FOREMAN: This is not an utterly new idea. Thomas Edison's picture company made the first film here more than a century ago. And in the '20s and '30s, cowboy films rode all over the New Mexico range.

FOREMAN (on camera): But what is happening now is much bigger than what was happening back then, even bigger than what was happening 13 years ago when they had five film and video projects in this state. Last year, they had more than 40, and the number keeps growing.

FOREMAN (voice-over): The state estimates 10,000 jobs have been created on the sets and by the dozens of local businesses providing everything from catering to computer animation to big spending film makers.

FOREMAN (on camera): Do you have any idea how much they're spending each year here?

ERIC WITT, OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, NEW MEXICO: They're spending about $300 million a year here right now in hard cash, generating about $1 billion a year now in economic activity as the money circulates through the local economy.

FOREMAN (voice-over): And that ride, by almost all accounts, is just beginning.

JEFF BRIDGES, OTIS "BAD" BLAKE, "CRAZY HEART": Thanks for coming out. So good to be home.

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