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American Morning
Showdown in Wisconsin; Selling Sex on Facebook; Bipolar Disorder and the Brain; Buying and Selling Breast Milk; Christian Dior Fires Designer Galliano
Aired March 02, 2011 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Striking back. Moammar Gadhafi forces storm opposition-controlled towns attacking rebel volunteers with tanks and heavy arms. It's a back and forth battle for the future of Libya that is quickly dissolving into what some say a civil war on this AMERICAN MORNING.
And good morning to you. It's Wednesday, March 2nd. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Kiran Chetry.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: (INAUDIBLE) is fighting back hard. New pictures of Gadhafi. These are live pictures brought to us by Libyan state TV. This is Moammar Gadhafi speaking to supporters in Tripoli, Libya. He is insisting he is still in control of Libya. This has been going on for some time, by the way. Gadhafi's speeches tend to go on for some time.
Five hundred miles away in Eastern Libya, the towns of Brega and Ajdabiya are reeling from air strikes overnight. Government air strikes, pro-Gadhafi forces. We don't know if they're government. They're pro-Gadhafi forces. They could be militia seized control of an area that is home to a large oil refinery.
Later today, a formal request for military help is expected to come from opposition forces in the rebel-controlled city of Benghazi. They want America to declare Libya that no-fly zone and assist with air strikes and weapons. Let's go back to those pictures we've been looking at. These are in Libya. There are journalists there, but many people in the room are pro-Gadhafi. There are Gadhafi supporters. This is Moammar Gadhafi -- I think he'd been speaking, what do you think, over half an hour now?
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: What he's saying -- at one time trying to show he's still in control, but then in his words and rambling at times saying he has no real power, that he's not the president. So he really couldn't resign. He keeps saying the people have the power. And he says he does not even have a parliament to dissolve and he's holding no position with which to step down from.
VELSHI: This is a state. It's important to remember, unlike Egypt or even Tunisia, Bahrain had a weak parliament, a parliament with no authority. In Libya, they've dismantled all civil institutions of government. There are very few governmental institutions and ministries that have any authority at all. So he has constantly maintained he's the head of this people's country anyway. So how can the people be wanting back power from the people? And this is part of his logic that makes this a little more complicated to listen to.
CHETRY: Yes, and again, so movement's happening by the moment really in terms of the control of these key oil towns and whether or not there will be more attacks by people, pro-Gadhafi forces. We'll continue to follow that today.
Meanwhile here at home, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker says his state needs a government, and he unveiled a new budget with major cuts, $1.5 billion in all targeting schools and local governments. Meantime, outside the capital, the protests continue. Two weeks people have taken to the capitol basically living there, protesting the governor's repair bill plan that would cut collective bargaining rights for union workers. And 14 Democratic senators fled the state to prevent a vote on the plan. They are still out of the state. Walker took note of the empty seats during his budget address.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. SCOTT WALKER, (R) WISCONSIN: Above all, let us not lose sight of the fact that we were each elected to represent the people of this state by participating in our democratic process. I applaud the state assembly and those in the state Senate who are in this chamber today for not losing sight of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Part of his budget is based on his attempt to reduce the ability for public workers in Wisconsin to negotiate using collective bargaining rights. If that is passed, it could have a ripple effect on some workers' wages, not just in Wisconsin, but throughout the country.
Christine Romans minding your business talking to us a little bit about why everybody's watching this so closely. There are some people who say to us, why all this attention on Wisconsin?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Because it's not just Wisconsin. This is starting to ripple throughout this country, as you said. And what started in Wisconsin spreading to other states now. And it matters for public employees, taxpayers, and the financial health of these states. The heat of the debate gets all the attention.
In Wisconsin, ending collective bargaining in rights would raise $30 million by July, $300 million over the next couple of years. How? Making teachers' pay more for their health benefits and contribute more to their pensions. It essentially amounts to an eight percent pay cut for teachers.
Governor Walkers doesn't want teachers to collectively bargain for their pay raises. They haven't had a raise in a couple of years. Is this political or balancing a budget? It depends on who you talk to. Governors have choices. So what they do reflects their politics. They can try to raise taxes. He does not want to raise taxes. They can cut programs, cut funding to prisons. What we haven't seen before is ending collective bargaining. That's what makes this budget cutting exercise so different.
CHETRY: And for people who find it outrageous or people who say this is union busting, how would, theoretically, Governor Walker save money if there were no more -- if he could end collective bargaining?
ROMANS: Because right away -- right away he would make the teachers' pay more for their benefits and pensions and immediately that would save money because they have protections in their contracts, in their collective bargaining contracts that limit how much they are contributing. So right away you would say --
VELSHI: One piece that gets lost in this whole thing is they would be paying more for their pensions. They already pay for their pensions, but the pensions like so many pensions in this country are underfunded. Many public unions, many workers have underfunded pensions. So basically the argument on the union side is you guys miscalculated, so why should we, the workers, have to pay more?
ROMANS: It really is a mess and a mess on a lot of different levels. And we've said this before, when the money starts to run out, this is why when you're not making money in the country and running budget deficits, this gets so ugly, because all of these choices are very, very tough.
And this one, critics call it union busting. Say this is union busting. But there are people in Wisconsin who say, no, this is about the public sector having to bear more of the burden too.
VELSHI: It's a tough argument. Thanks, Christine.
Coming up in a few minutes, we're going to get a firsthand account of the budget battle in Wisconsin. We talk to Republican state lawmaker Glenn Grothman and Democrat Jon Erpenbach who is still out of the state.
CHETRY: Today the Senate is expected to follow the lead of the House and approve a stop-gap spending bill to keep the government running for two more weeks. The measure cut spending by some $4 billion. The next part for Republicans and Democrats is much harder, which would be negotiating an agreement on what to spend for the rest of the year.
VELSHI: And the assassin who gunned down Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 will appear before a parole board today. Two psychologists insist Sirhan Sirhan no longer poses a threat to society. He is 66 years old, served 43 years in prison, and this is going to be the 14th parole hearing he's attended since beginning his life sentence.
CHETRY: In a little more than three hours, shuttle astronauts will gear up for their second spacewalk of this mission. Today's focus will be to tackle some smaller tasks. They're installing new cameras. And of course, the whole spacewalk, many of it are broadcast. It's amazing to see, expected to last about six hours.
VELSHI: Do you have any desire to do anything like that in life?
CHETRY: The run-up to it is a lot of commitment. I don't know if I'd pass them up. I don't know if I'd get through that gyroscope thing you do.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: We've got icy Midwest floods. In Indiana water is pouring out of windows, businesses were flooded as rivers overflow across the Midwest. So much snow in the Midwest, remember that, it started to melt. At least five inches of rain fell on Monday on top of all of the melting snow and ice, and that's been complicating things in the Midwest.
CHETRY: Crews in Florida are still struggling to get two major wildfires under control. These fires have burned 18,000 acres in two counties along Florida's east coast. We told you about that busy part of I-95 that was shut down. It has since reopened. But officials say that the highway could be closed again today since the flames are only about 25 percent contained and they're worried about the winds shifting. One home was destroyed and entire neighborhoods are still in jeopardy because of it.
(WEATHER REPORT)
VELSHI: Next on "American Morning," Wisconsin's Republican governor and state Democrats are locked in a political stalemate over bargaining rights for union workers. Neither side is giving up. We're going to talk to lawmakers on both sides of the issue and find out exactly what each side has to gain from preserving or eliminating collective bargaining rights.
CHETRY: She's on a bad run of headlines recently. Christina Aguilera in some trouble again, allegedly too drunk to get herself home. She ended up briefly in jail. It's ten minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has released his budget plan for the next two years, a plan that he says justifies cutting bargaining rights of union workers. The issue has touched off a political fire fight in Wisconsin and beyond.
So we're joined now by Republican Glenn Grothman, assistant majority leader in Wisconsin state senate. He is in Madison, Wisconsin. and Democrat Jon Erpenbach is one of 14 Democratic senators still in political exile. They're postponing the vote set to cut union bargaining power.
Let me start with you, Senator Erpenbach. Let's discuss this for a second. What is the issue now? The unions have agreed to many of the concessions that Governor Walker's looking for. The issue is coming down to collective bargaining rights. Why are these collective bargaining rights so important to preserve for these public workers in Wisconsin?
STATE SEN. JON ERPENBACH, (D) WISCONSIN: Well, you're talking about the birthplace of collective bargaining for public workers. We firmly believe that it's anybody's right to sit down and talk with their employer collectively about their job.
Some people think the public employees are the problem. Actually they are part of the answer. They've offered up every single penny the governor has asked for. At this point we'd like to hear that the governor at least acknowledges the fact that the public workers have given them the money, every single penny he's asked for.
VELSHI: Senator Grothman, that's a fact. The governor hasn't really made that point. What do you save in the budget by eliminating these collective bargaining rights? What's the line item you get? What's the win you get for doing that?
STATE SEN. GLENN GROTHMAN, (R) WISCONSIN: You save a lot of money in collective bargaining. Governor Walker is a very moderate Republican. He is doing is same thing that Jimmy Carter did when he was president. Jimmy Carter took away collective bargaining from federal employees. And Barack Obama and the Democrats when they were in charge a year ago, they kept getting rid of collective bargaining rights for federal employees.
Scott Walker, a moderate Republican, is continuing to allow it over wages, but it costs too much to continue to have to bargain over work rules with these public employees.
VELSHI: Senator, let me ask you specifically, because I know you gentlemen are really, really involved in this and we as journalists are really involved. For the rest of the viewers who aren't, what part of collective bargaining is expensive to you? What are you saving on? Is it seniority? Is it tenure for teachers? What's the thing that actually saves, because it's not expensive to sit and have negotiations, so what's the expensive part?
GROTHMAN: Oh, the expense collective bargaining is you can't tell people what to do. If you want to have the teachers meet after school for half an hour, you can't do that. If you want a teacher to watch the lunchroom, you can't do that.
Here in Madison, they're paying overtime to bus drivers. You couldn't hire new bus drivers without collective bargaining. Whenever you try to save money and make government more efficient, you have to go through the union. That's very expensive.
VELSHI: Senator Erpenbach, let's have a response to that. So few of the workers in this country now are members of unions. About 12 percent. When you look at public service workers, it is shrinking. Senator Grothman is right about federal public service workers having lost that right. What is the argument here? Because the trend is against very, very strong collective bargaining rights for unions.
ERPENBACH: Well, one of the things at least at the public level, collective bargaining represents accountability for taxpayers. It's a lot easier to fire a public employee when there's not a union. It's a lot easier to contract out for those jobs.
You know, you can lay of a snowplow driver in Wisconsin, but it's still going to snow. The work still needs to be done. So at the very least what taxpayers get out of collective bargaining, again, understand full well that everybody understands the nation that the public employees have given up every penny that the governors ask for to help balance this budget, collective bargaining gives us accountability. If something goes wrong, we can hold a public employee directly accountable. You can't hold a contractor directly accountable.
VELSHI: Senator Grothman, where are we on this.
GROTHMAN: Jon?
VELSHI: Go ahead.
GROTHMAN: Well, in this budget, you still have civil service protection. Civil service protection gives these public employees far more protections against layoffs, or far more protections against being left cold than most private sector employers. That is not true. They will still have great protections against --
VELSHI: Senator Erpenbach, are you heading back to Madison at any point? When are you guys going to come back to the state capital?
ERPENBACH: Well, we would love to go back today. That's a great question. We could up in Madison in a couple of hours and we could vote on this if they would agree to drop the union-busting language that the governor insists on holding on to. The budget is all about balancing dollars. That's all it's about. And the collective bargaining language has absolutely nothing to do with the money. As a matter of fact, the money isn't even an issue anymore. The governor has his money, so we would love to come home and vote on this.
GROTHMAN: It is an issue.
ERPENBACH: We just want -- no, it's not an issue, because he's got the money, Glenn. You know that. It's all about balancing the budget and you've got the money.
VELSHI: All right.
GROTHMAN: Who has the money?
ERPENBACH: So we'd love to get rid of the language.
VELSHI: We'd love for you guys to continue to talk about it and come to some agreement on the whole matter. Thanks for joining us and spending some time to make it clearer to our viewers.
Senator Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin State senator in Madison, Wisconsin, and Senator Jon Erpenbach, Wisconsin State senator in Chicago, thanks for being us.
We're going to be right back in -- well, it's 18 minutes after the hour. We'll be back in just a couple of minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-one minutes past the hour right now.
Mike Huckabee claims that President Obama's view of the world differs from most Americans because he was raised in Kenya. The president actually grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, but we want you to listen to some of the comments that he made yesterday in an interview with a New York radio station.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOICE OF MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: I would love to know more, but what I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya. His view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Again, Huckabee is the former Arkansas governor and potential 2012 presidential candidate for Republicans. He's currently a FOX News host. His spokesman says that he simply misspoke and that he meant to say Indonesia not Kenya.
Well, Christina Aguilera held in jail for public intoxication. Police say that she was a passenger in her boyfriend's car, was given a DUI earlier yesterday morning. He also took Aguilera to a West Hollywood jail for her own safety because they say she was too drunk to safely get home by herself. Police say though they will not be pressing any charges against her.
VELSHI: A dramatically slimmer queen of soul. This is Aretha Franklin last year. Take a look at this before she underwent surgery for an undisclosed illness back in December. Take a look at her now. She's at least 25 pounds lighter. The gospel legend spoke to "Jet" magazine about her weight loss secrets. She has a personal trainer. She says she's drinking a lot more water and cutting down on the quarter pounders. Says she wants to be a size 16 by her 69th birthday on March 25th.
CHETRY: She looks like she lost a lot more than 25 pounds.
VELSHI: Yes, yes. Totally the picture makes it look that way.
CHETRY: Amazing.
Well, addiction and mental illness. In light of Charlie Sheen's erratic behavior, there are many wondering if he is suffering from bipolar disorder and how the illness may be related. We're going to talk to Sanjay Gupta about that.
VELSHI: And it's a new take on "The Social Network." Prostitutes in New York City allegedly selling sex on Facebook. We'll talk with legal analyst Sunny Hostin about this next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Some shocking statistics this morning about Facebook and prostitution. Here's what a sociologist at Columbia University found after following prostitutes in New York City for a year. Twenty-five percent on average of the prostitutes find their clients through Facebook. The research found that 83 percent of the women had a Facebook page. And that's raising questions about the responsibility that Facebook has to stop it.
CHETRY: Yes. I mean, escort agency is still the top one, but again, Facebook coming in at number two, which is pretty amazing. Legal analyst Sunny Hostin has been looking into this. She contributes to "In Session" on our sister network truTV.
Good to have you with us in this morning on this issue.
SUNNY HOSTIN, LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR, "IN SESSION" ON TRUTV: Good to be here.
CHETRY: So, you know, these social networking sites, the oldest profession finding a way to infiltrate social media.
HOSTIN: It's unbelievable. And you're right, it's the oldest profession in the book, right, in the world. They have found -- the working girls have found Facebook. There's no question about it.
I am not necessarily that Internet savvy and I will tell you I got on Facebook and I started looking around and it was shocking. I mean, wow. Sex just everywhere. My husband walked in and was like, what are you looking at?
VELSHI: Yes.
HOSTIN: It was that easy to find. So I was very surprised that it was there in your face. In fact, the "New York Daily News" did an article on this story and they talked about this woman Molly Ravish (ph) and how she was just sort of really selling her wares on Facebook. Well, I pulled up Molly Ravish very easily and here's her Facebook page. And what's interesting to me is she says some of her friends with benefits say why does your page get deleted? That "Daily News" bleep on Sunday wasn't right. She says LOL, which means laughing out loud, "I know they deleted it because it was solicitation."
Well, I will tell you, I then got back on. She now has a fan page. I clicked on her fan page, led me to her web page, and she was selling her wares there.
VELSHI: Right.
HOSTIN: I'm a former sex crimes prosecutor. It made me blush. So you can imagine.
VELSHI: Now, Facebook did offer this comment. They said, "We will take down content, disable accounts, and may take further action including escalating illegal activity to law enforcement. We strictly enforce this policy through proactive investigations and response to user reports." And, of course, we saw something like this happening on Craigslist a little while ago.
HOSTIN: Right.
VELSHI: They then reviewed their policies and part of the issue is that these prostitutes can't find a home on Craigslist as easily as they used to be. Does Facebook need to do this?
HOSTIN: They don't need to do it. And I think that's really commendable of them. They want to be good corporate citizens. But there's a federal law that says Web sites aren't really responsible for content that's put up by third parties. And doesn't that make sense? I mean, they have 500 million users.
VELSHI: Right.
HOSTIN: They get one billion pieces of content downloaded a day. They get two million, my understanding, two million sort of reports of alleged inappropriate comments put on a week.
VELSHI: Right. Wow.
HOSTIN: And so they can't possibly police it, but they try to do it and they're trying to be good --
VELSHI: But they're not using the arguments that this isn't our responsibility, we're not going to do any of it.
HOSTIN: They're not. They're taking responsibility. If you look at their terms of service, Ali, it's really clear. They say you cannot post pornographic material. You can't do this kind of thing, but people are doing it.
CHETRY: And then how vigorously they pursue it is another thing. I mean, they're not the traffic cops as you said for 500 million people. But it is an interesting -- the other thing is when you get into the issue of having to do with minors or trying to get to minors, that's a whole different story.
HOSTIN: Sure.
VELSHI: Right.
HOSTIN: Yes.
CHETRY: I mean, is there an online investigative presence when it comes to these social networking sites? Or is it, hey, it's private?
HOSTIN: No, Facebook is, you know, they have a security officer, a privacy officer, and they are working. They're on the case. And so I really commend them. But as parents, you know, let me put my mommy hat on and take my lawyer hat off, you really have to monitor your children's use.
VELSHI: Right. HOSTIN: Because it was so very easy for me to get on. These kids really know how to get on the Internet. They have Facebook pages. Parents, you know, beware, you've got to monitor.
VELSHI: Yes. That's always the best advice. Thanks, Sunny, great to see you.
HOSTIN: Thank you.
VELSHI: All right.
It is 28 minutes after the hour. Time for your top stories.
Moammar Gadhafi is fighting back. He's holding a news conference now. These are live pictures from Libyan state TV. This has been going on for about an hour now or longer. A bit of a rambling speech to supporters and some journalists in there. He's telling them that he is still in control of Libya. His troops used air strikes to seize back two eastern towns overnight. Home to a huge refinery, one of them is.
CHETRY: Also, it looks like federal government, the federal government will remain open for business at least for another two weeks. Republican-controlled House was able to pass a stopgap measure to keep the government funded. They call it the continuing resolution. The Senate is expected to follow suit today. But it still is a temporary fix. The two parties need to negotiate the long- term spending deal.
VELSHI: And the assassin who gunned down Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 will appear before a parole board in California today. Sirhan Sirhan has two noted psychologists on his side who insist he's no longer a threat to society. He's 66 years old and has served nearly 43 years in prison. This is going to be his 14th parole hearing that he's attended since beginning his life sentence.
Charlie Sheen's recent erratic behavior has led some to speculate that the actor may have a mental illness known as bipolar disorder. Nearly six million American adults are bipolar but very few people talk openly about this chronic condition.
CNN's chief medical correspondent, my good friend, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is live in Atlanta. He's got some light on some mental illness. This mental illness. Sanjay, is it easy to tell if somebody's bipolar? It's an expression that's used a lot, disparagingly. But can you really tell if somebody is bipolar?
All right. Sanjay's trying to keep it a secret from me. I'm going to try to get him to actually tell us the answer to that in just a second. We'll get back to Sanjay in just a second. Stay with us. We'll be right back. But you've got another story coming up.
CHETRY: Yes, it's going to be an interesting one. We all know that you're highly encouraged to breast-feed. I mean, even the surgeon general made a national call to action about it. But what if you are unable to breastfeed, coming up after the commercial break, we're going to talk a little bit more about this cottage industry that's cropping up on the internet about buying other people's breast milk. Is it safe? And why are so many people doing it? We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. We've got Sanjay back. Charlie Sheen's recent erratic behavior has led some people to think he may have a mental illness known as bipolar disorder. It's common, nearly six million American adults are bipolar. Very few people openly talk about this chronic condition.
Sanjay's with us in Atlanta to shed some light on this mental illness. Sanjay, it's an expression you use - one hears tossed around a lot, bipolar disorder. How do you actually know if somebody does suffer from bipolar disorder?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting, and it's an opportunity now to talk about something we don't talk about enough, Ali. When you talk about bipolar illness, there are specific criteria, which psychiatrists will look at to try and figure out if someone, in fact, has two sort of different disorders.
One being the manic episodes that people go through with bipolar, people feel very euphoric, they have jumpy, agitated behavior, rush or racing speech, impulsive behavior. These are just general ideas of the way the person may behave. And also the other side of the bipolar, the depressive episodes where someone overly depressed, hopeless, loss of interest, change in eating and sleeping, thoughts of suicide but Ali, I think what you're alluding to and I think is fair is that sometimes these can seem subjective. How long do they have to last for someone to truly be diagnosed? And how do you know if someone is actually benefiting or responding in some way to treatment? And this is what I think is fascinating, Ali.
I wanted to talk about this for some time. This idea that you can now actually get objective measurements. If someone is, in fact, having problems with either mania or depression and actually be able to objectify that. What I'm showing you here are functional MRI scans. These are not available widely. This is where in some ways the field is headed.
Take a look over here on the left. First of all, these brains on the left, these are normal brains. Pay attention up here, the frontal lobe, it is activating. Why is that important? The frontal lobe, Ali, sort of think of that as the filter. It actually makes you think about something before you say it, think about something before you do it.
Now, look over here on the right, much less activity in those frontal lobe areas. That's important. The filter sort of off. You can probably guess what this sort of brain is emblematic of, a representative of, it is someone who is in a manic episode, someone who has not have the filter on. And again, the idea, why I think this is so fascinating, Ali, is this idea that you can take brain MRIs now, functional MRIs and get a real sense if someone is, in fact, having a depressive episode or a manic episode.
This would be really, really bright if someone is having a depressive episode that filters on strongly. Everything is sort of thought about, you analyze everything, maybe too much and that can be the brain of someone in the depression -
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: You know, Charlie Sheen said in an interview - in fact, it was with Piers Morgan where he said, "you know, people are saying I'm manic and that means there's going to be a crash coming." So he's sort of hitting that part of it, head on. But how much of that sort of behavior, specifically the lack of filter that you talk about. How much of that is quite likely sociological or psychological as opposed to neurological?
GUPTA: Well, it's hard to say. And again, you know, I don't know anything about Charlie Sheen specifically here. But this idea that, you know, whatever the reason may be, whether it may be due to a particular chemical change in the brain or something that, you know, is a result of experiences is unclear. This may actually shed some more light on that, as well, but the idea, again, that you can objectify when someone is having one of these episodes, diagnose it in some way. And also I think most importantly, Ali, maybe to what you're alluding, if someone is treated, does it change their brain? You know that the treatment has worked now through some sort of objective measurements.
This is a whole different way of thinking about mental illness. And again, it's not available for everybody yet, but this is where it's headed.
VELSHI: Very interesting stuff. Sanjay, always a pleasure learning stuff from you. Dr. Sanjay Gupta in Atlanta.
GUPTA: You got it. Thanks, Ali.
CHETRY: Well, new mothers are not just going on-line for child rearing advice. In a growing number of cases, they're going on-line to get breast milk. Web sites like EatsOnFeets and OnlyTheBreast connect mothers with women who have extra breast milk. They connect mothers with extra breast milk to mothers in need of the so-called liquid gold.
And these web sites have doctors concerned saying that the milk is, of course, unscreened. It's passed from mother to mother, not tested, and it could expose the baby to drugs or infectious disease like HIV.
Joining me now to discuss the risks and the potential upside as well is Dr. Lori Feldman Winter, professor of pediatrics at Cooper University Hospital. Thanks so much for being with us this morning.
It's something that we all found fascinating because we as new mothers and young mothers have always been told that breastfeeding is quite important. I mean, it seems that the pendulum has swung back in the direction that breastfeeding exclusively for six months is what's truly best for your child. And for some people, that's a lot of pressure.
DR. LORI FELDMAN-WINTER, PROFESSOR OF PEDIATRICS, COOPER UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: It may be pressure, but in our society, more and more women are getting the message that there's no question there's more evidence every day that breastfeeding exclusively for six months and continued breastfeeding for at least a year is definitely the best way to nourish and nurture a baby for the best health outcomes for the baby as well as the mother. So more women in the United States are choosing to breastfeed, 75 percent or so are at least starting to breastfeed.
CHETRY: And we will get more back to those numbers, as well, because people that tried initially and then are not able to continue it for the recommended time is another issue. But I want to ask about this whole notion of getting milk from donors on-line.
First of all, you do prescribe a prescription for breast milk for premature and sickly babies because it's very important. How is that different than what's happening here?
FELDMAN-WINTER: Right. So we say when mothers can't breastfeed or they can't produce their own milk for their own babies, the next best choice is donor milk. And the donor milk that we're speaking about is milk that's acquired through recognized milk banks under the umbrella of HMBANA, Human Milk Banking Association of North America. And that milk is treated through a method of pasteurization to make sure that there aren't infections that are spread through that milk. Also those mothers are screened to make sure that they're not using substances such as medications or elicit substances that could be harmful. So we do recommend donor milk and it can be life-saving for premature infants to receive that donor milk if mother's own milk is not available. CHETRY: So let's take a look at what it would cost, though, because there are people who say, "you know, I'd love to get it from a milk bank." It can cost $45 an ounce and a baby can drink 25 to 30 oz. So you're talking maybe $100 to $150 a day. And some of these women who have been using these, I guess, non-screened breast milk women that they've met on-line say, "Look, I can get it for $1 to $3 an ounce," and so that's why I have to try to explore other options.
FELDMAN-WINTER: That's true. For a full-term baby, at the volumes of what a full-term baby would feed, buying milk from one of those HMBANA milk banks would be cost-prohibitive for those families. So then mothers choose to find mothers milk, donor milk in some other way. And what's been happening is that these web sites have popped up all over the internet where mothers acquire milk.
CHETRY: Do you think they're bad?
FELDMAN-WINTER: So we do not recommend this type of casual sharing of human milk. Because for many reasons, primarily because that milk is not treated. So it doesn't go through the method of pasteurization that would eliminate infections. In addition, the milk is not from screened mothers.
CHETRY: Right. FELDMAN-WINTER: And there's no quality control of what that product really is that the mother is getting.
CHETRY: It's interesting that because some of the stories, the personal stories you'll hear is I've developed a relationship with this person. This person understands, a new mother herself, who has extra milk understands how heartbreaking it is for me that I don't and so it's interesting because there's human contact that's established through the internet and has enabled some of these mothers to feel as though they can trust where they're getting this milk.
FELDMAN-WINTER: Yes and I think that speaks to the generations upon generations of women that have used wet nursing throughout the years. And so there has been a culture for many years of recognizing the value of wet nursing. When a mother couldn't breast-feed her own baby. And in fact, in generations past, that was a life-saving way to keep a baby alive and nourished.
But now we have new conditions that we're faced with, which is HIV infection. And we didn't have those conditions in the past. So not only do we have new conditions, but we have recognition that some of the harms of things that can transfer into human milk. And I think it's incumbent upon us to be wise and prudent before recommending unscreened -
CHETRY: But bottom line, are we putting too much pressure on women? I mean, you talked about 77 percent of new moms trying breastfeeding that whittles down only to about 33 percent who can continue doing it for the recommended six months. I mean, at the end of the day, is your kid going to be OK if they have formula instead of breast milk?
FELDMAN-WINTER: So at the end of the day, there's no question that there's a difference between the baby receiving human milk versus the baby who is not. Either a combination of breast-feeding or formula feeding. There's no question that the best thing to do is give exclusive breastfeeding. And the question really comes up, why are these internet sites popping up so often? It's because not only 33 percent do any breastfeeding at six months, but only 13 percent of our nation's women are able to exclusively breastfeed for six months. So it's so few women that can actually make it to what our recommendations are for breastfeeding.
So we have to ask ourselves why? Why is it so many people start out breast-feeding and yet our culture and our society and many pieces of our culture don't support our women's ability to be able to continue breastfeeding exclusively?
CHETRY: Well, that's another big conversation. We'll have that for another day. But Dr. Lori Feldman-Winter, thanks so much for joining us. Good to get your take this morning on this story.
FELDMAN-WINTER: You're welcome.
CHETRY: I want to take a quick break. 43 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. We are Minding Your Business this morning. A federal judge has ruled that the NFL violated the collective bargaining agreement with the players union. The judge cited the league's renegotiation of network TV contracts, which required a $4 billion payment to owners, regardless of whether there is a work stoppage or not.
Now, the players' association claims the owners are using the war chest as leverage in the labor fight. The two sides just completed eight days of mediation. The league's current CBA, collective bargaining agreement expires at midnight Eastern Time tomorrow night.
CHETRY: Well, now might be a good time to dig through your old o income tax records. The IRS says it has more than $1 billion in unclaimed funds for 2007. It's interesting, we talk -- we do this right around tax time every year. If you think you're entitled to the money, you got to hurry, though, because the deadline for making a claim is coming up next month.
VELSHI: It is 47 minutes after the hour. Let's get a quick check of the morning's weather headlines.
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VELSHI: All right, top stories minutes away. Also the government is experimenting on prisoners -- or the government has in the past experimented on prisoners and the mentally ill. We know it's happened before. Could it happen again? We're going to talk about the new effort to make sure a dark moment of history doesn't repeat itself.
Well, same leg room, same long wait, but twice the price. Why you may want to book your next flight right now before prices spike.
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CHETRY: Well, it's an end of an era at French fashion house Christian Dior. John Galliano who Dior's chief designer, fired after tapes surfaced, showing him an anti-Semitic tirade.
VELSHI: And it was likely not his first outburst. Alina Cho is tracking the latest developments for us. This story has gone from being sort of a niche interesting sidebar to a very, very big deal in the fashion world.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And imagine news of his termination, if you will, came on the first day of Paris Fashion Week. So you can imagine the fashion world is certainly abuzz and everybody is talking about this story. You're right.
John Galliano has long been fashion's bad boy. Considered a genius in the industry, but also a designer with a dark side who has long fought demons like drinking. People who know him say there were some warnings signs. His right hand on the creative side died recently and the pressure of creating 14 collections a year was immense. But nobody, not even his closest friends, could have predicted this. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHO (voice-over): His collections wowed the fashion world, and John Galliano had his own signature style. But the designer showman's biggest spectacle to date is this.
JOHN GALLIANO, DESIGNER: I love Hitler. People are like you would be dead today. Your mothers, your forefathers would be (EXPLETIVE DELETED) gassed and (EXPLETIVE DELETED) dead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Do you have a problem, huh?
GALLIANO: With you? You are ugly.
CHO: Britain's "Sun" newspaper said the incident happened in October at a trendy Paris cafe the same cafe where Galliano just last week was arrested for allegedly making similar racist comments. Through a lawyer, he's denied the charges, but once the tape emerged, Christian Dior took steps to fire him.
JAMES FALLON, EDITOR, WOMEN'S WEAR DAILY: John Galliano was slightly the Charlie Sheen of the fashion world. So, it's like, what do you do?
CHO: Christian Dior is owned by the world's largest luxury conglomerate, LVMH.
FALLON: Looking at the design talent they simply have in-house, it's the New York Yankees in a way. I mean, they have a strong bench. You know, Mark Jacobs, Ricardo Tisci.
CHO: Ricardo Tisci, who some called the front-runner to replace Galliano, designed Cate Blanchett's gown at the Oscars. Nicole Kidman and Sharon Stone, both were Dior, but the company's newest face, Natalie Portman, did not.
FALLON: It's probably one of the biggest stories in fashion history, I would say. This kind of fall from grace is extremely rare in this business.
CHO: Can he recover?
FALLON: It would be surprising.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHO: And Natalie Portman, who is Jewish, released a statement saying she's deeply shocked and disgusted by the video and quote, "I will not be associated with Mr. Galliano in any way."
But what about Christian Dior? The Dior show, which is always one of the big highlights of Paris Fashion Week will go on as planned on Friday. The clothes have been made, the models have been booked and the reality is Christian Dior is a billion dollar brand. This is a very big business and it's one of the jewels of LVMH. VELSHI: Are people going to not buy their stuff because of this? Or do they separate this from John Galliano?
CHO: I think the smart people in fashion say that Christian Dior acted swiftly before there was even a hint of taint on the brand, if you will. The bigger question is what is Galliano's future? And who is next in line at Christian Dior? This is a famous French brand with a rich history. A lot of people are watching the story certainly.
VELSHI: Thanks, Alina.
CHO: You bet.
CHETRY: We will take a quick break. Your top stories coming up in 90 seconds.
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