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At This Hour

U.S. Could Increase Airport Screenings; Ebola Patient May Get Experimental Drugs; Obama Defends Economic Policies Ahead of Election; Enterovirus Blamed for Child's Death.

Aired October 06, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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


MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: 13 have already banned travel or travel to some of the Ebola hot spots and they've banned both ways to and from and there are 10 airlines now that have banned travel. The reason is you're looking at a much smaller pool.

Think about that. We have 547 airports, 162 of them are international airports and 106 are points of entry and we're about to hit flu season. Are we really going to believe that the CDC -- and it can't be the FAA, they don't have the power, it's going to be the CDC -- is going to screen everyone coming and going from this country or do we want to be practical and use common sense like the African countries are doing and limit our pool to those that we are restricting travel from the Ebola hot spots? It just makes common sense.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: What's interesting here, Mary, Mary Schiavo is often the person who calms everyone down. This is a case, Juliette, where she says ban the flights coming from the Ebola hot zone. Do you think that would be helpful coming from where you are based on your experience trying to contain threats like this?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It will be help in the sense that it is, as Mary said, like a hatchet. It will no make government distinguish between pools of people. We're just going to anyone from those countries. So I have to believe -- and I think administration hasn't been very clear on why they're not using that yet. It is because they think it will be ineffective given the two to 10 to 20-day incubation period?

In other words, someone could go from West Africa to London, hang out for a few days and come here or we wouldn't detect them or is it because there's an issue involving our troop deployment there, which I wonder if given the fact we're sending 3,000 plus troops, are they worried that will be perceived that the closing of the airport will be perceived as a hostile act. So they'll start with greater surveillance and I think eventually they'll close the airports. If it's that obvious, you have to believe there's a better counter reason than what we've been hearing from the administration.

MICHAEL PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: We are seeing right across the screen, "U.S. could increase airport screenings. Mary, others are suggesting we could just be more stringent about the screening both on the outbound flight and then also when it's arriving in again because of that incubation period and because often times you're counting on people's own honesty. That's a challenge in and of its own. You broke down the numbers for us, 106 points of entry into the United States.

SCHIAVO: Well, that's exactly right and because of the screening has so many unknowns and so many ways that you can miss it, the gentleman in Dallas fighting for his life. Under no screening would he have been detected but he would have been detected if we simply said, "look, if you're traveled to these areas you are not allowed entry." And there's exemptions. There's exemptions for humanitarian reasons, citizens of the U.S. and green card holders. So it's a more sensible, practical common-sense way. And how do you tell? You look at their passports, where they have been within the last month.

BERMAN: But we let people into this country with things that are more contagious than Ebola. None of us is a doctor but we've listened to doctors talk over the last few weeks as this has become an issue. You can't get it through the air. You get it through blood. You get it through bodily fluids. There is a community of medical professionals who are convinced that it is not a threat to come in via aviation if you take simple steps like screening people before they get on a plane and maybe taking a second look when they're getting off. Juliette?

KAYYEM: We dealt with this with H1N1 because the Department of Homeland Security had anticipated a virus from Asia like SARS, then under the Obama administration, the first thing came from next door. And there was a lot of political pressure to, quote/unquote, "close the borders." You can't. Our boarders are too porous, we have too much commerce. So then you focus on defensive measures like what you're saying, greater surveillance, surge capacity for states, social distancing protocols that we saw in Texas. We're nowhere near that in terms of Ebola and the threat that Ebola does. But, of course, as Mary says, you know, it's not the flu. If you get Ebola, you are going to get very sick. So we may see just a process of ratcheting up until we determine how threatening this is for the U.S.

PEREIRA: Juliette, Mary, our thanks to you.

As we go to break, we want to let you know we're getting word from Elizabeth Cohen that there are some late-breaking developments about the patient in Dallas, Thomas Duncan. He may be getting experimental drugs. We'll have more details for you on this after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: We have breaking news out of Dallas about possible treatments for the one person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.

I want to go straight away to Elizabeth Cohen for the news on this.

Elizabeth, what can you tell us?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, yesterday, I asked Thomas Frieden, the head of the CDC, is Mr. Duncan getting -- is the Dallas patient getting any experimental treatments, and he said no. So I called back a federal official today and I said, "Is that still true,? " and the federal official said that is not still true. He said to the best of his knowledge Mr. Duncan was getting an experimental drug. I talked to a family member of Mr. Duncan's and he said. Yes, he's

getting an experimental drug called Brincidofovir. Brincidofovir is an anti-viral drug that is still in the experimental stage. So I called Chimerix, the company who makes Brincidofovir, and they said, well, on Friday we received permission from the Food and Drug Administration do give this drug to Ebola patients and we went to the FDA at the request of a treating physician, a physician treating someone with Ebola in the United States. We called the folks here at Presbyterian and said, were you these physicians that made that request, they haven't gotten back to us -- John?

PEREIRA: Any sense of how long it would take for Mr. Duncan to start feeling the effects of this anti-viral, since it's experimental in its early stages, very little is known of how to it will react in humans.

COHEN: Right. If he is getting Brincidofovir, there's been indication that it could work against Ebola so this isn't something that's just totally out of the blue the question is, if he's getting it, will it work for him since this is relatively late in the game? He's been sick now for quite a while and these drugs usually work best when they're given early on.

But, Michaela and John, I don't know if you remember a young boy by the name of Josh Hardy. He had a viral infection and he was at death's door and they got permission to use Brincidofovir and he survived. So this drug has a track record of having success against a variety of viral illnesses.

BERMAN: It's interesting, this is a different treatment than ZMapp, the drug given to some of the Ebola patients brought to the United States from Africa but I heard something over the weekend that was surprising, we're out of ZMapp.

COHEN: Right, no more ZMapp. I know everyone got so excited about this secret serum which isn't secret and isn't a serum but there was excitement because it appears it might have helped the two patients at Emory.

There are a variety of drugs that might help against Ebola. I did a story with a doctor in Africa who said he was having success with an HIV drug.

And John and Michaela, so there's something we're seeing right knew is the wild west of medicine. Americans go to the doctor and it's had big time clinical trials and approved by the FDA. This is, hey, let's try something because we don't have anything that's proven to work against Ebola.

PEREIRA: Given how sick Duncan was, they were saying he slid into critical condition, I think they were trying to take tremendous and heroic efforts to save this man's life. We'll be hearing more about this.

Elizabeth, thanks for bringing it to our attention.

BERMAN: Let's hope. PEREIRA: President Obama is defending his economic policies ahead of

the midterm elections. Why are Republicans cheering what he said? We'll tackle that with our political panel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not on the ballot this fall. Michelle's pretty happy about that.

(LAUGHTER)

But make no mistake, these policies are on the ballot, every single one of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What you see there is a Republican television commercial -- several, actually, across the country. Republican candidates are already using that line to tie their Democratic opponents to an on popular president.

Even former Obama advisor, David Axelrod, the keeper of the Obama flame, called that line "problematic."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: David Axelrod, you're not writing President Obama's speeches anymore, but if you were would you have --

(CROSSTALK)

DAVID AXELROD: I would not have but understand if you read the speech, the context of the line was, the things he's pushing forward, minimum wage, pay equity, infrastructure, and he said these are on the ballot. But the way -- it was obvious when you saw the speech that that was not the way --

UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: You're an ad man. That's --

(CROSSTALK)

AXELROD: It was a mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: It was a mistake, Axelrod said. Some Republican campaigns wasted zero times crafting this attack ad.

Even Margaret went "oops."

(LAUGHTER)

We have CNN political commentators, Sally Kohn and Margaret Hoover.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Do you think anybody in the White House estimate how old quickly Republicans would sort of jump on this and say let's make it part of our campaign?

SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's three points. One is on substance he's right. This is the interesting thing about Democrats and the president. The policies are effective from wanting to raise the minimum wage. People like that, the American people, even Republicans like that. Every economic measure of the economy by every measure is doing better so on policy even Obamacare now, people like it. On policy, he's right. Here's the thing, Democrats have always been better at policy and worse at politics. That is a truism of American politics.

PEREIRA: The face. Love Margaret's face.

KOHN: But if Axelrod thought it was stupid, he gave it more play by calling it stupid and that was really, really a mistake.

BERMAN: But the president believed what he said. Why isn't he going to campaign, then, in these swing states if he was really proud and he really wants these issues on the ballot and he really thinks they're selling points, go to North Carolina.

KOHN: He knows he's not popular.

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He's not popular because, frankly, his policies are not popular. This is not a personality test. This is the policies. The Obamacare as writ large as a law is not popular. The economy really hasn't rebounded. You're starting to see some numbers, still thousands and thousands of people dropped out of the work force, that hasn't recovered so there are critical problems with the economy, with health care.

But also now you have journalists being beheaded. But you seem to have this lack of real clear response in foreign policy that exudes leadership and it's not hurting with the Republicans, it's hurting with Independents. And that's the key to the selection. So when you have candidate in Kansas who's an Independent who's not well define, and you have this statement coming out, it allows them to draw a direct line between candidates that haven't well defined themselves directly to the president, and that hurts. That's why this was terrible strategy on the part of the president, on behalf of the White House. It was clearly a mistake.

BERMAN: If it's such a political disaster for the White House and if everything is such a political disaster from the White House, as you just painted it, why are we looking at the whole Senate hanging in the balance? Why is there one seat that is undecided? Why aren't they going to win 20 seats?

(CROSSTALK)

HOOVER: Because we all know this isn't a national election. This is state by state and it depends on how individual Senators are doing or individual candidates are doing in these races.

(CROSSTALK)

HOOVER: The facts on the ground are different.

KOHN: If we look at that, traditionally, in a midterm election, the party of the president loses. So the fact that they may hold on to the Senate is actually a pretty big test.

(CROSSTALK)

HOOVER: The reality is the Republicans don't win the Senate. It's a how long pox on the Republican Party. I understand that.

KOHN: There you go. The reality is that this White House really stinks at politics but on policy, again, they poll well. Even what they're doing with ISIS, Obama --

(CROSSTALK)

KOHN: Month after a month of straight. No, but the people support what the president is doing even while they are having doubts about his leadership and that's saying something about the Republican's tact.

PEREIRA: I want to take a step back from the -- one line? Is that really --

KOHN: Yes. We are that --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: -- so inside baseball.

HOOVER: Well, I mean, it's what is playing on the ground. You know what, politics is also devoid from the realities of policy. Right? You're in the mudslinging and it's about who is up, who is down. Policy doesn't go into every voter's mind.

(CROSSTALK)

KOHN: The reason this is playing is because, look, Republicans know that people want to see the minimum wage increase. They want to see affordable access to health care. They don't want to see boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria. And Republican policies --

(CROSSTALK)

KOHN: But on every one of these issues, Republicans are losing. All they can do is bash the president and that's what they are going to keep doing for one more month.

BERMAN: They lose their way to take control of the Senate.

HOOVER: We shall see.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Margaret Hoover, Sally Kohn --

COHN: Not that we're counting at all.

HOOVER: No, not at all.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Oh, yeah.

Ahead @THISHOUR, let's talk enter Enterovirus. It's being blamed for the death of a 4-year-old who showed no symptoms of the disease. We're going to try to get some answers, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: @THISHOUR, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is looking into whether a mysterious respiratory disease is behind more deaths in the U.S.

BERMAN: Health officials confirm that Enterovirus 68 is to blame for a 4-year-old boy death in New Jersey.

Let's bring in Internist, Dr. Jorge Rodriquez.

Doctor, thank you for joining us.

This is a shocking detail for so many people to hear. Little Eli, 4 years old, he had pink eye. No other symptoms. His parents put him to bed and that little one never woke up. Help us to understand this.

DR. JORGE RODRIGUEZ, INTERNIST: Well, I found it interesting that the medical examiner did say this was the cause, the Enterovirus 68. It's very possible that some children or even adults could have a viral infection and it goes into something called acute respiratory distress syndrome where the lungs sort of shut down, and this may be what happened there without any major symptom at all.

PEREIRA: It can happen that quickly?

RODRIGUEZ: It can happen that quickly. It can happen in a matter of hours to half a day. Again, this is the rare occurrence. This is not usually what happens with Enterovirus.

BERMAN: I don't have an elegant way to say this. I know a lot of parents who are very, very scared about this, including me. I have two kids with asthma. Is this a thing or is this just the common type of sickness that people get every year and it's just affecting a few people more severely than usual?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, it's the same virus that occurs every year. It's a variation of that same Enterovirus but it's affecting people more fast and furious. It's a lot stronger. In your case, with two kids that have asthma, they need to be at the top of their game and that asthma needs to be under control. It's a variation that's a lot stronger and a lot more dangerous.

PEREIRA: So we're talking about the CDC saying more than 500 people in 43 states have gotten sick from this Enterovirus D-68 -- is what they are calling it. Do you sense that as -- we know that we're sort of in flu season now. As it sort of slows down, will we see this slow down as well?

RODRIGUEZ: That's our hope, Michaela? Our hope is that within the next few weeks or month, this will slow down. The best treatment of this is prevention of letting it spread and just letting it run its course but the parents have to be very, very aware of the symptoms of this.

BERMAN: Is it more contagious than a normal Enterovirus or a normal flu?

RODRIGUEZ: No, it doesn't appear to be more contagious. It just appears to be a lot more virulent. You have to wash your hands and stay away from people that have it. It appears to be a lot stronger once you do get it.

PEREIRA: Are you getting a sense that school districts and school boards and even the school nurse, that they are being given extra guidance of what to watch out for? As you mentioned, some of these symptoms could happen, acute respiratory distress could happen in a matter of hours and our little ones are away from us in a matter of hours.

RODRIGUEZ: I sense that schools are in very high alert. This has made the news now for the last month since it started. But I also just throw a red flag to parents. Make sure that your child knows how to contact you or that the school knows how to contact you when you're not there. That's also very important.

BERMAN: Always great advice. In closing here, there are some questions about this poor 4-year-old boy who died. How did he get it? How did he get it? This is a case of one of those things that you say is out there at this time of year. I think people are getting this like any other kind of fall sickness.

RODRIGUEZ: Absolutely, John, as you know, kids get everything. They're everywhere. They're touching everything. So that's right. They don't have immunity to this, whereas we adults have already been exposed to it.

BERMAN: They get it and then we get it.

PEREIRA: Yeah.

Dr. Jorge, thank you so much.

And obviously, our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the loss their little one. This is a story causing a great amount of concern.

That will wrap it up @THISHOUR. I'm Michaela Pereira. BERMAN: And I'm John Berman.

"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.