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New Day

DEA Cracks Down On Painkiller Abuse; Chicago Eliminates Mo'ne Davis And Philly; Where Is Officer Darren Wilson?; American Ebola Patients Released

Aired August 22, 2014 - 07:30   ET

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

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: The Obama administration is putting new limits on renewing prescriptions for the commonly used painkillers in an effort to curb widespread abuse. The DEA will reclassify hydrocodone combination drugs, things like Vicodin, putting them into a category reserved for medical substances with the highest potential for harm. People will be able to get a maximum 90-day supply before they need to get a new prescription. These new rules will take effect in 45 days. We've been noticing how high the increase of prescription drug abuse has been.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is huge.

PEREIRA: And they've been trying to figure out what to do about it.

BOLDUAN: And the number of deaths, a huge number, and it really goes under discussed I believe.

PEREIRA: It really does.

BOLDUAN: All right, let's take a turn here.

PEREIRA: Can we turn to the most awesome things?

BOLDUAN: One of the more cooler things, I'll tell you, my father gets so excited. He loves the little League World Series.

PEREIRA: Full-grown men, so excited.

BOLDUAN: The run for Mo'ne Davis and her team from Philly has come to an end at the Little League World Series, but I would say there is a lot to applaud in all of the performances. They played better than any of us can, Andy Scholes, in the "Bleacher Report."

ANDY SCHOLES, "BLEACHER REPORT": She can probably throw harder than I can, too, up to 70 miles per hour, pretty impressive.

BOLDUAN: Not probably, let's just be honest, Andy.

SCHOLES: Yes, definitely, definitely can throw harder than me, but that's for another time. Unfortunately, we won't get to see Mo'ne Davis pitch another time at Little League World Series because Philly, her team, they ended up losing last night to Chicago. They were playing the team, Jackie Robinson West, an

elimination game and errors in the field, they would be costly for Philly. The first inning, this ball gets thrown right by Davis at first base. Chicago took a 4-2 lead on that play.

Philly would make it close, but they ended up coming up short losing 6-5 in the game so Jackie Robinson West, the team comprised of all black players from the south side of Chicago moves on to play Las Vegas in Saturday's championship game. It should be a great matchup.

Week three of the NFL preseason kicking off last night with the Eagles and Stealers. Bell and Blount both playing in this game less than 48 hours after being cited for marijuana possession. Bell probably wish he wasn't playing because he got his bell rung by Ryans on this play in the first quarter.

Nico Ryans was flagged for an illegal hit. A scary moment if you've got Lesean McCoy on your fantasy team, left the game in the first quarter with an injured thumb. X-rays were negative and the Eagles say it's no big deal. Philly ended up winning the game 31-21.

Turning to bleacherreport.com this morning. Chris Rock was taking in yesterday's Yankees game when a foul ball headed his way. He ended up with it and that's a nice thing giving it to a kid that was sitting nearby.

But if you take another look instead of going for the catch when the ball was coming his way, check out rock, he just gets out of the way. I don't know about you guys, but to me a foul ball is all about going for the glory, going for the catch.

BOLDUAN: Nope, nope.

SCHOLES: Actually getting the ball is, you know, second place for me. You've got to make the catch.

BOLDUAN: I respect -- absolutely respect that, but you know if you do not have a mitt.

SCHOLES: That hurts.

BOLDUAN: There's a potential for real injury here.

SCHOLES: Yes, but that's why it's so much better if you do make a catch with the bare hands. It's all about the glory.

BOLDUAN: I love it. So manly, doing worse than, that I'd be the girl that was crawling over the seats to get away from the ball.

BOLDUAN: I'd be doing worse than that. I'd be the girl that was crawling over the seats to get away from the ball.

PEREIRA: I will make a deal with the people sitting on either side of me. If the ball comes towards us, I duck and you protect the ball.

BOLDUAN: Exactly. As we like to say, you just have to protect the money-maker. Andy Scholes, it's great to see you. Andy, have a good weekend.

SCHOLES: You too guys.

BOLDUAN: All right, we'll see you a little later.

Coming up next on NEW DAY, the other side of the Ferguson story. Officer Darren Wilson. Where is he? He hasn't been seen or heard from publicly since the incident. What we know about him coming up.

PEREIRA: And really an amazing story we have been following, they beat almost insurmountable odds, the recovery of two Americans that were infected with Ebola. We're going to speak with one of the doctors who was part of the team that cared for both of them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to NEW DAY. It is calm here in Ferguson, Missouri, but what comes next after the anger will probably matter the most in the outcome of this investigation. Questions continue to pile up and many are about the police officer who shot him, who is Officer Darren Wilson.

As with the deceased and his friend, there are competing notions of what he did that day and in the past. He's made no public statements or appearances since the shooting nearly two weeks ago. There was one radio interview and there was report of a severe injury leaked from inside the force that CNN reports is not credible.

So what do we know? What should we know, what matters? Let's bring in Liz Brown. She is a columnist for the "St. Louis American" newspaper and a criminal defense attorney. It's good to have you here.

LIZ BROWN, COLUMNIST, "THE ST. LOUIS AMERICAN" NEWSPAPER: Good morning. It's great to be here.

CUOMO: Let's start with the initial notion.

BROWN: OK.

CUOMO: Where is the officer? Here's a statement against interests as a media type, right?

BROWN: OK.

CUOMO: He doesn't have to be out. They're supposed to be done in the investigation. They're supposed to be quiet. As attorneys I marvel how many people we get on TV and what they want to discuss. Should it count against him that he is keeping a low profile?

BROWN: We have to analyze what that low profile looks like. Last night, I saw a copy of the incident report that was supposedly written by him. It was blank. It was empty. There was nothing there. He's a 28-year-old person. One would think that there would be stuff about him all over the internet, but nothing is there. You couldn't even find a picture of him.

CUOMO: Why? Is it because we don't care, because we want to focus on Brown and Dorian Johnson, or do you think it's because it hasn't been supplied to us as other things have?

BROWN: I think it's -- because it hasn't been supplied. There were five days before we knew his name. Perhaps somebody went in and scrubbed his office off of the internet. I mean, how can a 28-year- old leave no footprint on the internet?

CUOMO: How much of it is OK because of the presumption of innocence? That he's one who is going to be on trial. Michael Brown will not, although, he maybe in some kind of social trial that's fair or unfair as with the witnesses. But he's actually going to be on the trial so you give him the benefit of the doubt.

BROWN: Well, like you said, I'm a criminal defense attorney and I appreciate and certainly expect that his attorney would want him to not say anything and for him to have the presumption of innocence. But what's happening here seems to be a little bit different.

It's almost like instead of a witness protection program we have a defendant protection program, that there is no information out there for any of us to look at or to make a decision based upon.

I don't know whether it's coming from his attorney or whether it's coming from -- if it's coming from the prosecutor's office, if he is getting a helping hand to hide himself to keep the evidence out there, keep the evidence from coming out there then that's a big problem.

CUOMO: Is the police department covering up for one of their own?

BROWN: You'd a blank incident report?

CUOMO: They will say we're the little guys, we're Ferguson. We often defer to the County of St. Louis County. If you don't live here, we all happen to learn, you know, this I've had to learn there. There's so many different municipalities around here. Ferguson says we defer to St. Louis County all the time. They would do the report. It's not unusual, and you say?

BROWN: And I say that in this case for a blank, for absolutely nothing to be written by a little municipality it's unusual.

CUOMO: And all right, so then you get into what's legal versus what's fair in this media trial.

BROWN: Right.

CUOMO: That goes on. What do you think about the idea of a lot of people are coming up to me. We've been spending a lot of time out here as many responsible journalists have and they are saying, I know him. He did this to me. He did this. I heard him say this and I heard him say that. We've been slow on that. On the part of Michael Brown, people say, you know, he had no

record but he had a juvie record and it was for this and it was for that. Do you think all of that should come out? Do you think it's fair?

BROWN: Well, I think that a juvenile record is protected by law. I don't think it's fair for a juvenile record of anyone to come out, but I think that if there are reports in the public about the treatment of this particular officer with another person, I absolutely think that that is fair.

I think it is relevant and I think that it is fair because, again, the deceased is not going to have an opportunity to defend himself and there are going to be people eventually perhaps that come out and say other things about Michael Brown, maybe they will, maybe they won't and certainly the media is going to report that, anything outside of a juvenile record.

So certainly in the court of public arena I think that it is appropriate and it's fair if there are people who have stories to tell about how this officer treated him. If there are police officers that have stories to tell about what it was like to ride with him because there are stories as well about what it was like --

CUOMO: They are not an easy nut to crack, as you know, doesn't mean that the media is not trying to do its job. You're trying to get it, too. They don't talk very often, reaching out to try to get people to bolster his profile, but that's part of it, too. You want everybody's best food forward.

Let me ask you something though. As you look at situation here on the ground there's been a lot made of the injury. I get why it would matter to people, shows that Mike Brown is a bad guy, how much does it matter in the legal analysis if this was a justified killing?

BROWN: You don't get the death penalty for hitting a cop. You don't get the death penalty for shoplifting so it matters. It -- I mean, it matters in the sense that if we look and talk about it and enhance it in a way that it makes certain that Mike Brown's reputation is affected by it.

I think that's problematic, but I think that if we are going to talk about it in terms of what the police officer did and what the police officer didn't do then it's not.

CUOMO: And another point that you've been making, if you want things to heal here, if you want the peace to be maintained then everything has to come out so people have some confidence and trust that it's being done the right way.

So the more you know, the more you can feel, it's being done the right way. We'll all keep going after it on both side. You're doing a great job. Liz, thank you.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

CUOMO: Let us know when we're not getting it right.

BROWN: Absolutely, thank you.

CUOMO: Criticism from the inside is often very helpful.

All right. We'll take a break here on NEW DAY. When we come back, something else is very high on the concern list. Catching Ebola is one of the new fears we have to worry about especially because we're told that there's no cure.

What about this miracle treatment that saved two Americans? We're going to speak with a doctor who helped them make this amazing comeback? What does it mean for the rest of us?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Welcome back to NEW DAY. A pair of Americans who were both infected with the Ebola virus, they are back home now after recovering from that deadly infection. Dr. Kent Brantly hugged the doctors at Emory University Hospital. The doctors who helped save him and shared these words of thanks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. KENT BRANTLY, EBOLA PATIENT: Today is a miraculous day. I'm thrilled to be alive, to be well and to be reunited with my family. I am forever thankful to God for sparing my life, and I'm glad for any attention my sickness has attracted to the plight of West Africa in the midst of this epidemic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: I yelled out loud when I saw how healthy he looked. My goodness, the other American missionary being treated for Ebola, Nancy Writebol, you've heard a lot about her. She was actually discharged earlier this week. Both Writebol and Brantly were given an experimental drug that may have saved their lives.

I want to bring in somebody very special, Dr. Aneesh Mehta. He is an infectious disease physician. He was part of that team that cared for both patients. Dr. Mehta, this is very exciting to speak to you today. Thank you so much for joining us.

DR. ANEESH MEHTA, INFECTIOUS DISEASE PHYSICIAN, EMORY HEALTHCARE: Thank you for having me on.

PEREIRA: I know every patient to you is very special, but two very, very special patients left your hospital this week and you were part of their care. Tell me about your interactions with them.

MEHTA: They were quite special and it was wonderful to interact with them. I was the physician on call when the unit was activated, when our team was activated and therefore, I had the honor of being the admitting physician for the first patient.

And it was quite a great experience because our team had trained for these sort of activations, these sort of patients for several years and we were finally able to use all of our training to care for two wonderful patients.

PEREIRA: We were really shocked when we saw those images. I think very few of us will forget of Dr. Kent Brantly walking under his own power into the hospital, albeit in one of those white space suits. He's come from isolation from the airplane, transferred here into your hospital.

Talk about the recovery. I mean, just three weeks in the hospital. I know you can't speak specifically about the treatment they received, but give us an idea of the day-to-day reality for them when they were in the hospital.

MEHTA: Of course, so the patients, once they were admitted to our unit, were able to be monitored by monitoring devices that we use here in American hospitals, such as monitoring their heart rates, their blood pressure, their oxygenation levels.

As well as being able to get laboratories every day on them to monitor their electrolyte levels, kidney and functions as well as their cell count levels in their blood and therefore, we were able to intervene on any abnormalities there very readily.

And on a day-to-day basis, and therefore able to tailor the care of both patients to their individual needs on that day, which is sometimes hard to do in resource-limited environments.

PEREIRA: Yes, that's the point people are making about the scene here in America, as opposed to West Africa. Now look, these were two different patients, 33 and I think Nancy Writebol was in her 60s, yet they both recovered. We know they both had ZMapp. Do you feel that was the key? Was it early intervention? Do you think it was the aftercare that they were getting in Emory?

MEHTA: Well, it's very hard to comment on the effect of any experimental medications because they by nature are experimental and we don't have the data yet to ascertain what effect they have and how much it influenced the outcome we have in these two patients.

Hopefully in the future, though, there will be additional studies done on this medication as well as other upcoming experimental medications, and we'll be able to really understand which medications should be used, at what point in time in Ebola infection.

As Dr. Ribner had said yesterday during the press conference, we really believe that the aggressive supportive care that we were able to deliver to the patients was effective in their good outcomes.

I also think we had a wonderful team of physicians, nurses, laboratory personnel, who were all able to intervene to help these patients and I think that was a big part of it.

PEREIRA: I need to have a real talk with you here for a second because I think what also amazed us was the fact that all of you were, of course, smiles to see Dr. Kent Brantly looking so hardy. You all hugged him. We have been told how infectious this disease is and how it could be transferred from bodily fluid or whatever.

This is a big statement. All of you, all of the physicians, all of the care team hugged him. There's no chance, there's no chance this virus lingers in him?

MEHTA: So he is not at risk to transmit this infection to any anyone he's coming in contact with. I don't think we planned the group hug, but it was a really rewarding moment for all of us, and it's one of the things we look forward to as physicians, being able to shake hands and hug our patients as they're recovered and heading home.

All of us have families and friends at home, and so if we thought this, either one of these patients were at all a risk to our community we would have kept them in the hospital for longer until they were not at risk, but we're very confident they're not a risk to anyone.

PEREIRA: No long-term side effects, we feel confident that both of them will be healthy going forward?

MEHTA: So as with any such viral infections, once the patients recover and if they don't have any damage to any organs at the time of recovery, they should go on to a full and healthy life.

PEREIRA: Wonderful. Dr. Aneesh Mehta, thank you so much, joining us from Emory University Hospital, the Infectious Disease Unit there. Of course, obviously doctors are going to look to see what they can learn about this going forward and learn lessons for how they're going to treat patients in West Africa as well. Great success story there.

Next up on NEW DAY, a new eyewitness to the Michael Brown shooting comes forward, what he says about a physical altercation and exactly when that police officer opened fire.

Also, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sounding the alarm over ISIS, why he says the threat it poses is beyond anything we have ever seen.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands up.

PROTESTERS: Don't shoot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands up.

PROTESTERS: Don't shoot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Breaking overnight, peace breaks out in Ferguson, Missouri, a quiet night of protests, but new questions this morning. The key witness in the case now accused of previously falsifying a police report. Will that matter? BOLDUAN: Plus brand new information about the officer that shot Michael Brown. Police sources now say his eye socket was not fractured, as some have reported, and a new witness comes forward with what he saw happen at the police car.

PEREIRA: Sounding the alarm. Grave words from the U.S. secretary of defense on ISIS, calling it a giant threat to the region and to the U.S., but are air strikes in Syria the only way to stop this terror group? The chairman of the joint chiefs is suggesting just that.

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY continues right now.

Good morning, welcome to NEW DAY. I hope Friday is treating you well on this August 22nd, Ferguson, Missouri, is different this morning. The mood and momentum has shifted, after two weeks of outrage following the police shooting of Michael Brown Jr. -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Another big development, Chris, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon is now ordering the National Guard to start withdrawing from the town of Ferguson, and they are expected to start leaving today.

CUOMO: Brown's parents are speaking out to CNN as they prepare for their son's funeral on Monday. They reveal that the recent violent protests did not help them or their cause. They denounce the violence for shaming their son's name, but we're now hearing calls for peace and unity, and there's a new focus here on justice and an investigation that's just heating up.