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New Day

Impact Your World; More Details on the Superbug; New Study on Preventing Peanut Allergies; Special Report Tonight: Inside the Cosby Allegations

Aired February 24, 2015 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Here we go with the five things you need to know for your new day.

At number one, brrr, the south is bearing the brunt of an ice storm and bone chilling cold. Slick conditions leading this American Airlines plane -- we should be showing it to you here in a second -- sliding off the runway at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to send a separate bill to the Senate floor to defund the president's immigration reforms, clearing the way for a possible vote on a clean Homeland Security funding bill.

New Defense Secretary Ash Carter meets with President Obama today at the White House, a day after he convened a war council in Kuwait to discuss administration strategy for defeating ISIS.

The American sniper trial resumes today after being canceled Monday because of icy weather. Prosecutors expected to continue their rebuttal against Eddie Ray Routh, who is accused of killing both Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield at a gun range.

Marijuana becoming legal today in Alaska. It is now the third state to allow recreational pot usage. Although you can grow it and poses it, smoking weed in public is still banned.

We do update those five things to know, so be sure to visit newdaycnn.com for the latest.

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Mich, in this week's "Impact Your World," a restaurant in Philadelphia has stumbled upon a unique way to help feed the hungry. Listen to this. Customer at Roses are paying it forward with pizza.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MASON WARTMAN, OWNER, ROSES: This was cool though. Eat up and don't give up. CUOMO (voice-over): Post-it notes cover the walls of Roses Pizza in

Philadelphia. The notes share messages of hope and more. Each symbolizes a slice of free pizza for those who can't afford one.

WARTMAN: One day a customer came in and he offered to pre-purchase a slice for the next homeless person who came in short. And it's mushroomed into this thing where we've given away 9,000 slices in 10 months. The homeless community obviously really appreciates it. It's a very flexible program that affords them access to food, which, you know, they love.

CUOMO: The concept has customers flocking in for a snack they can feel good about.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A slice for me because it's lunchtime and a slice for the homeless to give back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like these.

CUOMO: Owner Mason Wartman left a job on Wall Street to start Roses, named after his mom. He calls it an elegant solution to the problem of hunger. One he hopes other businesses will adopt.

WARTMAN: We have thousands of restaurants throughout the country. I mean we could largely feed a lot of people very quickly if just a fraction of them acted in similar ways.

CUOMO: For those like Michael Rodriguez, who's homeless, the pizza and the words of support make all the difference.

MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ, ROSES CUSTOMER: Come in and get pizza, which is my favorite food, is really great. "I've been where you're at." "Trust me, your miracle will come. Just take time."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Yes, love each other. Beautiful. Love it. Go to cnn.com/impact to find out how you can make a difference.

PEREIRA: A super bug now spreading in the United States. What is it? How worried should we be? We're going to turn to Dr. Sanjay Gupta for the answers.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, new developments in the Cosby sexual assault allegations. We will give you a sneak peek at a CNN special report inside the Cosby story. That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: All right some big medical conversations to have. The same superbug that is linked to two deaths in Los Angeles, it has now turned up in North Carolina. One person there has died. This brings the total number of cases in the nation to at least two dozen. Want to break this down with our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. We have all sorts of questions for you. But first off, this superbug,

terribly concerning. What do we know about it? What is it? How bad is it?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: This is an organism that's been around for some time. We call it a superbug because typical traditional antibiotics don't work really well on these bacteria. They're really hard to kill. Part of the reason they've become so hard to kill is because we've tried to kill them with antibiotics and they evolve.

PEREIRA: It makes them stronger in a way.

GUPTA: They become so smart. This particular organism actually releases an enzyme that inactivates the antibiotic. It's got its own defense mechanism. So these are very smart bugs.

But the -- they've been around for some time. And, in fact, the idea of scopes being linked to this has also been around for some time. We're hearing about this because of what's happened at UCLA. But they, you know, doctors, people who have been dealing with antibiotic resistance have been thinking about this for, you know, several years now.

CAMEROTA: But explain this, are scopes spreading it?

GUPTA: Well, in a -- in a sort of unconventional sense. This organism can live in certain parts of our body totally fine, in our gut, not cause a problem at all. So scope goes in, does its job, also pulls a little bit of the bacteria out, goes to get cleaned, does not get cleaned properly. Next patient now has the scope put-back in, at this point it releases it into the body of the next patient. So it is spreading it, but it's not like it's spreading like measles or something that's contagious.

CUOMO: Boy, so what have they known for a long time, that this procedure can do that or that they're inadequately cleaned?

GUPTA: Well, that the scopes seem to be a mode of transmission. They couldn't tell exactly what was going on. Was it the scopes being inadequately cleaned? Was there something else happening? Now they've sort of zeroed in on this -- what they call this elevator mechanism. This little -- this little thing that toggles back and forth on the scope that is really hard to clean apparently and that's where they're sort of focusing their attention.

PEREIRA: So, wait, so the FDA knew about this, yet people have died?

GUPTA: The FDA has known for some time. They didn't know -- these' various scope manufacturers out there. They were looking at at least three different scope manufacturers to figure out like what was it about these scopes that seemed to be causing the problem.

Now, keep in mind, you know, this procedure is done some half a million times a year.

PEREIRA: It's pretty routine, right?

GUPTA: Yes, it's routine in that regard. And these were relatively small numbers. So it's hard to sort of pinpoint what was happening. And they're still not 100 percent sure. But, you know, I visited some of these people where they were actually cleaning the scopes and it was amazing to me, Mich, because they were actually cleaning the scope, a $30,000 scope, and then using a 99 cent toothbrush literally to get behind the scope. We have some of the -- some of the video of that. but, literally, that's how -- that's what they're being told to do, to do anything to sort of get into these crevices and get that bacteria out of there.

PEREIRA: Wow. My goodness.

Hey, while you're here, can we pivot to something that we've all be talking about a lot at this desk today, this news about peanut allergies. The idea that maybe to prevent peanut allergies developing later in life for a child, expose them as a young infant, as a child to peanuts?

GUPTA: Yes. Yes. This is -- I think this is a huge story. You know, I mean we've had so much difficulty with food allergies. That's probably one of the most common questions I get, why are there so many more fill in the blank allergies.

PEREIRA: We didn't have them as kids, right?

GUPTA: And people have -- we didn't have them as kids the way we have them now. And the idea that they've increased in prevalence so much over the past few decades, and it's starting to in other parts of the world, really had a lot of people wondering. And what we've done, I think, in a reactionary sort of way, was sort of say, look, let's just avoid peanuts, not give peanuts to kids until they're five or so years old sometimes. And what we're finding now is that not only is that the wrong idea, but that may have, in fact, led to the increase in peanut allergies in the first place. I find this really remarkable. So what they did was they divided these kids into two groups. All the kids were at risk of peanut allergies. One group got them between four and 11 months of age, the other group did not. And what they found the group that did not --

CUOMO: So parents had to agree to expose their kids to nuts, even if they were at risk?

GUPTA: Well, they were at risk. They had eczema. They had egg allergies. They're at risk of allergies overall.

CUOMO: Did parents get paid? Were they paid?

GUPTA: Well, they -- they -- they -- I don't know, actually. That's a good question. But they actually did a pinprick test on the kids. So if they had a severe allergy they wouldn't give them to those kids.

CUOMO: Then they didn't. (INAUDIBLE).

GUPTA: But in the kids who did not get the peanuts early on, their risk of developing a peanut allergy was about 10 times higher than the kids who got them.

PEREIRA: Extraordinary.

GUPTA: This is not sort of -- this is not a minimal difference. This is -- this is really a big deal. And this might apply to other types of allergies as well. Instead of avoiding, giving. Treat the body like its own immune system and sort of -- it's like a vaccine. You give a little bit of the peanuts and the body learns how to deal with it.

CAMEROTA: I mean isn't that the philosophy behind what allergists do?

GUPTA: Yes.

CAMEROTA: They give you a little bit of what you're allergic to. But somehow with food we thought we couldn't do that.

GUPTA: Right. And I think it was a little bit of fear-based reasoning because there are, to be fair, you know, deadly peanut allergies.

PEREIRA: Yes.

GUPTA: There are people who can die from these. So you've got to be, obviously, very careful. But what they find in the vast majority of kids, even if they're at risk of allergies overall, they seem to do really well with this. There was no difference in terms of, you know, really catastrophic reactions in the avoidance or the non-avoidance group.

PEREIRA: And it's key to talk about as a child, don't as, you know, an adult say I'm going to start introducing peanuts. I've been allergic all my life. That's not a safe procedure to start doing.

GUPTA: That's right.

CAMEROTA: Right.

GUPTA: If you know you have a known allergy, that's different. But if you're someone who's maybe at risk of allergies, then , you know, doing this.

PEREIRA: Wow.

GUPTA: You know, we have the 20 second rule in our house. You know, if something drops on the floor, you go ahead and pick it up.

PEREIRA: Yes, it used to be the five second rule.

CAMEROTA: It keeps you healthy.

PEREIRA: You've adapted.

GUPTA: You get a little bit of dirt in your system. It teaches your immune system to fight.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

GUPTA: Yes. Yes.

PEREIRA: All of these developments we've made. And then to find out that we're actually going back and looking at some of these things again.

GUPTA: Very basic.

PEREIRA: Love when you come and talk us through all the noise and the clutter. Thanks so much, Sanjay. Good to see you.

GUPTA: Yes. Have some peanuts.

CAMEROTA: OK, we'll do.

GUPTA: All right.

CAMEROTA: In fact, for -- with my bananas for breakfast, I will be doing that.

GUPTA: There you go.

PEREIRA: Very nice. Very healthful.

GUPTA: There you go. (INAUDIBLE) it's good food too.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, Sanjay.

All right, stick around for this because frozen with fear, those words from actress Barbara Bowman describing her alleged encounter 30 years ago with Bill Cosby. More of what she told me in tonight's CNN's special report "No Laughing Matter: Inside the Cosby Allegations." We have a sneak preview for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Allegations against Bill Cosby continue to surface even though we have turned our attention away from it for the past couple of weeks. So tonight I take a look at the megastar's fall from grace. There is a CNN Special Report, "NO LAUGHING MATTER: INSIDE THE COSBY ALLEGATIONS". It airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. I hope you'll tune in.

But here is an excerpt of what one of the so-called survivors says. She's an aspiring actress and she said this was her shocking encounter with Cosby 30 years ago that changed her life forever.

Please be advised that this story contains graphic sexual content.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA BOWMAN, ACTRESS & COSBY ACCUSER: I was a go-getter. I was adventurous. I wanted this career. I had a passion to do this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have a good run.

CAMEROTA (voice-over): By 16 she was starring in local commercials.

BOWMAN: Come on up to Colorado's favorite ski resort. We guarantee you'll notice the difference.

CAMEROTA: And by 17, she was ready to audition for a superstar -- Bill Cosby.

BOWMAN: He was America's favorite dad. He was everyone's father figure that they watched on TV every week.

CAMEROTA: Bill Cosby was coming to Denver, and her agent said he was scouting for potential stars.

BOWMAN: So when he came into town and she selected me, you know, it was a big deal.

CAMEROTA: She was nervous, excited, groomed and ready to meet Bill Cosby. It was a moment that would change her life.

BOWMAN: He zeroed right in on the fact that I really was sort of a vulnerable kid, no dad, no father figure in my life, and wanted to take on that role. And it was an honor to be there, and I wanted him to care about me like a father would care about a daughter.

CAMEROTA: Then she says it was showtime to see how well this budding actress could perform.

BOWMAN: He wanted me to do an acting improv exercise where I was intoxicated. And he's behind me and he's -- you know, he's stroking my hair and stroking my neck and, you know, kind of rubbing my shoulders and getting me to relax. And meanwhile his hands are moving down onto my breasts. And at one point I went like this and started to move his hands away and he just said, no, you can't do that. You need to relax.

CAMEROTA: So Bowman did not tell her agent, Jo Farrell. Farrell, now retired, declined to comment, but in 2006 she told "The Denver Post" "I don't know the truth of it. It's mind-boggling. I don't set up interviews in bars and it makes me sad because my reputation has always been golden in this city. I have never seen Cosby to be anything but a gentleman."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: I'm curious why you think the agent declined to comment. That's very interesting to me. Female agent.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And the story goes that she didn't tell her agent when it first happened, but the incidents with Bill Cosby and Barbara Bowman escalated, according to her. They got worse until it culminated in what she says was rape and then a violent encounter. She did start telling people at that point. She claims she did tell her agent, who denied it, said that's impossible, and since then has said I don't know anything about it.

You know, remember, this was the '70s, it was a different culture. It was a different time. We do talk about this a lot.

CUOMO: Why would she comment just to take other side of it? If you're the agent, why would you come out and discuss something you don't know the truth of, that's highly radioactive and could paint you in a bad light?

CAMEROTA: Well, one reason -- I mean, let just me say this, is that one of the other leaders at this talent agency where Barbara Bowman was in the '70s, she has now come out. She is in the special tonight at 9:00 p.m. And she says that she does remember Barbara Bowman talking about this. She does remember Barbara Bowman being distraught. And she wishes now she had done more; she does have regrets.

PEREIRA: Well, and I ask because of solidarity. We have seen -- she was sort of the catalyst. Is this why you chose Barbara Bowman as the focus? Because she's the focus of the special tonight, correct?

CAMEORTA: Yes. There had always been whispers about women who said that Cosby had attacked -- assaulted them, but it was Barbara Bowman who never really backed down and then this recent round where more than two dozen women have come forward, Barbara Bowman is the one who started it because she published this column in "The Washington Post" saying Bill Cosby raped me.

CUOMO: This is a dangerous situation for participation. It takes boldness from these women to come out, there's no question about it. But it will be solidarity, to some measure, on the basis of speculation because you haven't had any of this proved out in a court of law in any real way because there have been settlements. And you do have this troubling dynamic in the complete credibility because of something that may be nothing. But when you hear it escalated to the eventual rape, that's a red flag for people. So you were with him and it was fine and you liked it, and then you went back and you did it again. But then it was rape.

CAMEROTA: Oh, let me make it clear, she never liked it. She was a teenager. She was a teenager.

CUOMO: I'm just saying, you are explaining a fact pattern that is a red flag for people, and it has been somewhat repetitive in some of these stories. I'm not saying that I ascribe to that. I don't want the heat; it's not worth it. Because you have to wind up shading this towards the victims; that's the right way to do it. But I'm not surprised by the red flags going up.

CAMEROTA: Look, I mean, nowadays I think that it is well known in our culture, and women know to go to the police.

PEREIRA: Yes.

CAMEROTA: They know to get a rape kit done.

PERREIRA: And to speak up.

CAMEROTA: In the '70s that didn't exist. CUOMO: And you don't see a guy again if he's done something that you

didn't like.

CAMEROTA: I'm glad you brought that up, and this will be revealed in the special tonight. She was at his mercy. She was financially at his mercy. She was physically at his mercy. There are all sorts of reasons, and Barbara Bowman will explain them in the special about why she couldn't get away. It wasn't just as easy as just running away.

PEREIRA: Oftentimes people that are targeted that are victims are targeted because they see --

CAMEROTA: Their vulnerability, exactly.

CUOMO: Right, and you made a good point earlier, or one of you made a good point, when we were first starting to cover Cosby. You said not everything is a crime to the courts. Sometimes, you know, it's just a crime of culture and that could be just as damaging to somebody as something that we call a crime.

CAMEROTA: Well, I sure hope that you will all tune in tonight. We should also let you know that Bill Cosby declined our requests for an interview, but in recent months, his attorneys have vehemently denied the many accusations of sexual assault, calling the story the product of, quote, "innuendoes, fabricated lies and media vilification".

Again, "NO LAUGHING MATTER: INSIDE THE COSBY ALLEGATIONS" airs tonight at 9:00 only on CNN. Sure hope that you will tune in and please let us know what you think about all this. You can tweet us at @newday, you can go to facebook.com/newday. You can find me @alisyncamerota on Twitter.

PEREIRA: I need some good stuff, please.

CUOMO: You will get it.

Good for you laying this out because people should hear it, and the issue itself is very important. It's good to talk. Really is.

All right, so Good Stuff, here it is.

CAMEROTA: Yay.

CUOMO: What do you get when you combine a wheelchair, a shovel, and a person with a creative mind and a good heart? You know what you get -- the Good Stuff. Don't give it away. Don't give it away!

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: I work out to this; I'm not ashamed to tell you.

CUOMO: This one is for you. You asked and you will receive. Time for the Good Stuff. Today's edition, 33-year-old Crystal Evans. She is in a wheelchair, she is from Boston. Right now, as we all know, Boston has a gazillion inches of snow. Wheelchairs, snow, bad mix. Poor Crystal, right? Wrong. She ain't the problem, she's the solution. Witness: human snowplow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRYSTAL EVANS, TURNED HERSELF INTO A HUMAN SNOWPLOW: With the shovel, I can put it down between my footrests so I started rolling down the sidewalk to get to the post office and I looked back and I saw a clear path. And I was like, oh, I could clear the sidewalks for everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: This is awesome.

CUOMO: For everyone, and that's what she does. She spent more than 100 hours, 100 hours since January, clearing the neighborhood sidewalks. Her example has inspired a bunch of volunteers to get in on the act. Crystal says it's not about the snow; it's about much more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EVANS: There's so much stigma of what people believe a disabled person is. It's -- they don't expect us to be working. They don't expect us to be out in the community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Awesome.

CUOMO: They do now. Crystal, not about her limitations. Thank you, Crystal. You are the Good Stuff.

Time for the "NEWSROOM" with Ms. Carol Costello, the good stuff as well.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEWSROOM": Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Have a great day.

"NEWSROOM" starts now.