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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

New Celebrex Warning Raises Concerns Of FDA's Effectiveness; Bush forgives Iraqi debt; President Bush Signs Intelligence Reform Bill

Aired December 17, 2004 - 22:00   ET

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

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


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. Aaron is off tonight. I'm Miles O'Brien.
Another drug that seemed to be a wonder once again has us wondering. Celebrex, the wildly popular pill that promised relief from chronic pain without serious side effects may, in fact, be a risk doctors and patients don't want to take.

And, while the company that makes the drug, Pfizer, is not pulling it off the market, it is sounding a serious warning, serious as a heart attack. If it sounds familiar, it is. Celebrex is a chemical cousin of Vioxx, withdrawn from the market a few months ago, amid similar concerns.

Some big questions lingering tonight why did Pfizer issue this warning? What does it mean for the future of the drug and for the company for that matter? And what about the 27 million Celebrex users out there what is next for them?

We have several reports. We begin with CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: These are just a few of the 23 million people who have discovered Celebrex.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's been one of the best selling drugs in history but today a bombshell. A government study says people taking Celebrex are two and a half times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke.

The study, which has not been made public, came from the National Cancer Institute. It was investigating whether Celebrex might help prevent cancer. Now, the researchers have stopped using Celebrex in the study.

And, the Food and Drug Administration is telling doctors to consider alternative pain relievers for their patients. And, if a doctor determines the benefits of the drug are worth the risk, the doctor should prescribe the lowest effective dose.

Now many are wondering why did it take nearly five years to notice that this blockbuster drug, which has been used by 27 million Americans, could cause heart attacks? Dr. David Graham is the Food and Drug Administration's safety expert who blew the whistle on a similar drug, Vioxx. He says the system has completely broken down.

DR. DAVID GRAHAM, FDA WHISTLEBLOWER: FDA is incapable of protecting the United States against unsafe medicines.

COHEN: He says the FDA should have been monitoring Celebrex more closely since experts knew even before the drug went on the market it could possibly cause heart problems.

GRAHAM: I think the American people need to ask what's wrong with FDA? Why does it not take seriously the issue of safety?

COHEN: When Vioxx, which is in the same family as Celebrex, was shown to have a similar risk, it was pulled off the market, so does that mean the FDA wants Celebrex off the market too? The agency says no. They want to study the data further and that safety problems are inevitable.

DR. LESTER CRAWFORD, FDA ACTING COMMISSIONER: We can never be failsafe, though, because we're dealing with products that are very difficult to evaluate but we have to continue to refine and improve based on the science that we have in hand. We're far better at it than we used to be but we need to be better in the future.

COHEN: But critics of the FDA say drugs aren't so difficult to evaluate and that the agency should require drug companies to study how the drug works in more people for longer periods of time before allowing it on the market. Pfizer defended its drug Friday saying its own study showed no heart or stroke problems.

HANK MCKINNELL, CHAIRMAN, CEO, PFIZER, INC.: We do know from a wealth of other information, some from FDA studies, some from our studies, some from others, that Celebrex when taken as recommended at the doses recommended is safe and effective.

COHEN: The dose patients took in the study, the dose that put them at an increased risk for heart attack and stroke, is a dose recommended by Pfizer, 400mg a day. Now many will be watching Pfizer to see if it takes Celebrex off the market or if perhaps, the FDA pressures it to do so.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Celebrex is not the only drug of this type in Pfizer's portfolio. Its sister drug Bextra, which makes millions for the company, is also under fire. Earlier this month, Pfizer added what's called a black box warning to Bextra's label, the most serious type of warning the FDA can demand.

Today, an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine took an unusual step warning doctors not to prescribe Bextra, saying it's too dangerous. Now the warning on Celebrex had left patients with and their doctors in a terrible bind.

Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the past year, Neela Rastogi-Shapiro has had to walk slowly on lunch breaks ever since she hurt her knee from overdoing it in the gym. As recently as Thursday, she took Celebrex, not anymore.

NEELA RASTOGI-SHAPIRO, CELEBREX USER: I'm in my 30s. I shouldn't be worried about heart problems and cardiovascular problems. I'm too young for this. I only have knee problems.

CARROLL: Shapiro started out taking Vioxx but that painkiller upset her stomach so her doctor suggested Celebrex. That was weeks before Vioxx was pulled for its risk of causing heart attacks and strokes. Now there may be risks associated with Celebrex. Shapiro wonders what to do now.

DR. GARY MEREDITH, RHEUMATOLOGIST: How are you today?

CARROLL: Rheumatologist Gary Meredith is Shapiro's doctor.

MEREDITH: I think people are going to ask is it safe to continue to take it. What we'll probably try to do is see if we can minimize the dose or possibly substitute another medication for those that are at high risk.

CARROLL: Dr. Meredith says as late as Thursday he spoke with representatives from Pfizer, the company that manufactures Celebrex. He says that company rep made no mention of any potential problems.

SHAPIRO: My pain comes and goes.

CARROLL: Now, Shapiro says she's going to look at other options.

SHAPIRO: At this point, I want to experiment on other alternatives, natural remedies, homeopathic remedies, holistic medicine or maybe not take anything.

CARROLL (on camera): Medical experts say people taking Celebrex should meet with their doctors and, if there's a history of heart disease, weigh the risks versus the benefits of staying on Celebrex.

Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra belong to one of the most widely marketed and most widely prescribed groups of drugs on the market. The business of killing pain is a very big business indeed. Just Celebrex alone brings in $2.3 billion a year in revenue for Pfizer. The lessons of Merck, which stands accused of withholding damaging data on Vioxx, weigh heavily here.

Here's CNN's Allan Chernoff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Merck's loss of Vioxx in September appeared to have been Pfizer's gain. As Merck voluntarily pulled its arthritis medicine from drugstore shelves, Pfizer aggressively marketed Celebrex.

ANNOUNCER: Ask your doctor about Celebrex.

CHERNOFF: A chance to gain market share for the number one arthritis pain medication, in the U.S. alone, 27 million prescriptions written, sales this year of better than $3 billion. Some Americans, though, feared Celebrex might also cause heart trouble.

LUISA CONTRERAS, PATIENT: I'm not a person who takes medication easily and so then when you hear something like this then you say "You see I'm right."

CHERNOFF: Pfizer thought it was in the clear until Thursday night.

MCKINNELL: The company received this information about 5:00 p.m. last night. I first heard about it about 8:00 p.m. last night. We advised the Food and Drug Administration immediately and we announced this morning information that we thought was important to prescribing physicians and to patients benefiting from Celebrex.

CHERNOFF (on camera): Pfizer says it has no plans to pull the medication. It will keep on selling Celebrex and the company is working with the Food and Drug Administration on a study of arthritis patients taking Celebrex, which is due to begin next year.

(voice-over): The FDA also plans to review data from ongoing Celebrex studies and says "it will determine the appropriate regulatory action."

DR. JOHN ABRAMSON, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: It's not a wonder drug. We've spent $8 billion on this drug. It's not a wonder drug. It was wonder marketing.

CHERNOFF: It's an especially poor time for Pfizer to have to go into crisis management mode. The industry's new drug pipeline has been drying up as patents are expiring for established drugs opening them to competition from generics. Investors fearing sales of Celebrex will suffer bailed out of Pfizer stock Friday. It lost 11 percent closing at its lowest level in nearly seven years.

Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And NEWSNIGHT has been out front of the drug story, the questions too about regulation and whether that regulation is too lax. We've tried to make it as balanced as we can, recognizing that every drug carries the risk of side effects. Weighing a drug's risk against its benefits is the challenge doctors and their patients face every day. Today, the calculus became more complicated for those who use and prescribe Celebrex.

Joining us from Baltimore, Dr. Roger Blumenthal, director of preventive cardiology at Johns Hopkins, he is also a spokesperson for the American Heart Association. Dr. Blumenthal, good to have you with us.

DR. ROGER BLUMENTHAL, JOHNS HOPKINS: Thank you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Give us a little perspective here. When it's said that it doubles the risk of a heart attack, Celebrex that is, what does that really mean?

BLUMENTHAL: Well, in the study there was about 2,000 individuals. The absolute incidence of a heart attack or stroke was one percent in the placebo group, two and a half percent in the Celebrex dosage that was 400mg a day, and three and a half percent in the Celebrex dose that was 800mg a day.

O'BRIEN: Are those acceptable percentages?

BLUMENTHAL: Well, all the other prior studies that we had seen with this particular medicine had not shown an increased risk. The totality of evidence would suggest that lower dosages of Celebrex are quite safe and effective.

But one thing that we should stress is that at the two-year mark in the study there was no hint of an increased risk. It was only at nearly the three-year mark that we did see this increased risk.

And I think what we should remember is what the FDA has now put on its website that with these types of medicines we should probably use the lowest dose for pain relief and we shouldn't be using them for a year or two years at a time. They were really meant for short term use for relief of pain in people that had stomachs maybe prone to bleeding.

O'BRIEN: I think a lot of people must be scratching their head wondering what the government is doing, if anything, to vet these drugs before they get to market.

BLUMENTHAL: Well, this particular study, Miles, was based on some very exciting data that Cox-2 inhibitors may decrease the risk of cancer, especially colon cancer. And earlier this month there was a report from M.D. Anderson suggesting that Celebrex may be a potential major breakthrough in the treatment of breast cancer.

So, the science was that these particular drugs, used at higher dosages, may actually decrease cancer but what we see here is a small but statistically significant increase in heart attacks.

We also should keep in mind that there are two other studies of similar size that are going on that didn't show any increased risk of Celebrex at the dosages used in that study. O'BRIEN: To what extent is this a function of the tremendous marketing associated with these drugs and people going in and requesting them, demanding them? Are physicians kind of rolling over to that pressure and is that creating a potential problem for consumers?

BLUMENTHAL: Well, the American Heart Association always stress that we always want to improve dietary and exercise habits and when we use medications we want to use them for the proper indication.

I think it is true that some people have jumped to using Cox-2 inhibitors long term for pain relief when perhaps maybe short term use would be better and thinking about things such as Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Naprosyn, things of that nature that haven't been associated with an increased risk and they're also a lot less expensive.

O'BRIEN: So, to what extent then should we point the fingers at doctors here? Are doctors not doing their job in prescribing properly?

BLUMENTHAL: I think doctors are doing their job. We have to remember that this was a study using dosages that were two or four times higher than traditional use of Celebrex for pain relief and this was also a long term study.

The drug was really not made for long term use. There's some exciting science data that suggests that it may decrease cancer and that was the purpose of this particular study.

O'BRIEN: Dr. Blumenthal, should it be pulled from the shelves? Should this be off the market?

BLUMENTHAL: No, I don't think so. I think when the drug is used properly in the lowest dose and not used for more than two years but used just for short term use, Miles, I think it can be used very safely and effectively and the totality of evidence would support that conclusion.

O'BRIEN: Dr. Roger Blumenthal with Johns Hopkins thanks very much for your time.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Ahead on the program, striking a rough balance in Iraq between fighting the enemy and making friends.

Also tonight the shifting balance that could be putting your private life in the public eye.

And later, what do Christmas trees and recycled beer cans have in common?

A break first, in New York but in from Atlanta this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) O'BRIEN: The news when it broke was enough to make your hair stand on end. In northwestern Missouri, the tiny town of Skidmore, a pregnant woman attacked in her home, they baby she was carrying cut from her womb and gone.

Tonight, the mother, 23-year-old Bobby Jo Sinnett (ph) is dead. The baby she carried for eight months is apparently in safe hands. And, authorities say a woman has confessed to it all. She is Lisa Montgomery of Melvern, Kansas, who once lost a baby to a miscarriage.

A series of tips led police and FBI to her home where the baby was found. They picked up Ms. Montgomery and her husband later. According to an FBI affidavit, she said she strangled Bobby Jo Sinnett and took the baby. She further said she lied to her husband saying the baby was hers.

Overseas tonight, the news from Iraq continues to be one step forward, two steps back. Today the step forward a large one, the Bush administration today formally canceling Iraq's $4.1 billion debt urging the rest of the world to do the same.

Meantime, another attack on foreigners, this time in Mosul in the north which has become akin to the new Falluja these days, gunmen killing three foreigners and one Iraq. The ambush took place at a major traffic circle in town. A Marine was killed as well in action in the Falluja area.

And insurgents also set an oil pipeline ablaze near Baghdad. This is considered a rare occurrence so close to the capital. Today, most of the oil sabotage coming on the outskirts of Basra and Kirkuk.

So much of Iraq today deals with destruction, less with rebuilding. The facts are though both take place on a daily basis in big ways and in small, sometimes by the same players who might find themselves kicking down a door one day, rebuilding it the next.

It's not a simple mission, not an easy one either; with the troops tonight, CNN's Chris Lawrence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The 1st Cavalry Division fought its way through Baghdad's Sadr City one bloody block at a time.

COL. ABE ABRAMS, 1ST CAVALRY DIVISION: It was as violent as anyplace you can possibly imagine.

LAWRENCE: But after they defeated some of the insurgents their mission suddenly shifted.

SGT. DAVID GURBA, 1ST CAVALRY DIVISION: You know we can be fighting one minute and the next minute, you know, if we need to adapt and, you know, go into work at humanitarian sites and so forth, you know, we're ready for that too. LAWRENCE: They've been ordered to engage insurgents, win the trust of residents and protect rebuilding projects from repaving roads...

GURBA: Hey Rod (ph), bring two.

LAWRENCE: ...to pumping streets where families still live in raw sewage.

(on camera): But a lot of Iraqis say for every one building or road that's been repaired there are 100 that make them feel as if the war never ended.

RASOUL ALI, SADR CITY RESIDENT (through translator): It's been two years. Where's the reconstruction?

LAWRENCE (voice-over): Rasoul Ali says he hears what the Americans say but wonders if they understand what he sees.

ALI (through translator): It's not only this. Wherever you go it's ruins.

LAWRENCE: U.S. officials say big projects like building new power plants take time. The work has to go up for bid, generators built from scratch. The American head of development compares it to his last project, Boston's big dig.

ANDREW WATSON, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL AID: It took us 15 years to build it in the United States, which doesn't have an insurgency going on.

LAWRENCE: The soldiers understand Iraqis impatience.

GURBA: I have a 2-1/2-year-old son back home and, you know, you see the kids. You just want to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) there could be a magic button you could switch it and just get it fixed but, you know, it's going to take some time.

LAWRENCE: And explaining that could be their most difficult mission yet.

Chris Lawrence, CNN, Sadr City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: In Cuba, a pointed message for the U.S., a message hard to miss. The Cuban government placed billboards showing abused Iraqi prisoners across from the U.S. Diplomatic Mission.

Earlier this week large numerals, 75, appeared among the Christmas decorations on the grounds of the U.S. mission, the 75 representing the number of dissidents imprisoned by Fidel Castro's regime last year. Cuba's government had called the reference a provocation and warned there will be consequences if it was not removed. These are the consequences. Another note concerning Cuba and the U.S. military prison there, a former Pentagon official today confirmed a report in "The Washington Post" that the CIA has maintained a detention facility at Guantanamo Bay for high value al Qaeda prisoners, a facility within the larger prison complex there. CIA officials have long said they have several dozen high value al Qaeda prisoners under interrogation at undisclosed locations around the world.

Coming up tonight, why privacy is a vanishing commodity unless you're buying and selling it. Producer Lowell Bergman has put together an eye-opening documentary. We'll talk with him about it.

Also, Aaron's conversation with the man behind Mary Richards, Rhoda Morgenstern (ph) and Homer Simpson, Director James L. Brooks just out with a new movie "Spanglish."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The job is six days a week.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All the housekeeping, driving the kids. How much a week do you want?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One thousand dollar. (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's kidding.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: President Bush today signed the Intelligence Reform Bill into law, the most sweeping changes in a half century brought into being by the attacks of 9/11. The birth, however, was long and troubled and the president at times a reluctant midwife.

With that, here's CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE0

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president gets credit from all involved for personally pushing the intelligence reform measure over the finish line; however, many recall he was initially a skeptic, if not a critic of the effort.

TIM ROEMER (D), 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: The president was Johnny-come-lately to this, better late than never.

BASH: At first, he fought creating the independent 9/11 Commission saying, "A congressional probe was adequate."

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My judgment it's best for the ongoing war against terror that the investigation be done in the Intelligence Committee.

BASH: September 11th victims' families lobbied and six months later the president signed on. Then, a series of skirmishes from some quiet struggles over boosting its initial $3 million budget to larger public battles turned political pressure points. The commission wanted broad access to classified documents, especially the president's own daily intelligence briefings, what he knew about al Qaeda's threat.

BUSH: It's important for the writers of the presidential daily brief to feel comfortable that the documents will never be politicized and/or unnecessarily exposed for public purview.

BASH: The president resisted but later compromised. Another flashpoint whether National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice would testify at commission hearings. The White House initially refused citing executive privilege. Again, it later gave in as it also did in agreeing the president and vice president would answer commissioners' questions, though that was still private.

JIM THOMPSON (R), 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: Though there was controversy along the way and obviously disagreements from time to time.

BASH: The 9/11 Commission's recommendations were yet another example. In the heat of the presidential campaign, Democrat John Kerry embraced them immediately. Mr. Bush initially was more circumspect.

BUSH: The 9/11 Commission also made several recommendations.

BASH: But then backed the reforms and after public pleas from some fellow Republicans, still unsure how serious his support was, Mr. Bush eventually used his reelection capital to push the bill through Congress.

DAVID GERGEN, FMR. WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: The president faced the political necessity of not losing on this, of not being overrun and not seeming to care about this intelligence and I think that's one of the reasons they came around.

BASH (on camera): Some of the president's critics also note he initially resisted then embraced creating the Homeland Security Department but even they say these intelligence reforms were enacted relatively quickly and the bottom line is it's the Bush signature on this law and that's what history will remember.

Dana Bash, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Before Congress passed the intelligence bill, there was plenty of debate, much of it centering on balancing national security and privacy, critics calling many of the provisions of the bill far too intrusive. Government, however, isn't the only intruder in this regard, so is business.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sue Kaszynski of Canandaigua, New York was shocked when she found out information about her prescription drug use was being sold by a database company.

SUE KASZYNSKI: I have a problem when somebody invades my privacy and gets this information without my knowledge or consent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One day she got a letter from an attorney she had never heard of seeking plaintiffs for a class action lawsuit. It was against the makers of a prescription drug she had been taking.

KASZYNSKI: I'm calling in regards to a letter I had received.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It turned out the lawyer got her name from a man 3,000 miles away who practiced a profession Sue had never heard of. Gary Cuffolds (ph) of Escondido, California earns his living as a list broker buying names of prescription drug users from database companies and then selling them to lawyers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: That's an excerpt from "Someone's Watching," a new documentary from the Discovery Times channel and investigative reporter Lowell Bergman, who it is our pleasure to have with us tonight, Lowell, good to have you here.

LOWELL BERGMAN, SR. PRODUCER/CORRESPONDENT, "SOMEONE'S WATCHING": Good evening.

O'BRIEN: All right. Lots of startling revelations there, you can fill out a little survey and suddenly people know what drugs you're taking. Did it surprise you?

BERGMAN: It surprised me that when we got into it that the private sector has not only almost as much information as the government but, as an FBI official said to me, they know how to find it.

O'BRIEN: They know how to find it. They know how to use it. What kind of law is out there stopping them?

BERGMAN: Well, there are privacy laws related to medical information but in general there's a huge amount of information out there on the public record. In the past, before the digital revolution, you had to actually go and get it. Today, as you know, a lot of it is on the Internet and private industry has learned how to sell it in databases, both for financial information and other information that was never available that way before.

O'BRIEN: So, when people get paranoid these days about their privacy they have good reason to.

BERGMAN: As one of the people we spoke with said, you have a right to privacy in this country but you don't have a right to anonymity. O'BRIEN: All right. Well, give us a few examples here. Now, one of the things that I found interesting just reading about this there are actually people that go around listening to baby monitors, for example. What are people trying to get in that (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

BERGMAN: Well, what we were showing is that there are, for instance, private investigators and other people who actually can go out and track whatever signals there are out there in the world today and a lot of people, let's say will buy home video cameras, if you will, for security reasons.

Well, that signal can be picked up out on the street and, if you watch the documentary, you'll see people cruising the street in Los Angeles actually looking in people's homes, stopping, using wireless communications and accessing databases, public record databases and finding out who lives there, where they work, how much they're worth and so on.

O'BRIEN: Who are these people and what is their motive though for doing this?

BERGMAN: Well, these two guys actually work for cable channels. I don't know if...

public record databases, and finding out who lives there, where they work, how much they're worth and so on.

O'BRIEN: Who are these people and what is their motive, though, for doing this?

BERGMAN: Well, these two guys actually work for cable channels. I don't know if it's CNN, but many of them in some of these, if you will, a high-intense news events, Michael Jackson case and so on in these particular guys, and they look for information, basically. That's who -- and they work -- these particular guys work for...

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Working for whom, though?

BERGMAN: Well, they'll work for Fox. They'll work for CNN. They'll work for whoever will hire them.

O'BRIEN: I don't think we advocate that practice.

(CROSSTALK)

BERGMAN: And they've also worked for the FBI. All the networks use these databases to find people and to find information about people.

And the federal government is now using it as well. So, you now have for the first time the coming-together of the vast government databases and private databases.

O'BRIEN: And, of course, as is always the case, technology way ahead of the laws here. What's to be done about it?

BERGMAN: Well, one is to have a national debate. In the wake of 9/11, a lot of restrictions were thrown out the windows. We talked about the wall coming down between intelligence agencies and law enforcement. What we haven't had a really good national debate, it seems, about what the consequences of this could be.

O'BRIEN: What was the most shocking thing you discovered in the course of this documentary?

BERGMAN: It was the way in which people's private information is sold in lists on the marketplace.

There are companies like Acxiom and others, who make their living selling this kind of information, so that, in fact, as you'll see in the documentary, there's one agency that actually sells lists of almost one million women who have yeast infections. And they have lists of these people, who they are, where they are, etcetera, and private industry will buy these lists.

O'BRIEN: And I assume, when people realize how much these companies know about you, it will give them the creeps?

BERGMAN: Well, I think it causes people to have, you know, pause about what's really going on and feel powerless, because there's not much you can do about it.

O'BRIEN: All right, Lowell Bergman, the documentary, it airs tomorrow on Discovery Times. Check your local listings, as they say. It's called "Someone's Watching."

And I'm already feeling more paranoid, but thanks for dropping by anyway.

BERGMAN: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Appreciate it. All right.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, Aaron talks with the director James L. Brooks. And we'll talk Christmas trees with Alcoa, of all people.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Well, if there's a rap against television -- and, surely there are raps, especially TV news -- here it is, too much hype, lines like, if you eat, sleep or breathe, you won't want to miss our next report on hangnails. That said, no hype here.

If you've ever laughed in your living room or at the movie theater any time in the last three decades, chances are pretty good James L. Brooks had something to do with it. He's been the producer or director or creator of "The Mary Tyler Moore" show, "The Simpsons," "Broadcast News," "Terms of Endearment," and now the major motion picture "Spanglish." It opens tonight.

He visited with Aaron last week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Do you get nervous when a movie's about to premiere? They take a lot of time to make. There's a lot on the line. There's a lot of money. There's reputation. Do you get nervous?

JAMES L. BROOKS, PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Yes, yes. I mean, if you call vomiting blood nervous, I guess.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: I do. What's the nervousness about?

BROOKS: First of all, it's a very intense experience. You really tunnel in. It's just -- preoccupation is a very mild word for what happens when you do a movie. So, suddenly, you're in the world again. I keep telling people, you know, I'm joining the human race again.

BROWN: So, for the last how many months, you've been sort of in blinders on this project?

BROOKS: It's been a pretty solid year. And before that, the writing was intense.

But, once you start shooting -- and this is the first time I've ever had a movie that -- I finished this movie a week ago and it's coming out next week. And so it's the first time I have finished a movie just at the point of release. So that intensified everything.

BROWN: Do you -- what do you like about the movie?

BROOKS: My movie?

BROWN: Yes. BROOKS: You know, I like that it's funny. I like -- I hope that it's true. I like that people say it's real. I love my actors. I think they're all extraordinary.

BROWN: I thought all directors actually didn't like actors.

BROOKS: Well, I do this because I like the actors, so...

BROWN: Yes. Yes.

A lot of your work is, it seems to me, is that you make us look at where we are culturally, where the culture is at any given moment. Does the movie do that?

BROOKS: Well, maybe. But I think the point is to tell a story. And I think it's always important to -- I always think this thing, that you got to remember why you're invited to the party. And you're invited to the party because you're supposed to do something stupid, put on a lamp shade and make people laugh. And I always try and make sure I do that.

But this picture has a lot on its mind and a lot that I care about enormously.

BROWN: Beyond sort of walking out with a sense that that was $9.75 or whatever it is well spent and that was a great two hours and that was fun, do you want people to walk out of the movie with any specific sense?

BROOKS: Oh, yes.

What I love is -- first of all, if you're not making them laugh, you're not there. But, in this instance, we're heartened by how many people are moved emotionally. It's the question we ask after every screening, how many people were crying and stuff. But it's not so much that they're crying. It's the fact that they have accepted the characters when that happened, that something's resonated in your life.

And what I think -- you know, what I like a movie to do for you is give you a great ride home, so there's a discussion to have. And I think comedy's allowed to do that, too.

BROWN: It's a wonderful way to put it, because that is, in many ways, the mark of -- whether it's a great play or a great movie, is that half-hour afterwards when you're on the way home and you play with it. You replay it.

BROOKS: It's a great goal.

The things that I've loved in my life, I remember walking with friends. For an hour, we didn't even know we had been walking for an hour talking about "Chorus Line" when we first saw it or when I first -- those things when I was -- those pictures that get you, where you just, where you can't wait to get outside. I always thought, when "Apocalypse Now" came out and you saw that picture for the first time, and I always thought -- I saw it in a 1,200-seat theater.

And I was sure if I got up and said coffee at my house, everybody would have followed me, because everybody wanted to talk about it.

BROWN: Are there movies that you go to where you say, I need to see that again?

BROOKS: Yes. Yes.

BROWN: And is that a failure in a movie or is that a successful movie or neither?

BROOKS: Oh, no. Nobody sees a movie twice without something good having happened.

BROWN: So, it's not that you didn't get it. You just knew there was more there.

BROOKS: Oh, no. And people express when they like one of your movies by saying, I saw it 15 times. I saw the DVD 15 times.

BROWN: Yes.

I want to talk about television a bit and a little more about how times have changed in the time you've been working.

But let me ask one more question before we take a break. You've just come out of this intense time making the movie and editing the movie and now marketing the movie. Is it possible to have a clear, sort of objective view of the movie this close to it?

BROOKS: A little bit, a little bit. I find that -- you know, I think it takes like two years before you make the big call, where you just see it totally detached from yourself.

But it -- compared to where I was a month ago, yes, you know, I'm much more objective than I was a month ago. I mean, that's...

BROWN: Do want to go back and make another edit, then, when that happens?

BROOKS: Not so much this time. I'm pretty happy with it, yes.

BROWN: We'll continue our conversation in just a moment.

BROOKS: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY TYLER MOORE, ACTRESS: What I mean is, you'll have to excuse me for talking so much. It's just that when I get nervous, I tend to babble on, so I'm sorry if I'm bothering you. If you want me to stop, just let me know, because, otherwise, I'll just keep right on talking.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: I know it's kind of a silly thing, but it's just this way I have of unwinding. So, you know...

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Night-night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I want it talk about television.

BROOKS: OK.

BROWN: If you -- I've seen every -- I know I've seen every "Mary Tyler Moore" episode. As best I can tell, she is the most innocent adult on the planet, except for like about five seconds in one episode where you suggest that she's on the pill. She's walking out the door, as I recall it, and either her mother or father says to the other parent, don't forget your pill, and they both answer. Would Mary have to be different today?

BROOKS: Oh, yes. That was a very racy joke at the time.

I mean, yes, it would be very different today. I think the good thing about the show is that it was a show so much for its time. I don't think it's a timeless show. I think we were doing -- we right at the middle of when women were changing in this country and we had a character to reflect that.

BROWN: Was it important that she not be too far ahead of sort of where the women -- she had to be behind the leading edge of the women's movement for people to accept her?

BROOKS: It was the nature of the character that she would be -- but doing a character at all that was influenced by that was new at the time, that there wasn't anybody else doing that at the time.

BROWN: So you felt then you were pushing a line?

BROOKS: No. You know, you always want to feel -- I mean, you must guard against all pretension, especially when you're doing television, that no messages. We wanted to be true to the character. We wanted to be funny.

BROWN: Right.

BROOKS: And we wanted to have our own community on that show.

BROWN: Why is "The Simpsons" such a smash?

BROOKS: You can't explain it. You know, it's -- what is the absolute reverse of a train wreck, you know? What's antithetical to a train wreck? Whatever that is, whatever the word is for that, is what happened to us.

BROWN: Did you anticipate -- or do you ever anticipate that?

BROOKS: No. You know, there was a strange sound.

It had been a struggle to get the show on. And when we first started it, there was an experience of entering the culture, where it snapped. Suddenly, it was on every magazine cover. It was on one. And before you had a chance to celebrate the one, it was on another. So it was a very odd experience, where you just see it...

BROWN: How far -- it's been on a long time.

BROOKS: This is our 16th season, yes.

BROWN: Yes.

At what point -- how early in the run do you sort of go, not only is this a hit in the moment -- TV produces a lot of sort of momentary hits -- they're good for a year or good for 18 months -- but that this really has legs; we can run with this for a long time?

BROOKS: You know, we try and take it one or two years at a time. And we do.

I think it's something. Like they say, running, there is a 10- mile barrier. And I think there was a barrier somewhere around eight or nine years, where we said we -- where we didn't know whether we could generate stories anymore and then we got through that barrier. And I'm not quite sure how. And now we feel, you know, very vital this year. We feel we're doing one of our best seasons. And...

BROWN: Just a couple personal questions, if I may. You've been hugely successful. Why do you keep doing it?

BROOKS: Oh, it's a privilege. That's what I'm -- well, you love it, but also, when it comes to making a movie, being able to chase some things you really care about and work with actors you really want to, it's just a privilege. It's just -- that was my mantra to myself on this. I just actively appreciated it every day.

BROWN: So, no matter how many hits you have, there is still that -- at some level, there's still a fear that maybe I don't have it?

BROOKS: No, it's not that.

No matter how much you've had that has gone well, it's irrelevant to the experience of the moment and trying to protect the movie you're doing, trying to realize the movie you're doing. It doesn't matter if the last one worked or the last two worked. You're still trying to realize this movie.

BROWN: Well, you've had a lot of things go well for a long time. Thank you. BROOKS: You're not putting a curse on me, are you?

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: I stopped doing that a couple years ago with guests. It was hard to get them to come back.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: It was nice to meet you.

BROOKS: It was a pleasure meeting you.

BROWN: Thank you.

BROOKS: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: In a minute, the groovy thing that happened when Father Christmas arrived in the swinging '60s.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The good folks here at NEWSNIGHT tell me that, as a rule, any story, any story, can run in segment seven as long as it's a great story. So here now, a look back at Christmas in the space-age '60s in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, where the women were strong, the men good-looking and the Christmas tree sparkled like an Atlas rocket at dawn.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN SHIMON, PHOTOGRAPHER, "SEASON'S GLEAMINGS": When people pick up "Season Gleamings," it might hit them as not being quite right, because I think what you want to see is a book about Christmas collectibles or about Christmas decorating.

JULIE LINDEMANN, PHOTOGRAPHER, "SEASON'S GLEAMINGS": There's a lot of visual culture, and I hope that, as people look at the images, that they stop for a moment and ponder just at all the little nuances.

There was this feeling at the time, after the wars, that there was this desire for glitz and glamour and luxury. And aluminum trees fit into that, this idea of bringing newness to something that was traditional.

KEVIN CRAWFORD, MAYOR OF MANITOWOC, WISCONSIN: The aluminum specialty company did a variety of small aluminum products, from salt shakers to camping sets. And in the early '60s, they were invited to produce an aluminum Christmas tree for a speciality sale in Chicago. They produced these trees from about 1960 to about 1968.

LINDEMANN: They made them rotate. They made them pink. They made them green, gold. They made them with blue tips on the branches. They made all sorts of accoutrements to light them.

And so there's all sorts of textures and varieties and colors. The makers of the trees were very concerned that consumers not hang string electric lights on the branches. If they would do that, they would become electrified and they could get electrocuted. So there was a caution that says, to avoid electric shock, please do not string lights on the branches. So we did a photograph called "Short Out" showing the tree having been strung with lights and then tipping over.

To decorate the tree, you would use turning lights, color wheels. You would make the tree rotate and decorate it very simply with small colored balls and keep it very minimal.

CRAWFORD: We're a very productive community, a blue-collar community, and very proud of it. And the things that we made in the past now reigning into the future I think are very important for our history.

LINDEMANN: If "Season's Gleamings" can make people in Manitowoc think about some of the past and about how maybe this company or these things affected their life and what meaning it might have for them, that that would be a really great thing about it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Here's a look at what's coming up at the top of the hour -- Lou.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up on CNN, millions of Americans at risk tonight, an in-depth report on the critical condition of the pharmaceutical industry. Senator Susan Collins joins us and Senator Chuck Grassley at the top of the hour, next here on CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: All right. We'll wrap things up after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: A quick program note before we go. Sunday morning, 8:30 Eastern, CNN presents "TIME" magazine's person of the year, a CNN special anchored by NEWSNIGHT's own Aaron Brown, the man who normally sits here.

He looks at an extraordinary person who made the indelible mark for 2004. That's 8:30 a.m. Eastern time this Sunday on CNN. You'll find out who the person of the year is. And you'll be the first to know.

That's all the time we have for NEWSNIGHT tonight. I'm Miles O'Brien.

On behalf of Aaron Brown, who is off tonight, and the rest of the NEWSNIGHT team, thanks for being with us. Have a great weekend.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired December 17, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. Aaron is off tonight. I'm Miles O'Brien.
Another drug that seemed to be a wonder once again has us wondering. Celebrex, the wildly popular pill that promised relief from chronic pain without serious side effects may, in fact, be a risk doctors and patients don't want to take.

And, while the company that makes the drug, Pfizer, is not pulling it off the market, it is sounding a serious warning, serious as a heart attack. If it sounds familiar, it is. Celebrex is a chemical cousin of Vioxx, withdrawn from the market a few months ago, amid similar concerns.

Some big questions lingering tonight why did Pfizer issue this warning? What does it mean for the future of the drug and for the company for that matter? And what about the 27 million Celebrex users out there what is next for them?

We have several reports. We begin with CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: These are just a few of the 23 million people who have discovered Celebrex.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's been one of the best selling drugs in history but today a bombshell. A government study says people taking Celebrex are two and a half times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke.

The study, which has not been made public, came from the National Cancer Institute. It was investigating whether Celebrex might help prevent cancer. Now, the researchers have stopped using Celebrex in the study.

And, the Food and Drug Administration is telling doctors to consider alternative pain relievers for their patients. And, if a doctor determines the benefits of the drug are worth the risk, the doctor should prescribe the lowest effective dose.

Now many are wondering why did it take nearly five years to notice that this blockbuster drug, which has been used by 27 million Americans, could cause heart attacks? Dr. David Graham is the Food and Drug Administration's safety expert who blew the whistle on a similar drug, Vioxx. He says the system has completely broken down.

DR. DAVID GRAHAM, FDA WHISTLEBLOWER: FDA is incapable of protecting the United States against unsafe medicines.

COHEN: He says the FDA should have been monitoring Celebrex more closely since experts knew even before the drug went on the market it could possibly cause heart problems.

GRAHAM: I think the American people need to ask what's wrong with FDA? Why does it not take seriously the issue of safety?

COHEN: When Vioxx, which is in the same family as Celebrex, was shown to have a similar risk, it was pulled off the market, so does that mean the FDA wants Celebrex off the market too? The agency says no. They want to study the data further and that safety problems are inevitable.

DR. LESTER CRAWFORD, FDA ACTING COMMISSIONER: We can never be failsafe, though, because we're dealing with products that are very difficult to evaluate but we have to continue to refine and improve based on the science that we have in hand. We're far better at it than we used to be but we need to be better in the future.

COHEN: But critics of the FDA say drugs aren't so difficult to evaluate and that the agency should require drug companies to study how the drug works in more people for longer periods of time before allowing it on the market. Pfizer defended its drug Friday saying its own study showed no heart or stroke problems.

HANK MCKINNELL, CHAIRMAN, CEO, PFIZER, INC.: We do know from a wealth of other information, some from FDA studies, some from our studies, some from others, that Celebrex when taken as recommended at the doses recommended is safe and effective.

COHEN: The dose patients took in the study, the dose that put them at an increased risk for heart attack and stroke, is a dose recommended by Pfizer, 400mg a day. Now many will be watching Pfizer to see if it takes Celebrex off the market or if perhaps, the FDA pressures it to do so.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Celebrex is not the only drug of this type in Pfizer's portfolio. Its sister drug Bextra, which makes millions for the company, is also under fire. Earlier this month, Pfizer added what's called a black box warning to Bextra's label, the most serious type of warning the FDA can demand.

Today, an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine took an unusual step warning doctors not to prescribe Bextra, saying it's too dangerous. Now the warning on Celebrex had left patients with and their doctors in a terrible bind.

Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the past year, Neela Rastogi-Shapiro has had to walk slowly on lunch breaks ever since she hurt her knee from overdoing it in the gym. As recently as Thursday, she took Celebrex, not anymore.

NEELA RASTOGI-SHAPIRO, CELEBREX USER: I'm in my 30s. I shouldn't be worried about heart problems and cardiovascular problems. I'm too young for this. I only have knee problems.

CARROLL: Shapiro started out taking Vioxx but that painkiller upset her stomach so her doctor suggested Celebrex. That was weeks before Vioxx was pulled for its risk of causing heart attacks and strokes. Now there may be risks associated with Celebrex. Shapiro wonders what to do now.

DR. GARY MEREDITH, RHEUMATOLOGIST: How are you today?

CARROLL: Rheumatologist Gary Meredith is Shapiro's doctor.

MEREDITH: I think people are going to ask is it safe to continue to take it. What we'll probably try to do is see if we can minimize the dose or possibly substitute another medication for those that are at high risk.

CARROLL: Dr. Meredith says as late as Thursday he spoke with representatives from Pfizer, the company that manufactures Celebrex. He says that company rep made no mention of any potential problems.

SHAPIRO: My pain comes and goes.

CARROLL: Now, Shapiro says she's going to look at other options.

SHAPIRO: At this point, I want to experiment on other alternatives, natural remedies, homeopathic remedies, holistic medicine or maybe not take anything.

CARROLL (on camera): Medical experts say people taking Celebrex should meet with their doctors and, if there's a history of heart disease, weigh the risks versus the benefits of staying on Celebrex.

Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra belong to one of the most widely marketed and most widely prescribed groups of drugs on the market. The business of killing pain is a very big business indeed. Just Celebrex alone brings in $2.3 billion a year in revenue for Pfizer. The lessons of Merck, which stands accused of withholding damaging data on Vioxx, weigh heavily here.

Here's CNN's Allan Chernoff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Merck's loss of Vioxx in September appeared to have been Pfizer's gain. As Merck voluntarily pulled its arthritis medicine from drugstore shelves, Pfizer aggressively marketed Celebrex.

ANNOUNCER: Ask your doctor about Celebrex.

CHERNOFF: A chance to gain market share for the number one arthritis pain medication, in the U.S. alone, 27 million prescriptions written, sales this year of better than $3 billion. Some Americans, though, feared Celebrex might also cause heart trouble.

LUISA CONTRERAS, PATIENT: I'm not a person who takes medication easily and so then when you hear something like this then you say "You see I'm right."

CHERNOFF: Pfizer thought it was in the clear until Thursday night.

MCKINNELL: The company received this information about 5:00 p.m. last night. I first heard about it about 8:00 p.m. last night. We advised the Food and Drug Administration immediately and we announced this morning information that we thought was important to prescribing physicians and to patients benefiting from Celebrex.

CHERNOFF (on camera): Pfizer says it has no plans to pull the medication. It will keep on selling Celebrex and the company is working with the Food and Drug Administration on a study of arthritis patients taking Celebrex, which is due to begin next year.

(voice-over): The FDA also plans to review data from ongoing Celebrex studies and says "it will determine the appropriate regulatory action."

DR. JOHN ABRAMSON, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: It's not a wonder drug. We've spent $8 billion on this drug. It's not a wonder drug. It was wonder marketing.

CHERNOFF: It's an especially poor time for Pfizer to have to go into crisis management mode. The industry's new drug pipeline has been drying up as patents are expiring for established drugs opening them to competition from generics. Investors fearing sales of Celebrex will suffer bailed out of Pfizer stock Friday. It lost 11 percent closing at its lowest level in nearly seven years.

Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And NEWSNIGHT has been out front of the drug story, the questions too about regulation and whether that regulation is too lax. We've tried to make it as balanced as we can, recognizing that every drug carries the risk of side effects. Weighing a drug's risk against its benefits is the challenge doctors and their patients face every day. Today, the calculus became more complicated for those who use and prescribe Celebrex.

Joining us from Baltimore, Dr. Roger Blumenthal, director of preventive cardiology at Johns Hopkins, he is also a spokesperson for the American Heart Association. Dr. Blumenthal, good to have you with us.

DR. ROGER BLUMENTHAL, JOHNS HOPKINS: Thank you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Give us a little perspective here. When it's said that it doubles the risk of a heart attack, Celebrex that is, what does that really mean?

BLUMENTHAL: Well, in the study there was about 2,000 individuals. The absolute incidence of a heart attack or stroke was one percent in the placebo group, two and a half percent in the Celebrex dosage that was 400mg a day, and three and a half percent in the Celebrex dose that was 800mg a day.

O'BRIEN: Are those acceptable percentages?

BLUMENTHAL: Well, all the other prior studies that we had seen with this particular medicine had not shown an increased risk. The totality of evidence would suggest that lower dosages of Celebrex are quite safe and effective.

But one thing that we should stress is that at the two-year mark in the study there was no hint of an increased risk. It was only at nearly the three-year mark that we did see this increased risk.

And I think what we should remember is what the FDA has now put on its website that with these types of medicines we should probably use the lowest dose for pain relief and we shouldn't be using them for a year or two years at a time. They were really meant for short term use for relief of pain in people that had stomachs maybe prone to bleeding.

O'BRIEN: I think a lot of people must be scratching their head wondering what the government is doing, if anything, to vet these drugs before they get to market.

BLUMENTHAL: Well, this particular study, Miles, was based on some very exciting data that Cox-2 inhibitors may decrease the risk of cancer, especially colon cancer. And earlier this month there was a report from M.D. Anderson suggesting that Celebrex may be a potential major breakthrough in the treatment of breast cancer.

So, the science was that these particular drugs, used at higher dosages, may actually decrease cancer but what we see here is a small but statistically significant increase in heart attacks.

We also should keep in mind that there are two other studies of similar size that are going on that didn't show any increased risk of Celebrex at the dosages used in that study. O'BRIEN: To what extent is this a function of the tremendous marketing associated with these drugs and people going in and requesting them, demanding them? Are physicians kind of rolling over to that pressure and is that creating a potential problem for consumers?

BLUMENTHAL: Well, the American Heart Association always stress that we always want to improve dietary and exercise habits and when we use medications we want to use them for the proper indication.

I think it is true that some people have jumped to using Cox-2 inhibitors long term for pain relief when perhaps maybe short term use would be better and thinking about things such as Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Naprosyn, things of that nature that haven't been associated with an increased risk and they're also a lot less expensive.

O'BRIEN: So, to what extent then should we point the fingers at doctors here? Are doctors not doing their job in prescribing properly?

BLUMENTHAL: I think doctors are doing their job. We have to remember that this was a study using dosages that were two or four times higher than traditional use of Celebrex for pain relief and this was also a long term study.

The drug was really not made for long term use. There's some exciting science data that suggests that it may decrease cancer and that was the purpose of this particular study.

O'BRIEN: Dr. Blumenthal, should it be pulled from the shelves? Should this be off the market?

BLUMENTHAL: No, I don't think so. I think when the drug is used properly in the lowest dose and not used for more than two years but used just for short term use, Miles, I think it can be used very safely and effectively and the totality of evidence would support that conclusion.

O'BRIEN: Dr. Roger Blumenthal with Johns Hopkins thanks very much for your time.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Ahead on the program, striking a rough balance in Iraq between fighting the enemy and making friends.

Also tonight the shifting balance that could be putting your private life in the public eye.

And later, what do Christmas trees and recycled beer cans have in common?

A break first, in New York but in from Atlanta this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) O'BRIEN: The news when it broke was enough to make your hair stand on end. In northwestern Missouri, the tiny town of Skidmore, a pregnant woman attacked in her home, they baby she was carrying cut from her womb and gone.

Tonight, the mother, 23-year-old Bobby Jo Sinnett (ph) is dead. The baby she carried for eight months is apparently in safe hands. And, authorities say a woman has confessed to it all. She is Lisa Montgomery of Melvern, Kansas, who once lost a baby to a miscarriage.

A series of tips led police and FBI to her home where the baby was found. They picked up Ms. Montgomery and her husband later. According to an FBI affidavit, she said she strangled Bobby Jo Sinnett and took the baby. She further said she lied to her husband saying the baby was hers.

Overseas tonight, the news from Iraq continues to be one step forward, two steps back. Today the step forward a large one, the Bush administration today formally canceling Iraq's $4.1 billion debt urging the rest of the world to do the same.

Meantime, another attack on foreigners, this time in Mosul in the north which has become akin to the new Falluja these days, gunmen killing three foreigners and one Iraq. The ambush took place at a major traffic circle in town. A Marine was killed as well in action in the Falluja area.

And insurgents also set an oil pipeline ablaze near Baghdad. This is considered a rare occurrence so close to the capital. Today, most of the oil sabotage coming on the outskirts of Basra and Kirkuk.

So much of Iraq today deals with destruction, less with rebuilding. The facts are though both take place on a daily basis in big ways and in small, sometimes by the same players who might find themselves kicking down a door one day, rebuilding it the next.

It's not a simple mission, not an easy one either; with the troops tonight, CNN's Chris Lawrence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The 1st Cavalry Division fought its way through Baghdad's Sadr City one bloody block at a time.

COL. ABE ABRAMS, 1ST CAVALRY DIVISION: It was as violent as anyplace you can possibly imagine.

LAWRENCE: But after they defeated some of the insurgents their mission suddenly shifted.

SGT. DAVID GURBA, 1ST CAVALRY DIVISION: You know we can be fighting one minute and the next minute, you know, if we need to adapt and, you know, go into work at humanitarian sites and so forth, you know, we're ready for that too. LAWRENCE: They've been ordered to engage insurgents, win the trust of residents and protect rebuilding projects from repaving roads...

GURBA: Hey Rod (ph), bring two.

LAWRENCE: ...to pumping streets where families still live in raw sewage.

(on camera): But a lot of Iraqis say for every one building or road that's been repaired there are 100 that make them feel as if the war never ended.

RASOUL ALI, SADR CITY RESIDENT (through translator): It's been two years. Where's the reconstruction?

LAWRENCE (voice-over): Rasoul Ali says he hears what the Americans say but wonders if they understand what he sees.

ALI (through translator): It's not only this. Wherever you go it's ruins.

LAWRENCE: U.S. officials say big projects like building new power plants take time. The work has to go up for bid, generators built from scratch. The American head of development compares it to his last project, Boston's big dig.

ANDREW WATSON, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL AID: It took us 15 years to build it in the United States, which doesn't have an insurgency going on.

LAWRENCE: The soldiers understand Iraqis impatience.

GURBA: I have a 2-1/2-year-old son back home and, you know, you see the kids. You just want to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) there could be a magic button you could switch it and just get it fixed but, you know, it's going to take some time.

LAWRENCE: And explaining that could be their most difficult mission yet.

Chris Lawrence, CNN, Sadr City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: In Cuba, a pointed message for the U.S., a message hard to miss. The Cuban government placed billboards showing abused Iraqi prisoners across from the U.S. Diplomatic Mission.

Earlier this week large numerals, 75, appeared among the Christmas decorations on the grounds of the U.S. mission, the 75 representing the number of dissidents imprisoned by Fidel Castro's regime last year. Cuba's government had called the reference a provocation and warned there will be consequences if it was not removed. These are the consequences. Another note concerning Cuba and the U.S. military prison there, a former Pentagon official today confirmed a report in "The Washington Post" that the CIA has maintained a detention facility at Guantanamo Bay for high value al Qaeda prisoners, a facility within the larger prison complex there. CIA officials have long said they have several dozen high value al Qaeda prisoners under interrogation at undisclosed locations around the world.

Coming up tonight, why privacy is a vanishing commodity unless you're buying and selling it. Producer Lowell Bergman has put together an eye-opening documentary. We'll talk with him about it.

Also, Aaron's conversation with the man behind Mary Richards, Rhoda Morgenstern (ph) and Homer Simpson, Director James L. Brooks just out with a new movie "Spanglish."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The job is six days a week.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All the housekeeping, driving the kids. How much a week do you want?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One thousand dollar. (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's kidding.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: President Bush today signed the Intelligence Reform Bill into law, the most sweeping changes in a half century brought into being by the attacks of 9/11. The birth, however, was long and troubled and the president at times a reluctant midwife.

With that, here's CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE0

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president gets credit from all involved for personally pushing the intelligence reform measure over the finish line; however, many recall he was initially a skeptic, if not a critic of the effort.

TIM ROEMER (D), 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: The president was Johnny-come-lately to this, better late than never.

BASH: At first, he fought creating the independent 9/11 Commission saying, "A congressional probe was adequate."

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My judgment it's best for the ongoing war against terror that the investigation be done in the Intelligence Committee.

BASH: September 11th victims' families lobbied and six months later the president signed on. Then, a series of skirmishes from some quiet struggles over boosting its initial $3 million budget to larger public battles turned political pressure points. The commission wanted broad access to classified documents, especially the president's own daily intelligence briefings, what he knew about al Qaeda's threat.

BUSH: It's important for the writers of the presidential daily brief to feel comfortable that the documents will never be politicized and/or unnecessarily exposed for public purview.

BASH: The president resisted but later compromised. Another flashpoint whether National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice would testify at commission hearings. The White House initially refused citing executive privilege. Again, it later gave in as it also did in agreeing the president and vice president would answer commissioners' questions, though that was still private.

JIM THOMPSON (R), 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: Though there was controversy along the way and obviously disagreements from time to time.

BASH: The 9/11 Commission's recommendations were yet another example. In the heat of the presidential campaign, Democrat John Kerry embraced them immediately. Mr. Bush initially was more circumspect.

BUSH: The 9/11 Commission also made several recommendations.

BASH: But then backed the reforms and after public pleas from some fellow Republicans, still unsure how serious his support was, Mr. Bush eventually used his reelection capital to push the bill through Congress.

DAVID GERGEN, FMR. WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: The president faced the political necessity of not losing on this, of not being overrun and not seeming to care about this intelligence and I think that's one of the reasons they came around.

BASH (on camera): Some of the president's critics also note he initially resisted then embraced creating the Homeland Security Department but even they say these intelligence reforms were enacted relatively quickly and the bottom line is it's the Bush signature on this law and that's what history will remember.

Dana Bash, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Before Congress passed the intelligence bill, there was plenty of debate, much of it centering on balancing national security and privacy, critics calling many of the provisions of the bill far too intrusive. Government, however, isn't the only intruder in this regard, so is business.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sue Kaszynski of Canandaigua, New York was shocked when she found out information about her prescription drug use was being sold by a database company.

SUE KASZYNSKI: I have a problem when somebody invades my privacy and gets this information without my knowledge or consent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One day she got a letter from an attorney she had never heard of seeking plaintiffs for a class action lawsuit. It was against the makers of a prescription drug she had been taking.

KASZYNSKI: I'm calling in regards to a letter I had received.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It turned out the lawyer got her name from a man 3,000 miles away who practiced a profession Sue had never heard of. Gary Cuffolds (ph) of Escondido, California earns his living as a list broker buying names of prescription drug users from database companies and then selling them to lawyers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: That's an excerpt from "Someone's Watching," a new documentary from the Discovery Times channel and investigative reporter Lowell Bergman, who it is our pleasure to have with us tonight, Lowell, good to have you here.

LOWELL BERGMAN, SR. PRODUCER/CORRESPONDENT, "SOMEONE'S WATCHING": Good evening.

O'BRIEN: All right. Lots of startling revelations there, you can fill out a little survey and suddenly people know what drugs you're taking. Did it surprise you?

BERGMAN: It surprised me that when we got into it that the private sector has not only almost as much information as the government but, as an FBI official said to me, they know how to find it.

O'BRIEN: They know how to find it. They know how to use it. What kind of law is out there stopping them?

BERGMAN: Well, there are privacy laws related to medical information but in general there's a huge amount of information out there on the public record. In the past, before the digital revolution, you had to actually go and get it. Today, as you know, a lot of it is on the Internet and private industry has learned how to sell it in databases, both for financial information and other information that was never available that way before.

O'BRIEN: So, when people get paranoid these days about their privacy they have good reason to.

BERGMAN: As one of the people we spoke with said, you have a right to privacy in this country but you don't have a right to anonymity. O'BRIEN: All right. Well, give us a few examples here. Now, one of the things that I found interesting just reading about this there are actually people that go around listening to baby monitors, for example. What are people trying to get in that (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

BERGMAN: Well, what we were showing is that there are, for instance, private investigators and other people who actually can go out and track whatever signals there are out there in the world today and a lot of people, let's say will buy home video cameras, if you will, for security reasons.

Well, that signal can be picked up out on the street and, if you watch the documentary, you'll see people cruising the street in Los Angeles actually looking in people's homes, stopping, using wireless communications and accessing databases, public record databases and finding out who lives there, where they work, how much they're worth and so on.

O'BRIEN: Who are these people and what is their motive though for doing this?

BERGMAN: Well, these two guys actually work for cable channels. I don't know if...

public record databases, and finding out who lives there, where they work, how much they're worth and so on.

O'BRIEN: Who are these people and what is their motive, though, for doing this?

BERGMAN: Well, these two guys actually work for cable channels. I don't know if it's CNN, but many of them in some of these, if you will, a high-intense news events, Michael Jackson case and so on in these particular guys, and they look for information, basically. That's who -- and they work -- these particular guys work for...

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Working for whom, though?

BERGMAN: Well, they'll work for Fox. They'll work for CNN. They'll work for whoever will hire them.

O'BRIEN: I don't think we advocate that practice.

(CROSSTALK)

BERGMAN: And they've also worked for the FBI. All the networks use these databases to find people and to find information about people.

And the federal government is now using it as well. So, you now have for the first time the coming-together of the vast government databases and private databases.

O'BRIEN: And, of course, as is always the case, technology way ahead of the laws here. What's to be done about it?

BERGMAN: Well, one is to have a national debate. In the wake of 9/11, a lot of restrictions were thrown out the windows. We talked about the wall coming down between intelligence agencies and law enforcement. What we haven't had a really good national debate, it seems, about what the consequences of this could be.

O'BRIEN: What was the most shocking thing you discovered in the course of this documentary?

BERGMAN: It was the way in which people's private information is sold in lists on the marketplace.

There are companies like Acxiom and others, who make their living selling this kind of information, so that, in fact, as you'll see in the documentary, there's one agency that actually sells lists of almost one million women who have yeast infections. And they have lists of these people, who they are, where they are, etcetera, and private industry will buy these lists.

O'BRIEN: And I assume, when people realize how much these companies know about you, it will give them the creeps?

BERGMAN: Well, I think it causes people to have, you know, pause about what's really going on and feel powerless, because there's not much you can do about it.

O'BRIEN: All right, Lowell Bergman, the documentary, it airs tomorrow on Discovery Times. Check your local listings, as they say. It's called "Someone's Watching."

And I'm already feeling more paranoid, but thanks for dropping by anyway.

BERGMAN: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Appreciate it. All right.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, Aaron talks with the director James L. Brooks. And we'll talk Christmas trees with Alcoa, of all people.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Well, if there's a rap against television -- and, surely there are raps, especially TV news -- here it is, too much hype, lines like, if you eat, sleep or breathe, you won't want to miss our next report on hangnails. That said, no hype here.

If you've ever laughed in your living room or at the movie theater any time in the last three decades, chances are pretty good James L. Brooks had something to do with it. He's been the producer or director or creator of "The Mary Tyler Moore" show, "The Simpsons," "Broadcast News," "Terms of Endearment," and now the major motion picture "Spanglish." It opens tonight.

He visited with Aaron last week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Do you get nervous when a movie's about to premiere? They take a lot of time to make. There's a lot on the line. There's a lot of money. There's reputation. Do you get nervous?

JAMES L. BROOKS, PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Yes, yes. I mean, if you call vomiting blood nervous, I guess.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: I do. What's the nervousness about?

BROOKS: First of all, it's a very intense experience. You really tunnel in. It's just -- preoccupation is a very mild word for what happens when you do a movie. So, suddenly, you're in the world again. I keep telling people, you know, I'm joining the human race again.

BROWN: So, for the last how many months, you've been sort of in blinders on this project?

BROOKS: It's been a pretty solid year. And before that, the writing was intense.

But, once you start shooting -- and this is the first time I've ever had a movie that -- I finished this movie a week ago and it's coming out next week. And so it's the first time I have finished a movie just at the point of release. So that intensified everything.

BROWN: Do you -- what do you like about the movie?

BROOKS: My movie?

BROWN: Yes. BROOKS: You know, I like that it's funny. I like -- I hope that it's true. I like that people say it's real. I love my actors. I think they're all extraordinary.

BROWN: I thought all directors actually didn't like actors.

BROOKS: Well, I do this because I like the actors, so...

BROWN: Yes. Yes.

A lot of your work is, it seems to me, is that you make us look at where we are culturally, where the culture is at any given moment. Does the movie do that?

BROOKS: Well, maybe. But I think the point is to tell a story. And I think it's always important to -- I always think this thing, that you got to remember why you're invited to the party. And you're invited to the party because you're supposed to do something stupid, put on a lamp shade and make people laugh. And I always try and make sure I do that.

But this picture has a lot on its mind and a lot that I care about enormously.

BROWN: Beyond sort of walking out with a sense that that was $9.75 or whatever it is well spent and that was a great two hours and that was fun, do you want people to walk out of the movie with any specific sense?

BROOKS: Oh, yes.

What I love is -- first of all, if you're not making them laugh, you're not there. But, in this instance, we're heartened by how many people are moved emotionally. It's the question we ask after every screening, how many people were crying and stuff. But it's not so much that they're crying. It's the fact that they have accepted the characters when that happened, that something's resonated in your life.

And what I think -- you know, what I like a movie to do for you is give you a great ride home, so there's a discussion to have. And I think comedy's allowed to do that, too.

BROWN: It's a wonderful way to put it, because that is, in many ways, the mark of -- whether it's a great play or a great movie, is that half-hour afterwards when you're on the way home and you play with it. You replay it.

BROOKS: It's a great goal.

The things that I've loved in my life, I remember walking with friends. For an hour, we didn't even know we had been walking for an hour talking about "Chorus Line" when we first saw it or when I first -- those things when I was -- those pictures that get you, where you just, where you can't wait to get outside. I always thought, when "Apocalypse Now" came out and you saw that picture for the first time, and I always thought -- I saw it in a 1,200-seat theater.

And I was sure if I got up and said coffee at my house, everybody would have followed me, because everybody wanted to talk about it.

BROWN: Are there movies that you go to where you say, I need to see that again?

BROOKS: Yes. Yes.

BROWN: And is that a failure in a movie or is that a successful movie or neither?

BROOKS: Oh, no. Nobody sees a movie twice without something good having happened.

BROWN: So, it's not that you didn't get it. You just knew there was more there.

BROOKS: Oh, no. And people express when they like one of your movies by saying, I saw it 15 times. I saw the DVD 15 times.

BROWN: Yes.

I want to talk about television a bit and a little more about how times have changed in the time you've been working.

But let me ask one more question before we take a break. You've just come out of this intense time making the movie and editing the movie and now marketing the movie. Is it possible to have a clear, sort of objective view of the movie this close to it?

BROOKS: A little bit, a little bit. I find that -- you know, I think it takes like two years before you make the big call, where you just see it totally detached from yourself.

But it -- compared to where I was a month ago, yes, you know, I'm much more objective than I was a month ago. I mean, that's...

BROWN: Do want to go back and make another edit, then, when that happens?

BROOKS: Not so much this time. I'm pretty happy with it, yes.

BROWN: We'll continue our conversation in just a moment.

BROOKS: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY TYLER MOORE, ACTRESS: What I mean is, you'll have to excuse me for talking so much. It's just that when I get nervous, I tend to babble on, so I'm sorry if I'm bothering you. If you want me to stop, just let me know, because, otherwise, I'll just keep right on talking.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: I know it's kind of a silly thing, but it's just this way I have of unwinding. So, you know...

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Night-night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I want it talk about television.

BROOKS: OK.

BROWN: If you -- I've seen every -- I know I've seen every "Mary Tyler Moore" episode. As best I can tell, she is the most innocent adult on the planet, except for like about five seconds in one episode where you suggest that she's on the pill. She's walking out the door, as I recall it, and either her mother or father says to the other parent, don't forget your pill, and they both answer. Would Mary have to be different today?

BROOKS: Oh, yes. That was a very racy joke at the time.

I mean, yes, it would be very different today. I think the good thing about the show is that it was a show so much for its time. I don't think it's a timeless show. I think we were doing -- we right at the middle of when women were changing in this country and we had a character to reflect that.

BROWN: Was it important that she not be too far ahead of sort of where the women -- she had to be behind the leading edge of the women's movement for people to accept her?

BROOKS: It was the nature of the character that she would be -- but doing a character at all that was influenced by that was new at the time, that there wasn't anybody else doing that at the time.

BROWN: So you felt then you were pushing a line?

BROOKS: No. You know, you always want to feel -- I mean, you must guard against all pretension, especially when you're doing television, that no messages. We wanted to be true to the character. We wanted to be funny.

BROWN: Right.

BROOKS: And we wanted to have our own community on that show.

BROWN: Why is "The Simpsons" such a smash?

BROOKS: You can't explain it. You know, it's -- what is the absolute reverse of a train wreck, you know? What's antithetical to a train wreck? Whatever that is, whatever the word is for that, is what happened to us.

BROWN: Did you anticipate -- or do you ever anticipate that?

BROOKS: No. You know, there was a strange sound.

It had been a struggle to get the show on. And when we first started it, there was an experience of entering the culture, where it snapped. Suddenly, it was on every magazine cover. It was on one. And before you had a chance to celebrate the one, it was on another. So it was a very odd experience, where you just see it...

BROWN: How far -- it's been on a long time.

BROOKS: This is our 16th season, yes.

BROWN: Yes.

At what point -- how early in the run do you sort of go, not only is this a hit in the moment -- TV produces a lot of sort of momentary hits -- they're good for a year or good for 18 months -- but that this really has legs; we can run with this for a long time?

BROOKS: You know, we try and take it one or two years at a time. And we do.

I think it's something. Like they say, running, there is a 10- mile barrier. And I think there was a barrier somewhere around eight or nine years, where we said we -- where we didn't know whether we could generate stories anymore and then we got through that barrier. And I'm not quite sure how. And now we feel, you know, very vital this year. We feel we're doing one of our best seasons. And...

BROWN: Just a couple personal questions, if I may. You've been hugely successful. Why do you keep doing it?

BROOKS: Oh, it's a privilege. That's what I'm -- well, you love it, but also, when it comes to making a movie, being able to chase some things you really care about and work with actors you really want to, it's just a privilege. It's just -- that was my mantra to myself on this. I just actively appreciated it every day.

BROWN: So, no matter how many hits you have, there is still that -- at some level, there's still a fear that maybe I don't have it?

BROOKS: No, it's not that.

No matter how much you've had that has gone well, it's irrelevant to the experience of the moment and trying to protect the movie you're doing, trying to realize the movie you're doing. It doesn't matter if the last one worked or the last two worked. You're still trying to realize this movie.

BROWN: Well, you've had a lot of things go well for a long time. Thank you. BROOKS: You're not putting a curse on me, are you?

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: I stopped doing that a couple years ago with guests. It was hard to get them to come back.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: It was nice to meet you.

BROOKS: It was a pleasure meeting you.

BROWN: Thank you.

BROOKS: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: In a minute, the groovy thing that happened when Father Christmas arrived in the swinging '60s.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The good folks here at NEWSNIGHT tell me that, as a rule, any story, any story, can run in segment seven as long as it's a great story. So here now, a look back at Christmas in the space-age '60s in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, where the women were strong, the men good-looking and the Christmas tree sparkled like an Atlas rocket at dawn.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN SHIMON, PHOTOGRAPHER, "SEASON'S GLEAMINGS": When people pick up "Season Gleamings," it might hit them as not being quite right, because I think what you want to see is a book about Christmas collectibles or about Christmas decorating.

JULIE LINDEMANN, PHOTOGRAPHER, "SEASON'S GLEAMINGS": There's a lot of visual culture, and I hope that, as people look at the images, that they stop for a moment and ponder just at all the little nuances.

There was this feeling at the time, after the wars, that there was this desire for glitz and glamour and luxury. And aluminum trees fit into that, this idea of bringing newness to something that was traditional.

KEVIN CRAWFORD, MAYOR OF MANITOWOC, WISCONSIN: The aluminum specialty company did a variety of small aluminum products, from salt shakers to camping sets. And in the early '60s, they were invited to produce an aluminum Christmas tree for a speciality sale in Chicago. They produced these trees from about 1960 to about 1968.

LINDEMANN: They made them rotate. They made them pink. They made them green, gold. They made them with blue tips on the branches. They made all sorts of accoutrements to light them.

And so there's all sorts of textures and varieties and colors. The makers of the trees were very concerned that consumers not hang string electric lights on the branches. If they would do that, they would become electrified and they could get electrocuted. So there was a caution that says, to avoid electric shock, please do not string lights on the branches. So we did a photograph called "Short Out" showing the tree having been strung with lights and then tipping over.

To decorate the tree, you would use turning lights, color wheels. You would make the tree rotate and decorate it very simply with small colored balls and keep it very minimal.

CRAWFORD: We're a very productive community, a blue-collar community, and very proud of it. And the things that we made in the past now reigning into the future I think are very important for our history.

LINDEMANN: If "Season's Gleamings" can make people in Manitowoc think about some of the past and about how maybe this company or these things affected their life and what meaning it might have for them, that that would be a really great thing about it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Here's a look at what's coming up at the top of the hour -- Lou.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up on CNN, millions of Americans at risk tonight, an in-depth report on the critical condition of the pharmaceutical industry. Senator Susan Collins joins us and Senator Chuck Grassley at the top of the hour, next here on CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: All right. We'll wrap things up after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: A quick program note before we go. Sunday morning, 8:30 Eastern, CNN presents "TIME" magazine's person of the year, a CNN special anchored by NEWSNIGHT's own Aaron Brown, the man who normally sits here.

He looks at an extraordinary person who made the indelible mark for 2004. That's 8:30 a.m. Eastern time this Sunday on CNN. You'll find out who the person of the year is. And you'll be the first to know.

That's all the time we have for NEWSNIGHT tonight. I'm Miles O'Brien.

On behalf of Aaron Brown, who is off tonight, and the rest of the NEWSNIGHT team, thanks for being with us. Have a great weekend.

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