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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Two Days Remain For Grand Jury to Indict in CIA Leak Case; What to Expect From Avian Flu; Wal-Mart Under Fire Over Health Plan
Aired October 26, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone.
High anxiety at the White House, as the grand jury's deadline approaches.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Countdown, as tension ratchets up at the White House -- only two days remain for the grand jury to indict in the CIA leak case.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It remains an ongoing investigation. And we will let the special prosecutor continue to do his work.
ANNOUNCER: What it means to all the president's men.
As the avian flu continues to spread around the world, Dr. Sanjay Gupta goes to Thailand, the heart of the outbreak, to tell us what to expect and when.
Wal-Mart, America's biggest retailer, 1.3 million employees, and, today, another serious image problem.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's nothing more than rampant corporate greed that moves their every move.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight, a company memo you were never supposed to see, and critics contending Wal-Mart is trading profits for the health of its own employees.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEWSNIGHT WITH AARON BROWN AND ANDERSON COOPER.
Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, here's Aaron Brown.
BROWN: Well, good evening, again -- Anderson off this week.
We have much to cover tonight. First, here are some of the stories we are following at this moment. A jury has ruled that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the operators of the World Trade Center, dropped the ball on security and were negligent in the first bombing of the Twin Towers in 1993. Victims and their families can now sue for damages.
In Florida, after Wilma, little brother takes the heat. Jeb Bush, the governor, says the state, not FEMA, is responsible for any distribution problems that held up relief supplies. The governor says that, all things considered -- quote -- "We're doing a good job."
President Bush at a Washington luncheon serving up budget cuts today. U.S. federal debt has now topped $8 trillion, $2 trillion coming under the president's watch -- Mr. Bush talking up the possibility of cuts across the board.
And, in Iraq, Saddam Hussein's attorneys fear for their lives. With the murder of a co-defendant's lawyer still unsolved, the remaining attorneys no longer trust the United States or the new Iraqi government to protect them. So, they're suspending contact with the special tribunal, putting the trial of Saddam in some jeopardy.
But we begin tonight in Louisiana, where the attorney general of the state wants answers to a simple, but chilling question. Did employees at a hospital euthanize dozens of patients in the days after Hurricane Katrina?
He was hoping people who may know something about these allegations of mercy killings would come forward. They have not. And he's not waiting anymore. This is the story we have been looking at now for several weeks.
CNN's Drew Griffin is back in New Orleans.
Drew, good evening.
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron.
And this investigation has been ratcheted up tonight, as CNN learned 73 subpoenas have been issued by the attorney general to employees of Memorial Hospital, Tenet Healthcare's hospital here in New Orleans -- those subpoenas to bring people before investigators to answer that question: Was euthanasia enacted in that hospital in the days after Katrina, when there was so much chaos going on in this city?
The attorney general has been trying to get cooperation from Tenet Healthcare and from employees at Memorial Hospital to answer those questions. But, late this afternoon, he told me this, that: "Cooperation lately has not been as good as I had hoped. And they" -- meaning Tenet -- "seem to be in a position of protecting themselves, while we are just trying to get to the facts of what happened at the hospital. We had no choice but to issue these subpoenas" -- again, those subpoenas going out to 73 employees of Memorial Hospital here in New Orleans to answer the question, were there mercy killings going on in that hospital? -- Aaron.
BROWN: Just two things, or -- at least. First, what does Memorial say in response to all of this? GRIFFIN: Tenet Healthcare says that it is cooperating. In fact, they issued a statement tonight from its spokesman, saying: "We have never discouraged any employee from working with the Louisiana attorney general's office. In fact, we know some have already spoken to his representatives and we have been cooperating with the attorney general's office and spoken regularly about the employee interviews."
But, Aaron, we have a memo that Tenet sent out to its employees, the memo that I have in my hand, advising them of their rights. And the first right is that they do not have to discuss this case with anybody, that they have a right to an attorney, and that Tenet would bring them an attorney if they needed one, and they do not have to talk to the attorney general, if they don't want to.
The attorney general told me, that, he thought, was a chilling effect on his investigation, which is why he has issued these subpoenas in this case.
BROWN: Well, that's an interesting thing for people to ponder, whether advising people that they have the right to an attorney is chilling or not chilling.
Just the allegation itself that these mercy killings may have happened -- I don't think anybody says exactly that they did happen, but just that there was talk of it. Is that correct?
GRIFFIN: That is what CNN reported two weeks ago, that there was some nurses and a doctor who came forward and told CNN that there was talk going on inside that hospital of possible mercy killings.
Nobody that we have talked to saw anything. One doctor told us, Dr. Bryant King, that he saw a woman with a handful of needles and then he left after that.
But that is exactly what the attorney general is trying to find out. Did the talk of euthanasia go beyond talk and did it, indeed, happen? Autopsies have been conducted. And now they're waiting for toxicology results on some of those bodies that came out of that hospital.
BROWN: And there were a lot of -- actually, there -- there -- as I recall, there were 40-some people, give or take, who died at the hospital or who were found dead at the hospital. Some may have died before the hurricane and some during it. Do we know how many -- how many people are they looking at as possible victims here?
GRIFFIN: I don't have the exact numbers for you.
And this is why, because those bodies were in such a badly decomposed state that they don't really know when exactly all these people died. According to the hospital, 45 bodies were removed. I believe some 23 or so, the hospital says, were already dead or dying before that hurricane struck. And the bodies were simply stored there, because they can't be removed.
What happened after that, how many died in the aftermath, how many died when their ventilators simply were turned off because the electricity went off, we don't know exactly. We're waiting for a coroner to release results, for the autopsies to be released, and that ever-important toxicology report, which would, apparently, show us what was inside the bodies of those victims prior to their death.
BROWN: Drew, thank you. And we await that. There's much more here. Thank you very much, Drew Griffin, in New Orleans tonight.
From Katrina to Wilma, the -- in Florida, the lights are back on. Some 2.5 million customers, though, are spending another night in the dark, less than last night, but still a lot of people. Power company crews are struggling to fix lines that went down during Hurricane Wilma. And officials say it will be more than a week before most of the power in the state is back on.
In the meantime, people are doing what they do, struggling to get by.
Here's CNN's John Zarrella.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The lobby kitchen is the only place Arcady Chase can get hot water for his wife. Then, it's a 19-floor walk back up to their condominium apartment.
ARCADY CHASE, RESIDENT OF FLORIDA: It's not a pleasant experience, to be honest with you. But it's not the end of the world either.
ZARRELLA: No power, no water -- it's been tough. Neighbors down the hall lost a lot more -- windows and walls blown out. But the couple, who lived through World War II in the former Soviet Union, have seen bigger hardships.
A. CHASE: Going through that, you know, as a child, having hardly anything to eat, and we used to live in lot worse than what (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that -- a lot of people here.
ZARRELLA: The view from the Chases' Hollywood Beach apartment is stunning -- when there's no here raging outside. But Arcady and Zina aren't sure it's worth it.
ZINA CHASE, RESIDENT OF FLORIDA: We will discuss this, definitely.
(LAUGHTER)
ZARRELLA (on camera): I was going to say, you must be...
(CROSSTALK)
Z. CHASE: Maybe go on the fourth floor.
(LAUGHTER)
Z. CHASE: Because I can walk down.
ZARRELLA (voice-over): In the town of Davie, 15 miles away, Juan (ph) and Dulsay Castallanos (ph) carry buckets of water to their apartment for bathing. Down at the complex clubhouse, people are grilling. Propane is the only power here.
Virginia Muley (ph) is crying while she sits and waits for something to eat. The only way to get by here is neighbor helping neighbor.
Robert Kessler is on his way to help out an elderly woman who lives alone.
ROBERT KESSLER, RESIDENT OF FLORIDA: Like a second mother. So, you got to take care of these people that can't take care of themselves. You know, who is going to do it? Everybody -- no buses are running. It's just nice to have a nice warm meal.
ZARRELLA: In Broward County alone, more than 800,000 people are without electricity. Florida power crews are used to responding to hurricanes, but have never seen anything this widespread, taking down so much infrastructure.
STEVE ALLEN, FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT: We're replacing that bolt and putting the wire back up. And that's -- and then a priority customer on this feeder to get a hospital back up just a couple blocks up the street.
ZARRELLA: There are signs things are getting better. Overhead, a C-5A cargo plane, that means the airport is open and relief supplies are coming in.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA: Here on a Hollywood Beach, you can see, some of the lights are coming back on, good news for the people here.
But, clearly, the number-one priority in Florida is electricity, getting the power back on. No power, gas stations can't pump fuel. The water plants can't get any water pressure. Many people in the -- in Dade County, my -- Broward County and Palm Beach County without any water pressure. Boil-order water is one of the priorities here, too.
So, at this point, Aaron, it's electricity. And, quite honestly, one of the -- one of the emergency operations folks I talked to today told me that, it may be hard to believe, but this storm has been more of more of -- has had more of a widespread impact than Hurricane Andrew did, which was a Category 5 in 1992, but so many more people affected from Wilma because it is so, so much bigger -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thank you -- John Zarrella in South Florida tonight.
To a storm of a different sort. We don't know their names. We have never actually seen their faces. But, right now, they're among the most powerful players in Washington. We're talking about members of the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity.
Tonight, they very likely know something the rest of us don't, at least not yet -- their two-year tour of duty set to expire at the end of the month, at Friday. Indictments, if they come, could well come tomorrow. And, by tomorrow at this time, it is certainly a possibility that Karl Rove and the vice president's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, could stand accused of felonies.
Today, the White House tried to downplay the whole thing, which is hard to do when so much is at stake.
Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just another day at the office, except for those TV crews outside the house and the threat of indictment in the air.
Karl Rove and Lewis Libby, top aides to the vice president and vice president, put on their best game faces Wednesday and went to work. They were seen only briefly from time to time and heard not at all, while the city around them talks of little else.
QUESTION: What's the anxiety level like here at the White House? What is the atmosphere in the hallway?
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, first of all -- and there's a lot of speculation going around. And I think there are a lot of facts that simply are not known at this point.
CROWLEY: Still, even as the president puts on his best A-OK face, the White House has been thinking about the facts as they may turn out to be and how to best protect the president. An Armageddon strategy is already partially in play at the White House turned wait house.
MCCLELLAN: We have got a lot of work to do. And, so, we don't have a lot of time to sit back and think about those things. We are -- we are focusing on what the American people care most about.
CROWLEY: The portrait being painted is a man on the job with no time to worry whether his closest adviser might have to leave his, a president busy talking up his domestic agenda.
MCCLELLAN: We are working on the priorities that the American people care about.
CROWLEY: The leader of the free world busy talking to the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, the prime minister of Macedonia.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are grateful for the strong support that you have given in our efforts to win the war on terror.
MCCLELLAN: In terms of the White House, this White House is focused on the priorities of the American people.
CROWLEY: It is assumed that, if anyone is indicted, he or they will resign. The president will make note of the ongoing judicial process and then -- um, how to put this -- focus on what the American people care about.
Despite all the busyness, some White House aides admit they are weary with the waiting. No matter what it looks like, this is not just another day at the office.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still to come tonight , from the CIA leak to a CIA agent exposed and the implications that rise from it all.
And, later, obesity costs billions of dollars and is cutting quantity and quality of life in the country. So, why do Americans refuse to lose, as it were?
We will take a break. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Sometimes, we can all forget that this isn't simply a political story. It is about something else. Valerie Plame at one time in her life was an undercover CIA operative, and her cover was blown. And there are implications for that, that extend far beyond the sometimes petty give-and-take of Washington politics.
Here's CNN's David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Forty-two-year-old Valerie Plame Wilson, whose husband referred to her as "Jane Bond," is clearly now the most famous female spy in America. Exposing her as a CIA undercover officer did damage to U.S. intelligence, U.S. officials say. They refuse to be more specific.
MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER CIA ANALYST: To have someone exposed deliberately and, on top of that, for a political reason, I -- I think, yes, it probably sent a chill throughout the clandestine service.
ENSOR: What made it worse is that she was not just an undercover officer. She spent part of her 20-year career as a NOC, a spy with non-official cover, that is, without the protection of diplomatic status. She was working, officials say, to recruit foreigners who knew about murky international deals involving weapons of mass destruction.
But potential foreign agents, potential spies, have now seen a CIA officer apparently betrayed by officials in her own government. JAMES MARCINKOWSKI, FORMER CIA OFFICER: The issue here is, how are you going to tell that agent that their identity is going to be protected, when this government can't protect the home team?
ENSOR: And if any other CIA officers used the same cover as Plame, their work is in jeopardy, too. That cover was Brewster Jennings Associates, an energy consulting firm, a front company that apparently had no real address.
NOCs are harder to train, can remain undercover longer than conventional spies, and can go places and meet people that other CIA officers cannot. Some of them, like Plame, use loose cover, a false job. Others under deep cover use false names as well, complete fictional identities with forged documents, even disguises.
But NOCs are also much more vulnerable than regular spies. And intelligence sources developed by a CIA undercover officer are immediately in question if that officer is exposed.
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: The consequences for the U.S. government can range from embarrassment to having to pull the source out of an area because they have become jeopardized by this knowledge.
ENSOR: After her name appeared in Robert Novak's newspaper column, at least two foreign governments reportedly assigned their spy-catchers to figure out whether Plame had ever worked on their soil, and, if so, what she'd done there.
(on camera): And that is where the most damage likely done, other nations tracking down Valerie Plame-Wilson's contacts and sources and shutting them down.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Perhaps tomorrow is the day.
A quick look at some of the other stories that made news on this day.
Erica Hill joins us from Atlanta for that.
Good evening, Ms. Hill.
ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS CORRESPONDENT: And good evening to you, Mr. Brown.
We start off tonight in Cancun, Mexico, where at least 8,000 Americans are still stranded on their vacation, though they probably wouldn't be calling it vacation these days. Six days after Wilma hit there, thousands of desperate tourists still waiting outside airports and tour offices, as officials scramble to evacuate some 22,000 people with just 6,000 airline seats available each day. In Washington, the Agriculture Department says it is stepping up testing for bird flu here in the U.S., but it didn't say exactly where or just how many. The agency, though, does already do spot checks on chicken farms and in migratory birds. The U.S. is the world's largest producer and exporter of poultry meat.
In Australia, about 130 long-finned pilot whale have died after becoming stranded on a remote beach near Marion Bay. That's on the southern island state of Tanzania. Officials tried rescuing the whales, but only succeeded in saving 10 of them.
And, finally, we will lighten it up a little bit. It looks like King Tut liked to nip at the cooking sherry. All right, fine. It wasn't sherry. It was red wine. But researchers, they did already know he was a wine lover, but they didn't know that he preferred red until now.
Researchers -- a researcher, that is, at the British museum made her discovery after inventing a process that give archaeologists a tool to discover the color of ancient wine. The wine bottles from the king's time were labeled with the name of the product, the year of the harvest, the source, the vine grower, but, Aaron, the one thing missing, the color.
But now we know, he was a red guy. I'm kind of a red girl. So, there you go.
BROWN: I think that falls into the category or knowledge for knowledge's stake.
(LAUGHTER)
HILL: It's a good dinner party thing to pull out.
BROWN: Thank you. Yes. You drink just like King Tut.
HILL: There you go.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: Thank you very much. See you in a half-an-hour.
Coming up, making sense out of all those stories about bird flu, what you really need to know -- a report from Asia, ground zero for the virus.
And the accused killer of Pamela Vitale, the wife of a famous San Francisco defense attorney -- new details about the suspect's background and his journey from Scout to Goth.
From Thailand and California, from New York and around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Bird flu continues its march west, it seems. Today, authorities in Croatia confirmed that wild swans found dead there were killed by the virus. They're disinfecting cars now, to be on the safe side.
Bird flu is a confusing story for most of us. People have been infected, as you just heard, 121. Sixty-plus have died, though we hear it hasn't made the leap from animals to humans. It seems, every day, comes word of another outbreak. But the victims are usually birds, ducks or, as we reported earlier this week, a parrot in Britain.
So, are we just scaring ourselves and scaring you? What should we be listening for? What would be the tipping point?
To help us make sense of all of this, we sent CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta to Asia, which is ground zero for bird flu. Tonight, he's in Bangkok, Thailand.
And we talked with him a short time ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Doc, what have you seen in your time in Thailand that's -- that's caught your -- caught your eye, your medical eye?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, this is a country that has one of the strongest surveillance systems in the entire region here.
So, it's a -- it's a good model to actually look at. What we saw is, there wasn't a -- a human case of bird flu for more than a year. And then, suddenly, a 48-year-old man caught the virus, got sick, died of it. His 7-year-old confirmed to have bird flu -- so, we have seen new cases for the first time now this month.
Now, there are some more suspected, several more suspected cases in that region as well. So, what we're seeing here is -- is probably, in some ways, a predictable pattern. Bird flu in -- in humans went away for a little bit in Thailand, but has now come back.
We also -- what was interesting to me, Aaron, just geographically, I -- I went to the northeastern province of Thailand. And you have the Mekong River. And just across that is Lao. You can see Lao. And that -- that country basically has, really, no public health system to speak of. And migratory birds are constantly passing over. They don't respect the border here.
So, you get a sense of just how difficult it is to try and control a virus that is spread by birds -- Aaron.
BROWN: At -- at -- at some level, it's one thing for each individual country, for Thailand to have a good system -- and you will tell us how good a system they have for dealing with this -- but, in the end, this is, at very least, a regional problem, if not a literally a global problem.
GUPTA: At least in humans, right now, it appears to be, Aaron, a regional problem, in -- in terms of bird flu actually getting into human beings.
Obviously, the big concern -- you and I have talked about that -- is, that could change, that it's not just a regional problem, but the bird flu starts spreading in human beings around the world. But, you know, in -- in Thailand, they -- they appear to be pretty good.
You know, for example, we -- we went to this -- this village where the -- where the man, the 48-year-old man, actually died there. But, when we got there, and we were leaving, they actually were spraying us down. We wore these boots and wore these masks and caps and everything. And then they sprayed us down with this bleach-like substance.
You know, I mean, everyone is thinking about bird flu here. And they're trying to prevent the spread from one farm to another, from one region or province to another province. And it's -- it's really on the public consciousness out here.
BROWN: To -- to what extent do you think the region's experience with SARS has contributed in any way to its responses and reactions to the possibilities of bird flu?
GUPTA: I think SARS, in so many ways, was a -- probably a pretty good test run for them.
It was -- I mean, the surveillance for SARS was probably -- ended up being the most critically important thing, trying to catch these cases before they could start to spread, before people could hitch rides on planes and travel around the world.
It -- it still made it, you know, in several places around the world, as you well know. So, I -- I think, you know, they -- they just -- there's vaccine. There's no medicine that's absolutely proven to work against avian flu. So, prevention and surveillance is really the name of the game here. And they're just trying to get better and better at it -- at that, making sure the systems within the various provinces are actually communicating about avian flu.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who is in Bangkok, Thailand.
Still to come tonight, is Wal-Mart trying to maintain a healthy bottom line by rejecting workers who aren't in tiptop shape? If so, does that amount to discrimination?
And accusations of mercy killings at a New Orleans hospital -- we will have more on the demand for answers, as we continue.
From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We'll, look into Wal-Mart's latest controversy in a moment. First, here's a quick look at what's happening in this moment. The investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's name moves forward. The special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald admits he met with the district court chief judge for about 45 minutes today. But Mr. Fitzgerald is being tight lipped to say the least about what was discussed.
In New York, a jury found the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey negligent in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. The '93 bombing. It says the Port Authority which built and operated the World Trade Center failed to properly guard the parking garage where terrorists set off explosives in a rented van. Six people died that day. Thousands of others were hurt. This clears the way for victims and families to sue for damages.
And in New Orleans, accusations of mercy killings at Memorial Hospital. Louisiana's attorney general issued 73 subpoenas to hospital employees. He wants more answers that he's been getting.
Two days after Hurricane Wilma, battered Florida, utility crews working to restore electricity to 2.5 million customers, meantime, hundreds of residents are waiting in long lines for the basics, food, water, and gasoline.
Wal-Mart, the 900-pound gorilla of corporate America is kicking around some unorthodox ideas. Some critics say they're ruthless ideas in an effort to hold down benefit costs. Specifically, healthcare. They come in internal memo to the company's board of directors. CNN has obtained copy. Among the bold steps, touted in the memo, discouraging unhealthy people to apply for jobs at Wal-Mart in the first place. Here's more from CNN's Adaora Udoji.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The sometimes controversial megastore chain Wal-Mart prides itself on family values. But critics charge an internal company memo, one you were never meant to see, shows the nation's largest private employer caring more about its public relation woes and profits than its 1 million plus employees.
TRACY SEFL, WAL-MART WATCH: What this memo reveals is essentially there's nothing more than rampant corporate greed that woos their every move.
UDOJI: The memo about healthcare costs and other benefit which is the company says was a draft was leaked to a watchdog group critical of Wal-Mart. In the document, a Wal-Mart executive says, quote, "our workers are getting sicker than the national population, particularly in obesity-related diseases."
Healthcare to the tune $1.5 billion the past three years is a major reason for rapidly rising benefit costs, it says. Among several solutions to hold it down, the executive writes, quote - "Given the significant savings from even a small improvement in the health of our Associate base, Wal-Mart should seek to attract a healthier workforce to design all jobs to include some physical activity as well as better informing their workforce."
Does that mean Wal-Mart wants younger and more able bodied employees? The memo's author says, no.
SUSAN CHAMBERS, EVP, WAL-MART: We are very interested in encouraging more healthy lifestyle choices, if you will. As an employer we believe the way to do that providing information raising awareness and certainly offering choices that make for healthy lifestyle.
UDOJI: Wal-Mart benefits executives Susan Chambers says the company already offers roughly 18 different health plans to employees across the country in 3,600 stores which they're trying to improve. In response to the leak, the company released its own official copy of the memo.
(on camera): But critics point out, as the company's memo does, that nearly half of employees' children without medical insurance or are covered by taxpayer welfare dollars. And another concern is spousal coverage. It's expensive and the company wants to minimize it.
(voice-over): Wal-Mart pulled in over $10 billion in profits last year so critics say it can do more for the people that help to them there.
SEFL: They can stand to pay more for the health benefits but instead trying to cut corners and they're doing it on the backs of the lowest paid workers.
UDOJI: Wal-Mart maintained the grappling with complex health issues with both employees and the company's interest in mind. Critics say it's not what Wal-Mart says but what the company does and they are not convinced it is enough.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UDOJI (on camera): And an interesting point that both the critics and Wal-Mart will agree on, at least in part, Aaron, is that Wal-Mart is so enormous, 1.3 million employees, it reflects really the greater country in which case that they could pick on trends quickly which is why to many companies are paying attention to how they deal with the very difficult problem of health insurance.
BROWN: There's -- I mean, look at the auto industry. There is no question that healthcare costs an enormous burden for many industries and Wal-Mart is peculiar. How does, if you know, how does Wal-Mart compare to like businesses? The other warehouse businesses, Costco for example, in providing healthcare?
UDOJI: They would say ...
BROWN: They being?
UDOJI: They, being Wal-Mart, would say their benefits are far more generous than some of those other packages. Wal-Mart Watch, the watchdog group would say that's not the case. And that this memo is reflective of the fact that they're doing nothing but trying to cut benefits to their employees.
BROWN: It's a great -- the whole Wal-Mart story is a very rich and complicated story. Wal-Mart Watch is an union funded group, right?
UDOJI: Correct. Set up about six months ago.
BROWN: And they're struggling to get into Wal-Mart, they would like to organize. Thank you. There's more on this. Wal-Mart's memo notes that its associates, as its salespeople are called, are getting sicker than the national population at large. Especially in obesity- related disease which include diabetes, and coronary artery disease, heart disease. Yet across America, more and more people fighting fat. Here's CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some might say that being fat in this country is becoming part of American life. After all, 30 percent of U.S. adults aged 20 and older are obese. That's 60 million people. That's almost twice the population of Canada. Or the entire population of the United Kingdom.
And it may not be just a matter of too many adults visiting the fast food drive through. Since 1980, obesity rates tripled among children and doubled among adolescents, according to the Institute of Medicine. But the concerns are far greater than just the number of people who need to lose weight. According to the surgeon general, the cost of obesity in the United States in 2000 was greater than $117 billion, spent on everything from direct medical costs such as tests and treatment to decreased productivity and premature death, all stemming from obesity.
ART CAPLAN, BIOETHICS CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF PA: There's no doubt that obesity is a very expensive factor within American healthcare. Billions and billions and billions of dollars are spent because of diseases related to being overweight. So, it is expensive. It drives up premiums.
COHEN: The National Business Group on Health estimates that companies spend $13 billion per year for higher costs, such as inpatient and outpatient pending and more medication. All in all they say an obese employee is 11 percent more in healthcare costs than a non-obese employee.
So being fat in America is becoming more common and costing everyone more money in healthcare costs but exactly what are the specific dangers?
There are at least 15 chronic conditions including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, increased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and some cancers, all leading to shorter lives and longer illnesses all linked to obesity. For sure, the list is long and the detriment of obesity well proven but Americans aren't shedding the pounds, nor perhaps listening to the health messages. Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So coming up on the program, the debate over obesity and Wal-Mart. Who's to blame, who's to pay? Are Wal-Mart's corporate musings a taste of what's to come for overweight Americans? We'll talk about that when we come back.
And a controversy in black and white. Do comments made by a college football coach about natural ability in certain athletes go too far? Break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: Wal-Mart as we mentioned and surely you know not the only company getting squeezed by soaring healthcare costs and as you just heard many doctors say a slice of the increase goes towards treating Obesity-related diseases. When companies hire new workers, they can't discriminate on the basis of age or race or gender. But in a super sized America, what about obesity?
We're joined tonight by Paul Campos who is a law professor at the University of Colorado and written a book he calls -- about what he calls the "Obesity Myth" and we're also joined by Edward Hudgins, he's the executive director of the Objectivist Center and a member of the Cato Institute and we're pleased to have them both with us. Professor Campos, if Wal-Mart just wants to hire healthy people, what's so terrible about that?
PAUL CAMPOS, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW SCHOOL: Well, I don't think that there's anything wrong with wanting to hire healthy people, but on the other hand, I think there's something very strong about systematically discriminating against large groups of Americans simply because of this cultural myth and hysteria that we have about the notion that if you weigh more than the government says you ought to weigh you are facing serious health risks.
This is tremendously exaggerated and in fact, if Wal-Mart wanted to cut the healthcare costs and could operate on -- without any restrictions, it would be much, much more beneficial for them to discriminate, for example, against poor people, against older people, against African Americans, all sorts of groups who have significantly higher health risks as groups than do so-called overweight and obese Americans and yet we certainly wouldn't tolerate that.
BROWN: Let me come back to that point in a second. Let me bring in Dr. Hudgins for a second. Dr. Hudgins, the Cato Institute part getting my attention. I assume you'll argue they can hire fat, skinny people, tall people, short people, they can hire whoever they want and we should butt out.
PAUL CAMPOS, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LAW SCHOOL: Exactly. I think that the employee-employer contract is between the employer and the employee. It's none of the government's business. Anymore more than, by the way, I might agrees with Mr. Campos here, the government's business to tell you to eat Twinkies and Big Macs or fruit and granola. I prefer a healthy lifestyle but that's my business, none of the government's.
EDWARD HUDGINS, OBJECTIVIST CENTER: But then that does get into the second question of whether Wal-Mart should be -- whether it is a good policy and frankly, I -- remember, a free market means not only a competition in businesses selling goods and services, it also means a competition for employees and I think it's perfectly valid for Wal- Mart to say, you know what? We only made 3.5 percent profit last year. On our sales. We probably had our profits knocked down a couple of percentage points because of our healthcare costs so if we can get them under control and if one of the ways to do that is to, for example, cross train our employees, make sure that our employees not only sit at the desk but that they're fit enough, for example, to go stock shelves, maybe bring the healthcare costs down. Perfectly valid.
BROWN: Now let me go back to the Professor Campos for a second because the argument I think you're making if I get is that whether they want the hire healthy people or don't want the hire healthy people is beside the point. The point that you want to make is that there is a notion here that people who are overweight are more costly to the society than, in fact, is true. Is that it?
CAMPOS: Yes. That's true. We have -- I don't think it's a coincidence focusing on so-called overweight and obesity here instead of focusing on the structural factors which are driving increased healthcare costs. In which a higher than average weight is a trivial fact comparison to, for instance, to not having health insurance which half of Wal-Mart's employees don't have. That's a much higher health risk than really almost any level of higher than average weight and it is no coincidence, I think, Wal-Mart and other companies are beating the drum here on this notion that the problem is that Americans weigh too much instead of the problem being that enormous numbers of Americans and especially enormous numbers of American children don't have any health insurance at all and that's what really drives up healthcare costs, not the notion that we weigh too much.
BROWN: Dr. Hudgins, let me throw in one more thing here. Just see if I get you off an ideological position into something else. Are you not at least a little off put by the part of this Wal-Mart memo that seems to argue that the people who have worked for the company the longest are actually a drag on the company because they are not more productive and we have to pay them more? Isn't that at least a bit off-putting?
HUDGINS: Well, I'll put it like this. The goal of Wal-Mart is to make money by selling goods and services to customers, and by hiring the people that they think can do the job best. Some people can. Some people can't. I think that -- I think that the more crucial issue is the fact that Wal-Mart is trying to address what they perceive as a real problem. By the way, I agree with Professor Campos that there's a lot of mythology about obesity. For example, the government standards actually would have some of our greatest athletes in this country classified as fat or obese.
BROWN: Doctor? I'm sorry. Can I just -- do me a favor. Come back to my question here. Are you a little off put by the company which touts its wonderful relationship with the associates and the most wonderful people in the world, and -- and the woman argues that you know, after seven years, paying the people too much for the work they're doing. At the very least, isn't that a little off putting?
HUDGINS: Look, off putting to me is not the issue. The issue is, they're making business decisions like every businessperson. Now what's interesting is they're not saying fire the people. They're saying, let's look at things that we can do. For example, one of the things Wal-Mart is looking at doing is they have observed more employees, for example, tend to use the emergency rooms rather than go to regular doctor's appointments so they're thinking of putting clinics in their Wal-Marts.
Here's another idea ...
BROWN: I think that's a great idea. I hope they do that. That would be a terrific ...
HUDGINS: And by the way, add another one. The makeup woman here said why not because the costs of gyms are so high, why not put in a couple of aerobics machines and a couple of nautiluses so after work, some of the employees use those in great idea.
BROWN: That would be a good idea, but in truth, to probably takes away space to sell shampoo and I think that's a problem.
HUDGINS: Those stores are so big I think they could find room for a Nautilus. What I'm saying this. They're trying to find ways to deal with the problem. I think that's a good thing.
BROWN: Right. But I wouldn't necessarily want to be there in my seventh year after reading the memo. Thank you both for joining us. I appreciate it.
Still to come tonight, how a tragedy in the life of a teenager may have turned him from the caring boy to an accused murderer. Tonight.
Also tonight, he's outspoken and controversial and he's a billionaire. How the owner of the in NBA's Dallas Mavericks, Mark Kuvin (ph) is drawing fire for producing a film about a would be terrorist. This is a fascinating story.
We'll take a break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: In California tomorrow, the teen accused of killing the wife of a prominent defense attorney is expected to be arraigned on murder charges. But the hearing may be pushed back. Today his lawyer bowed out of the cases citing financial reasons and a conflict of interest. Meanwhile, we're learning much more about the young suspect and the path that may have led him to all of this.
Here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.
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TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): How did 16-year- old Scott Dyleski go from baseball player and Boy Scout to accused murder? Friends of Dyleski say this traffic accident in August of 2002 may have had something to do with it. Dyleski's older sister Danica (ph), who was 18 at the time killed in the wreck and friends say after she died, Scott Dyleski started to change.
ANTHONY CATANESI, FORMER CLASSMATE: That may have helped in his turn towards the, you know, the Goth side.
ROWLANDS: Friends and classmates say Dyleski changed from normal kid to a withdrawn teenager standing out because of his attitude and the way he dressed.
NICK PIPER, FORMER CLASSMATE: He would just walk through the halls and he was like, I think he put makeup on himself. Like had a really white face. And stuff like that. I think he wore black lipstick and he's just walked around and everybody was like, oh my God. Who's that kid?
ROWLANDS: As a freshman, he wrote this in the yearbook.
"I don't expect everyone to go out and make themselves unique, I just want everyone to understand that the ones that do are just being themselves and your judgments will never stop them."
But now, judgment is exactly what Scott Dyleski is facing. Charged as an adult with first degree murder for the death of his neighbor, 52 year old Pamela Vitale, the wife of well-known defense attorney Daniel Horowitz.
According to a law enforcement official close the case, Vitale was found with a cross-like symbol carved into the back. Dyleski, who made his first court appearance last week, is accused of killing Vitale on the 12-acre estate where they were building a new house.
According to court documents just released, investigators believe Dyleski wore gloves during the killing and in addition to hitting her on the head, also stabbed Vitale in her leg. Also, a glove with traces of blood and clothing with blood were found in a duffel bag inside a van on the property where Dyleski lived.
The documents also show that investigators believed he may have used stolen credit card information obtained from these neighbor mailboxes to purchase marijuana growing supplies and because he may have tried getting the supplies shipped to the Horowitz home, investigators believe the scheme could be related to the murder.
HAL JEWETT, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: This is a brutal homicide. And, because he's very close to his 17th birthday, we believe that it's a situation where he is not entitled to protections afforded under the juvenile law and it's appropriate to prosecute him as an adult.
ROWLANDS: Dyleski is being held on $1 million bail. As it stands now facing the possibility if convicted of 26 years to life in prison. What is still, unclear, and may never be known is why this boy changed so much in just a few years. Ted Rowlands, CNN, Martinez, California.
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BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, a controversial off- the-cuff remark, a college football coach blames a defeat on his lack of black athletes. Really.
Also tonight, spy games. A real-life spy comes in from the cold to show us what really happens when secret agents work undercover.
And a man runs up a quarter of a million dollar tab at a strip club. Yikes! He says it's a fraud. But what do we really want to know? How do you spend that much money? Yeah. This is NEWSNIGHT.
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