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Swine Flu Projected to be Worse in Fall; Some Optimism Appearing on Wall Street; Coroner: Lethal Dose of Drug Killed Jackson; Use of Restraint for Special Needs Kids Raises Concerns

Aired August 25, 2009 - 13:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Tony, thanks so much.

Prevention, protection, preparation. We're pushing forward on a flu season like none we've ever seen. Best guess? Half the U.S. population could catch H1N1, the so-called swine flu, and regular flu isn't going away.

Talk about your vital signs. Home values are going up for the first time in years. But so is the nation's debt as far as the eye can see. Best-case scenario: another $7 trillion in the red.

And should you be alarmed over Alli? The only nonprescription FDA-approved weight loss drug may carry serious risks.

Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

It took the world by storm in the springtime. Now, when it comes to swine flu, the H1N1 virus, a presidential panel says that fall and winter may be a whole lot worse.

Under a so-called plausible scenario, 30 to 50 percent of the U.S. population could be infected, with almost 2 million sick enough to be admitted to hospitals. As many as 90,000 swine flu patients could die, versus the roughly 40,000 who will die each year of seasonal flu.

CNN's senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, joins me now to talk about this.

Now, 30,000 to 90,000 people at risk. Who are we talking about?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We're talking in many ways about younger people. Usually with seasonal flu, you think about, you know, your grandmother in danger of dying. But, really, with swine flu what we're talking about is younger people.

The bulk of the people who die from swine flu are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and many of the people who get swine flu are children. Now, children don't get quite as sick, however they do tend to get swine flu and then give it to other people.

But I want to take a look at the numbers that Kyra was just talking to and try to put them in perspective. Again, what this presidential panel found is that they think there's going to be 30,000 to 90,000 deaths from swine flu alone. That doesn't count regular flu. From regular flu by itself, 36,000 people die each year.

Again, the prediction that Kyra mentioned, 30 to 50,000 -- 30 to 50 percent of Americans will become ill with H1N1. Regular flu usually only affects 5 to 20 percent of the population.

PHILLIPS: All right, so what's the status of the vaccine?

COHEN: The status -- status of the vaccine is that they expect to have some vaccine ready in the middle of October. There's certain people who should be first in line to get it, like kids and pregnant women and some other groups of people. There won't be enough for absolutely everyone who's supposed to be getting it in the beginning, but they hope to have enough ready by the end of the year.

PHILLIPS: All right. So, what can we do to prepare and not get sick? I mean, bottom line, that's what everybody wants to know. And we're all hearing about wash our hands, stay home if we're sick. It's basic. Is that it?

COHEN: That's two-thirds of it. That's two-thirds of it. And I'll give you the other third in a second.

PHILLIPS: OK.

COHEN: You stole two out of my three.

PHILLIPS: I'm sorry.

COHEN: Well, there's not that much to say, unfortunately. Three things that you should really keep in mind to help keep yourself healthy during flu season. Wash your hands a lot. Soap and water, hand sanitizer both work.

Don't go out if you're sick. Stay home from work. Keep your kids home if they're sick.

Also, cough into your sleeve or sneeze into your sleeve instead of your hands.

And of course, if you choose to, you can get immunized, which will give you some level of protection, or at least should give you some level of protection.

PHILLIPS: And you say stay home if you're sick. And I know a lot of people are worried in the working world, "Well, I could get fired."

COHEN: Sure.

PHILLIPS: "I wonder if my boss will judge me." We're actually going to talk about that a little later on in the hour. We've got a guest to talk about that plan.

COHEN: Right.

PHILLIPS: So, we're pushing it forward. Thanks, Elizabeth. COHEN: Thanks.

PHILLIPS: All right. Something else. We found this map. The CDC put this together, and it's on its Web site, CDC.gov. And you can actually click on and take a look at this. They update it every week. It's basically the weekly influenza surveillance report that they put together here.

And you can see all across the country from no report of flu to no activity, sporadic, local, regional, widespread. You can see that Alaska and Maine have the most cases of flu right now. But it's interesting, there's no white spots here on the map, which means that virtually every state somehow has been impacted by the flu. Regular flu, swine flu.

If you want to check out the CDC Web site, it's really a great resource to see what's happening from state to state.

Now, also a few simple ideas that won't be easy. The CDC's advice to employers as flu season looms. I talked a little bit with Elizabeth about this.

First, you know, let sick workers stay home without fear of losing their jobs, but that's not all. The feds say employees also need to stay home to care for sick children or even for healthy children if schools shut down. Also employers are urged to stay in close touch with state and local health departments.

OK, you know we have to push forward on this one. I urge everyone to stay with us here in the CNN NEWSROOM, because next hour we're actually going to get the HR view, as I mentioned to Elizabeth, of H1N1, human resources put to the test.

All right. So, just how deep is the federal deficit? Depends on whom you ask. Budget analysts for Congress predict a cumulative $7 trillion deficit from 2010 to 2019. The White House came up with a different and bigger number, a shortfall of $9 trillion over 10 years.

Both Congress and the White House number crunchers agree on this year's deficit, $1.6 trillion. Usually, almost always, the White House has a much rosier deficit projection, but not this time.

And he's America's money man. And President Obama wants to keep him on the job. Mr. Obama revealed this morning that he'll nominate Federal Reserve chair, Ben Bernanke, nor for a second term, that announcement from Martha's Vineyard, where the president and his family are vacationing came through.

Mr. Obama actually said that Bernanke has led the U.S. through one of the worst economic crisises -- or crisis rather, that the nation and the world have ever faced.

Bernanke's current term ends January 31, and he'll have to be confirmed by the Senate, where some lawmakers might not be too happy with his first term. Some promising news on the housing front, and it's about time. A closely-watched index shows that home prices have posted their first quarterly increase in three years. That jump was nearly 3 percent from the first quarter, but that's still down almost 15 percent from the second quarter of last year. Home prices are now at levels not seen since early 2003.

And there's a lot of optimism about the economy in Asia, but how about New York? CNN's Richard Quest has been checking that, and he joins us once again, but this time not from the front of the New York Stock Exchange. He's live in Brooklyn.

And what have you found there besides the waterfront, my friend?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I've joined the B and T brigade...

(CAR HONKING)

Thank you. I've joined the B and T brigade to come into Brooklyn. I have my passport ready. Well, you won't need it to get across this expanse of water. It's almost as wide as the Atlantic Ocean itself.

You know that phrase "mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun?" I don't know about the mad dog, but the Englishman standing here on the promenade, I am the only person, as you can see, who is standing here in a hot wool suit. What I can tell you -- it's true! I mean, what on Earth I thought I was doing?

PHILLIPS: Am I supposed to ask you why in the hell are you wearing a wool suit on a hot day in Brooklyn?

QUEST: Mad dogs and Englishmen. What about the tie? Look at this.

PHILLIPS: I do like the tie.

QUEST: Yes, I bought this as I came out of the stock exchange yesterday. You know, those ties that you see on the street in New York? They were selling them $6 each or 4 for 20 bucks! Let me see. Now, that's what I call a recession bargain!

More seriously, the rest of the world will be extremely relieved that Ben Bernanke is to be re -- or has been nominated to serve a second term as the Fed governor, Kyra. They'll be a lot of unease about whether or not politics would come into this at the last hurdle.

The New York economy, from what I've discovered in the last 24 hours, you want the two extremes of this? My $6 tie and my $20 drink last night in one of the bars at the Time Warner Center.

PHILLIPS: Yes, that's about average. By the way, what are you doing drinking before working on the job?

QUEST: It was a -- well, I had to buy one or two for other people, you see?

PHILLIPS: OK.

QUEST: It was the whole hospitality industry. I tried to keep -- I have to tell you, though, what I am discovering, the one thing more than anything else I can feel in this city from when I was here, say, four or five months ago, there is just a scintilla of optimism coming back.

Now, whether that is completely false, predicated on a stock market that's risen out of all proportion, I don't know. But people are at least thinking that they're not about to fall over the edge, and there may be about to be a recovery under way.

PHILLIPS: Good news. Where you going to be tomorrow?

QUEST: Tomorrow I am at the -- oh, I'm at the NYMEX. I'm on -- my word, I spent a day with a trader on the NYMEX. If you think that's a testosterone-fuelled environment, not for the fainthearted. See how I fared when I tried to do all that!

PHILLIPS: Oh, I'm sure you fit in just perfectly, Richard Quest. You probably have a backup job if you ever wanted to switch.

QUEST: All I can tell you is that the oil gets delivered next week.

PHILLIPS: Buy, sell. Buy, sell.

All right, Richard, we'll see you tomorrow.

All right. Let's talk some cash and clunkers. Dealers have until 8 p.m. tonight local time to get their info to Uncle Sam. It's been bumped up a bit so they can get their money. That's the second deadline extension, by the way.

The federal rebate program cranked out about $2.8 billion worth of government vouchers and helped move 665,000 vehicles off car lots.

Now, at 8:01 tonight local time, the carriage might turn into a pumpkin again. Automakers and dealers will have to bring in customers the old-fashioned way, in a market that's not been kind. That program might have stolen sales from this fall and next year.

Death of the King of Pop. Did Michael Jackson die from a cocktail of powerful drugs? Well, we've got the findings of a preliminary coroner's report.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: New concerns today about a popular weight-loss pill. Is Alli linked to liver damage? We're going to tell you what the Food and Drug Administration is now saying.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: So, what killed Michael Jackson? That's been the central question of the investigation into his death ever since the pop star died last month. Now, we may never have an answer.

Here's CNN's Thelma Gutierrez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This 32-page document released in Texas reveals there were lethal levels of the powerful drug Propofol in Michael Jackson's blood at the time of his death, according to preliminary findings of the Los Angeles coroner.

The police affidavit says Dr. Conrad Murray, Jackson's personal physician, told detectives he had been treating the star for insomnia for six weeks, giving him an IV drip with 50 milligrams of Propofol diluted with Lidocaine every night.

Murray worried Jackson was becoming addicted to Propofol. In an attempt to wean him off, Murray put together other combinations of drugs that succeeded in putting Jackson to sleep for two nights prior to his death.

On June 25, when those drugs failed, Murray told detectives what he did hour by hour. He said around 1:30 in the morning he gave Jackson ten milligrams of Valium. At 2 a.m. he injected Jackson with Ativan, an anti-anxiety drug. An hour later, the sedative Versed, At 5 a.m., more Ativan. At 7:30 more Versed.

Murray says he monitored Jackson's vital signs the entire time. According to documents, at 10:40 a.m., after repeated requests and demands from Jackson, Murray administered 25 milligrams of Propofol, and Jackson finally went to sleep.

After ten minutes, Murray says he went to the bathroom and was gone for two minutes. When he returned, he says, Jackson was no longer breathing. Murray says he administered CPR until paramedics arrived, but those efforts proved futile.

(on camera): Dr. Conrad Murray's attorneys released a statement saying, "Much of what was in the search warrant affidavit is factual. However, unfortunately, much is police theory. Most egregiously, the timeline reported by law enforcement was not obtained through interviews with Dr. Murray, as was implied by the affidavit."

Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, he was the mayor who was bloodied, but he's now back on the job. We told you how Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett risked his life by responding to a woman's cry for help. A man arguing with a woman charged Barrett at a fair, beating him with a metal bar as the mayor tried to call 911.

Well, he suffered gashes to his head and face, smashed teeth and a fractured hand. And here's what he had to say about being back at work.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR TOM BARRETT, MILWAUKEE: A cabinet meeting that I stopped in and going over the budget stuff. And had a lot of correspondence that I was going through. Slowly, we'll get back in the saddle. So, it feels -- it feels good to get back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Barrett's attacker has a hearing on Thursday to determine if he'll stand trial.

A NEWSROOM follow-up now. Yesterday we talked a lot about Pennsylvania's money problems. Well, it's one of only two states that hasn't pass address budget for fiscal 2010, and now it's paying the price. I don't mean cutbacks and furloughs and unfunded schools, though it's got plenty of those.

I'm talking about a big-time cut from big-shot film director, M. Knight Shyamalan. M. lives near Philadelphia and has -- or lives near Philadelphia, rather, and has shot most of his movies there, but he's moving his current production to Toronto. It seems that he can't be sure the state's film tax credit will survive the spending roar (ph).

Small estate, big money problems. Take a look now at what Rhode Island is doing to slice $68 million off its state budget. One of the solutions? Shutting down the state government for 12 days.

The governor expects the state to save more than $21 million that way. The first shutdown day would be September 4. The last would be June 11.

Now, ten essential agencies would stay open, like prisons, state police, and also 911.

Top stories now.

This is why the U.S. is building up troops in Afghanistan. A police commander says that 33 civilians have been killed and nearly 40 wounded in a car bombing in Kandahar. That blast happened outside a government building.

The documents are not easy to read, but former Vice President Cheney is defending them. A CIA inspector general report details harsh interrogation techniques used on terror suspects. It says interrogators threatened to kill the children of alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

A special prosecutor will look into the case, but Cheney says the tactics prevented more terrorist attacks.

A partial success. That's what South Korea calls its first rocket launch. The satellite that the rocket carried separated like it was supposed to, but overshot its intended orbit.

South Korea's been trying for years -- for nearly four years, rather, to get this right.

A technical glitch is one thing. A technical glitch that mistakenly tells hundreds of military veterans they've got a cruel and fatal disease, well, that's an outrage. Seems like our heroes just can't get a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, it's basically a big blob of moving clouds, and it's just moving over the Caribbean. Chad Myers, let's define "big blob."

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That.

PHILLIPS: That right there.

MYERS: A picture worth a thousand words right there. That is our new blob that very well could be Danny later on, either tonight or even tomorrow. We do have a planned on -- we know that they're planning to send an aircraft out there to take a look for the circulation.

Right now I can't find anything that's all that organized. You have to find a north wind, a south wind, then something coming in from the west to actually get it organized.

Here's the U.S. just to kind of give you an idea. There's Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

And the whole forecast is for this thing to eventually kind of move itself on up toward -- maybe to the north and to the northwest. We'll have toe see.

For today, we have the chance of this -- I know this is early. But when we finally start to get models running, we like to see where they're going to go. All of these models according to StormPulse.com missing the U.S. I think it's really too early to go there just yet, because we still have a potential for a land-falling hurricane here. We will see. The forecast is for it to become much stronger than what it is right now.

We also have a shuttle that's trying to take off again tonight. It didn't get a chance last night. It tried, but a couple clouds and showers got in the way. We do expect to try again at ten minutes after 1 in the morning coming up here. So what is it? About 11 hours or something less. Twelve hours.

There it goes: 30 percent chance of weather getting in the way. The big problem is, Kyra, yesterday that number was 20 percent chance of weather getting in the way, and it did. So don't go to Vegas on those odds.

But I know the Mega Millions is $250 million this week. So I got $10 in my pocket.

PHILLIPS: I think I'd rather go to Vegas. MYERS: OK. Let's go.

PHILLIPS: All right. Thanks, Chad.

Physical restraint and special-needs kids, a sometimes fatal combination and a problem urgent enough for Congress to demand action. You won't believe what's been caught on cam this time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: So, here's a story where just a few seconds of cell- phone video could change everything. Let me set the story up first.

An 11-year-old boy with autism in class at a public special-ed school in Pittsburgh. The teacher was accused of abusing him in the past, but there was no real evidence, not like this. But when the alleged abuse started back up, well, a teacher's aide was ready with his cell-phone camera.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LORI DAVIS, TEACHER: Stop moving your chair back. Stop it! You stay up there! Stop moving your chair back. Stop it! And you stay up there!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Unbelievable. First the slap, then the verbal abuse. This happened in March of 2008. And that teacher, by the way, Lori Davis, was fired days later. Well deserved.

A school spokesperson tells CNN she hasn't stepped foot in a classroom since. The state revoked her teaching certificate, as well. The parents had not seen this video until just last week. They sued the school system last year, but now probably because of this video, they're thinking about filing criminal charges.

Bigger picture now. The alleged misuse of physical restraints to control special-needs children in public schools is an urgent problem for the Department of Education. Earlier this year, scathing government report detailed shocking cases of children getting hurt, even killed, while being restrained. And Congress is demanding action.

CNN special investigations unit correspondent Abbie Boudreau has been looking into a case involving a young man from Florida. His story sheds a lot of light on all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBIE BOUDREAU, CNN INVESTIGATIVE UNIT CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Christopher, out for a walk. That spin? A sign of autism. No one argues this teenager has been a very difficult child to manage. But here he is again last October. The abrasions? His parents say they're signs of abuse. ROSEMARIE CASTO, CHRISTOPHER'S MOTHER: Look at this when he was injured at school, and this ended up being his very last day of school.

BOUDREAU: The school said the injury happened during a bar procedure, or brief assisted relaxation restraint. And this is how that relaxation technique looks on school security video.

What you're seeing is footage from the Princeton House Charter School for children with autism in Orlando, Florida. Notes sent home in 2008 by Princeton House show a disturbing escalation of Christopher's disruptive behavior.

CASTO: He slowly started to become a loner. He started to become really quiet.

BOUDREAU: And his mother says, he was becoming increasingly violent, so destructive his parents even had to call the police for help. As things got worse, they started asking questions, which brings us to this tape. When they got it, they could barely watch.

CASTO: And every day, he would say, "Mama, no class, no school."

I said, "Papa (ph), no, you have to go to school. You have to."

And I'm going to have to live with this guilt. I know everybody says it's not -- you should not feel guilty, but this is my boy.

BOUDREAU: The video chronicles two days last October. It was given to Christopher's parents, who showed it to us.

October 2, Christopher flips his desk, not uncommon for children with autism. And then he gets dragged from class repeatedly. At lunch, he's put in a face-down, prone restraint for seven minutes. A short time later, he's restrained another ten minutes.

Finally, this scene in the library. With a staff member next to him, Christopher upends a table and is once again restrained. Teachers struggle to pin him down.

PROF. WANDA MOHR, MEDICAL AND DENTAL UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY: This is what disturbs me. These staff members are not in physical control of him.

BOUDREAU: For professor Wanda Moore, a top expert on special- needs children, these are precisely the kinds of situations where children have been seriously injured, sometimes fatally.

MOHR: It's one of those things, "there, but for the grace of God go I." This is why we stress that these are interventions or procedures of very last resort because they are deadly.

BOUDREAU: Florida regulations only allow restraints to, quote, "prevent injury to self and/or others," for example, in cases of "hitting, kicking, head butting" another person. None of that happened prior to the restraints we saw on the tape. And while common sense dictates there should be consequences for bad behavior, according to experts, that approach doesn't work well with autism. Princeton House's core staff were trained by the Professional Crisis Management Association in Sunrise, Florida. The director of that program says while he's not seen Christopher in person and doesn't know a lot about the teenager's background, the behavior on tape did not seem to merit the staff's reaction.

MERRILL WINSTON, PCMA: Several things in my opinion were not done correctly. In several of those instances, it didn't look like crisis to me. It looked like a single episode of table flipping.

BOUDREAU: So, should he have been put in prone restraints?

WINSTON: From what I could see, I would have to say no.

BOUDREAU: We asked Princeton House, Orange County Public Schools and the state Department of Education to speak with us on camera about the video, but they all declined because the incidents are now under investigation.

Christopher is now at a new school and is doing much better. His parents say they're wiser for what they went through, and so far Christopher has not needed to be restrained even once.

Abbie Boudreau, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, I tell you what, these ongoing screwups at the VA are breaking my heart. And here's the latest heartbreak. At least 1,800 vets were told they have a fatal, excruciating and cruel disease, ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease. It kills slowly over about five years and robs victims of their quality of life before killing them.

Just imagine opening that letter. Pause, wait, panic. Do I make out a will? Tell my family that I'm dying? And then five days later, oops, we're sorry. Your diagnosis was a mistake, a technical glitch.

But a lot more bad news from the VA is very real, not so much glitches as they are pure lack of oversight or downright sloppiness. In just the past year, we've told you about dirty colonoscopy equipment at VA hospitals exposing thousands of our vets to HIV and hepatitis. Then the VA Medical Center in Philadelphia disclosed that it gave at least 98 vet incorrect radiation doses for cancer.

Then you have PTSD on the rise, suicide on the rise, and now this mistake. The VA relates the statement saying it is immediately reviewing the individual claim files for all the recipients of this letter to identify those who received the notification in error. Can't our vets just catch a break?

Diplomats were called, charges flying between Iraq and Syria over the deadly bombings in Baghdad last week that killed more than 100 people. Iraq today recalled its ambassador from Syria and demanded that the Syrian government hand over two suspects in the attack. It claims the two are former members of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath Party who are aligned with Al Qaeda. That group today claimed responsibility for the attack. Syria in turn ordered its ambassador home, saying the Iraqi claims were made up for political goals.

A developing story now in Afghanistan. More than 30 civilians killed today in car bomb attacks in the southern city of Kandahar. The city has been the target of several large Taliban attacks in recent years. So far, no claim of responsibility.

The attack comes as the country waits for results from last week's presidential elections. Partial results released today show a slim margin separating President Hamid Karzai and his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah. Abdullah is a foreign minister -- former foreign minister, rather. He was also a spokesperson for the Northern Alliance, which helped the U.S. topple the Taliban. Full re -- full results, rather, are expected sometime next month.

Forty-six years ago this week, Martin Luther King led a march on Washington and made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. And today, another dream, inspired by the civil rights leader, needs your help to come true.

You're looking now at a virtual tour of the planned King memorial. It will sit on four acres of land, right next to the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C. One hundred and six million dollars have been raised, and another $14 million are needed before groundbreaking can start.

If you want to help out, you can go to the Web site buildthedream.org. You make a donation and find out about a program unveiled today in Washington called Kids for King. It's a contest for children to express what Dr. King's legacy means for them. That's buildthedream.org.

And if you take the weight-loss drug Alli, you're going to want to listen up. The FDA is now investigating the pill, and we're going to tell you why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: The Food and Drug Administration is looking into reports of liver damage in people who take Alli, the only over-the- counter weight loss pill approved by the agency. The FDA says it's received more than 30 reports of liver damage in people who take Alli and its prescription version, Xenical. But it hasn't det -- determined, rather, a direct link between the drugs and liver injury.

Signs of liver damage include fatigue, fever, nausea, vomiting. GlaxoSmithKline markets the drugs. The company says there's no evidence that they cause liver injury.

Now, as America debates health care reform, we might want to look at Ireland and its health care system. Several years ago, that country transformed its system, going through some of the same debates that we're seeing here in the U.S. CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, traveled to Ireland to get a look at some of those lessons learned.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey there from the Global Cancer Summit in Dublin, Ireland. We've been out here for a few days now, but I couldn't help but think about health care reform back home.

About five years ago, Ireland found itself in the same position that the United States is in now, trying to reform their health care system. So, I took advantage of a unique opportunity to sit down with the health minister, find out where Ireland stands, what went right and what went wrong.

GUPTA (voice-over): In Ireland, everyone has access to health care via a taxed public plan, but half choose to spend additional money on a private plan.

(on camera): Why does that happen? So, if you have access to the public system, is it not good enough for 50 percent of the people like you say?

MARY HARNEY, IRELAND MINISTER OF HEALTH: They do it for choice of facility or choice of doctor or choice of accommodation, better quality accommodation -- single rooms in private hospitals, for example. Speedier access in many cases, more routine procedures can be done much more quickly if you have access to private health insurance.

RICHARD SALTMAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY: In the public sector, one can wait up to three years for a hip replacement or a corneal lens transplant.

GUPTA (voice-over): Mary Harney says many waiting lists have been cut from years to just a few months. But tough choices still have to be made.

(on camera): If you look at sort of the silos of how they predicated health reform, they talked about decreasing costs and increasing access. Can you do both? I mean, if you increase access, can you really decrease costs across the board, as well?

HARNEY: Well, it's possible only if you reduce the number of procedures or the costs of those procedures.

GUPTA: Some will say that's rationing.

HARNEY: No matter how much money you put into health, no matter how good your system is, you'll always have more patients than you have capacity at any one time. And it's a question of how quickly can you prioritize the treatments for all patients, whether they're urgent or not so urgent.

GUPTA (voice-over): No matter what country you're from, Ireland or the United States, it seems to always come down to cost.

(on camera): People say the Medicare system in the United States is going broke; they say it'll be broke by the year 2017. It's very expensive and hard to maintain budgets. Same problem here in Ireland?

HARNEY: Yes. We have -- we spend -- this year we will spend over 40 percent of the money we will raise in taxation in the country on public health care.

GUPTA: Forty percent?

HARNEY: That's an incredible amount of money, and therefore, if we're going to do that within existing budgets, then we have to get smarter in the way we provide treatment.

GUPTA: And it is worth pointing out that every physician in Ireland has to accept all types of insurance, including the public insurance. Overall, Minister Harney thinks things have gotten better here in Ireland. Waiting times are shorter. Everyone is insured. But as you can see, it has come with a tremendous cost.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Your top stories now. We definitely pushed forward on this. A presidential advisory panel says the H1N1 virus, commonly called swine flu, should cause up to 90,000 deaths when it likely resurges this fall. Plus, the virus could infect up to half the American population.

Cash for Clunkers technically not over yet. Car dealers now have until 8:00 p.m. Eastern to turn in their paperwork, so Uncle Sam can reimburse them under the just-ended program. The reason for the extension -- glitches with the Transportation Department Web site.

A warm welcome for Castor Semenya in her home country. The champion runner was all smiles in South Africa. She got cheers despite questions about her gender. The questions came up after her stunning 800-meter win at the World Championships in Berlin.

Even with all New Orleans went through...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONNELL BAILEY, STUDENT: I actually look at the storm as a blessing in disguise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Almost shocking to hear that, huh? Stick around, learn what he means.

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PHILLIPS: He helped legions of students do better on their college boards, or at least feel better when they picked up that No. 2 pencil. Stanley H. Kaplan, founder of the country's first test-prep business, has died at the age of 90. He'd wanted to go to medical school but was rejected, he thought because of his working-class Jewish background. So, he started the business in his parents' basement in 1938 to help other students level the playing field.

Four years ago, Friday, Hurricane Katrina leveled New Orleans. It was an awful lesson for that city and the country on preparedness, infrastructure, disaster response. Katrina and its aftermath have clearly become a symbol of what can go wrong, but surprisingly, in some cases of what can go right as well.

Here's CNN's Sean Callebs with a look at one silver lining.

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SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The floodwaters washed away so much here; so much lost. But they also washed away a crippling problem: a terrible public school system.

Todd Purvis is principal of the KIPP Central City Academy.

(on camera): Right now, it's Louisiana and Mississippi, always at the bottom (INAUDIBLE) in public education. Are you optimistic that's going to change?

TODD PURVIS, PRINCIPAL, KIPP CENTRAL CITY ACADEMY: I'm very optimistic. I mean, when I talk to teachers and families, especially teachers that, you know, we're trying to convince to move here, I tell them and I firmly believe that New Orleans in five or ten years will be looked to as the model for how you reform an educational system.

CALLEBS (voice-over): Donnell Bailey says before the storm, he did poorly in a poor public school. He failed fourth grade and says he never thought about his future.

DONNELL BAILEY, STUDENT: I actually thought the storm was a blessing in disguise.

CALLEBS: The storm forced an education overhaul from the ground up. This man, Paul Vallas, who turned around schools in Philadelphia and Chicago, is driving the change. And he's in a hurry.

PAUL VALLAS, SUPERINTENDENT, LOUISIANA RECOVERY SCHOOL DISTRICT: In the Recovery School District alone, the last two years we saw an increase in test scores in every subject at every grade level.

CALLEBS (on camera): Vallas inherited a district where only about four in 10 kids graduated from high school. In fact, so many students were failing so badly, the state had taken control over about 85 percent of the district schools.

Well, Vallas is now spending millions of federal dollars that are pouring in, giving kids laptops and offering smaller class sizes to give more one-on-one instruction.

But perhaps most importantly, he hired a small army of young, motivated teachers from across the country through the organization Teach for America, some of whom replaced veteran teachers who were considered underperforming.

VALLAS: They bring a certain energy, and they bring a certain, you know, personality and drive into the schools that really creates a culture of high expectations.

CALLEBS (voice-over): As for Donnell Bailey, that's why he calls the storm a blessing.

BAILEY: The thing that changed were my teachers. Teachers, obviously, like, the expectations were more higher, you know, and my teachers expected me to live up to these expectations. So, like, the drive that my teachers gave me, it really pushed me up to that level.

CALLEBS: In fact, Donnell's new public school teachers pushed him so hard and he did so well that he received a scholarship to a $17,000-a-year private school. It's a good story.

(on camera): It's a winning formula of motivated teachers, renovated schools and new laptops. But they're not all good stories here.

By state law, if students don't pass an exit exam at the end of eighth grade, they're not promoted to high school.

(voice-over): Kirtisha (ph) Davis studies at home because she failed that test and can't enroll in school. Her mom says Kirtisha has a learning disability, difficulty retaining information, and she doesn't want the 15-year-old to attend the eighth grade for a third time. And says the district isn't providing adequate tutoring and other resources that might give Kirtisha a chance for a high-school diploma.

(on camera): What's your big fear? Are you worried that Kirtisha could fall through the cracks, get frustrated and simply drop out?

DANA DAVIS, MOTHER: Well, I feel that she's already falling through the cracks. I mean, she's already three grades behind.

CALLEBS (voice-over): The new education czar, Paul Vallas, says the situation is disappointing and, no, not every student is succeeding. He doesn't like graduate exams.

VALLAS: I've always felt that you give the high-stakes test, and if a child does not pass all, you know, all the components of that test, then you conditionally pass the student if the student has hit other benchmarks.

CALLEBS: And the district's long-term goal...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who's going to college?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to college.

CALLEBS: For families here, that's been an all but unthinkable goal. Only about 7 percent of New Orleans public school kids graduate from college. That's right, just 7 percent.

So, some things never change here. Once again, it's hurricane season, and thoughts of Katrina are always here. But there is now hope because Katrina did bring Paul Vallas and his army of new teachers here, and there's hope of a brighter future for the kids.

Sean Callebs, CNN, New Orleans.

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PHILLIPS: Sean's report first aired on "AC 360 as part of their weeklong series, "After the Storm." And tonight at 10:00 Eastern, a look at how depression has soared in these post-Katrina years and how New Orleans residents are coping. "AC 360," only on CNN.

We are pushing forward on an issue that could set students back. Schools in the red getting rid of yellow buses. Will budget issues make buses obsolete?

And the voice of a generation might be the voice telling you how to get to the nearest Chili's. These days, Bob Dylan the direction home and anywhere else you want to go.

They can't agree on anything except Google. The online giant could face its second suit over "Skanks in NYC."

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PHILLIPS: Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Skankgate continues. First, it was the model versus the anonymous blogger. Then it was the model versus Google, host of the blog, then it was the model versus the outed blogger. And now the outed blogger versus Google. Watch out for what you are about to see now.

CNN's Jason Carroll right there in New York following all the drama. But Jason, honestly, I really do love the fact that this actually carried weight in court. Because we've all been subject of these anonymous bloggers who many times are just complete cowards.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, and you know, Kyra, that really raises the larger issue in all this. It really is a lesson for all those people out there who are anonymously blogging and thinking that they are protected in some way. This sort of case really puts that in a whole different light.

You know, for months, there was some speculation about who was this anonymous blogger that had started this whole thing? Her name no longer a secret. She used harsh language to describe a model, but says that language she used and her identity should have been protected.

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CARROLL (voice-over): It's the kind of photo spread no model would want: feature on the blog called "Skanks in New York City." Former "Vogue" cover girl Liskula Cohen ended up on the blog, telling CNN's Campbell Brown she was determined to find out who was behind putting her there.

LISKULA COHEN, SUED GOOGLE AND WON: I wanted it gone. And I didn't want it to be there for the rest of my life. And I knew the only way for it to be gone was to call my lawyer.

CARROLL: She's not the only one calling a lawyer. So is the woman behind the blog, Rosemary Port, a 29-year-old fashion student and casual acquaintance of Cohen. Port's attorney saying she's the real victim.

SALVATOR STRAZZULLO, PORT'S ATTORNEY: I not only feel my client was wronged, but I feel now it sets a precedent that anyone with money and power could get the identity of anyone that decides to be an anonymous blogger.

CARROLL: Port's name released after a judge sided with Cohen, who sued Google to reveal information about the anonymous blogger. The blog had appeared on Google's Web site. The court rejected Ports claim that blogs like hers serve as a modern-day forum for conveying personal opinions and shouldn't be regarded as fact.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: The court said, look, there was specific evidence that this one person may have libeled another person. In that circumstance, we're going to disclose that name.

CARROLL: Google says it complies with court orders saying, "We have a legal team whose job it is to scrutinize these requests and make sure they meet not only the letter but the spirit of the law." Port still says Google should have kept her name private and plans on suing Google for $15 million. Cohen's attorney says he can't believe Port's nerve.

STEVEN WAGNER, COHEN'S ATTORNEY: Her being a victim here? I have trouble understanding that, in its entirety.

CARROLL: Web watchers like "Wired" magazine's Nicholas Thompson say this is a lesson for all anonymous bloggers.

NICHOLAS THOMPSON, "WIRED" MAGAZINE: Some of the effects will be good. People will recognize, wait a second, the law does apply to the blogosphere. Some of it may be bad. There will be people who won't publish things that maybe they should publish that would be good for society.

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CARROLL: Well, we'll have to see what sort of effects this has on bloggers. Cohen's attorney says much of this could have been avoided if Port had simply apologized, Kyra, for what she did. And to date, they say they still have not received an apology.

PHILLIPS: Well, there's just no benefit to saying anything nasty about anybody like that. It's just such a sign of weakness. So, what kind of legal standing does the blogger's attorney think they have, Jason? CARROLL: Well, here's what they say, Kyra. I mean, you speak to a lot of legal experts, and they say they really don't have a legal standing here. But Port's attorney basically says at the very least, they should have been given the opportunity to appeal the judge's decision before this information was released. So, that is why they say they are going to at least for now proceed with this lawsuit against Google.

PHILLIPS: OK, we'll follow it. Jason Carroll, thanks so much.

CARROLL: You bet.