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Days After 1/6 Attack, McCarthy Said, "I've Had It With" Trump; Brain Tumor Cases Spark Investigation of NJ School; Mariupol Women's Soccer Team Makes Daring Escape from City. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 22, 2022 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): I don't believe he provoked, if you listen to what he said at the rally.

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LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And this is exactly the kind of contradiction that the January 6th Select Committee would want to ask McCarthy about if they actually had a chance to question him. Right now, McCarthy says he doesn't have any information to give them -- Ana?

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Clearly, McCarthy hasn't told the truth before or after these tapes came out, Lauren. So what is he telling House Republicans about all of this?

FOX: Well, there are some House Republicans who are making calls and getting calls from Kevin McCarthy to try to do this damage control that Melanie was talking about.

One of those members, who is in House leadership, who I spoke with earlier today, told me McCarthy is not too worried.

In part, because Donald Trump seemed to be fine at this moment, hasn't come out publicly against McCarthy. McCarthy is feeling very confident that he's going to be able to contain and do damage control surrounding this controversy.

But, obviously, it really remains to be seen what other audio is out there, Ana.

That's going to be significant and really could turn the tide on whether or not McCarthy is in trouble when he looks down the road hoping to be the next speaker of the House, if Republicans win the midterms in 2022.

CABRERA: Lauren Fox and Melanie Zanona, ladies, thanks so much.

More than 100 people reportedly diagnosed with rare brain tumors all have one thing in common. They either attended or worked at the same high school in New Jersey. Is there a deeper connection? The man who helped spark an investigation joins us next.

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CABRERA: Now to a huge medical mystery in New Jersey. Woodbridge Township has hired an environmental engineering firm to investigate around a high school there after the discovery of more than 100 brain tumors, some of them cancerous.

That all have a connection to this one school, Colonia High. Dozens of former teachers and students say they have been diagnosed with brain tumors over the past 30 years. Some malignant, some not.

We should note, CNN cannot independently verify the number of cases.

But Al Lupiano is among them. He decided to do his own investigation after he, his wife and sister all developed brain tumors, and all three graduated from Colonia.

So Al took to Facebook and he tracked down dozens of other people with similar stories.

His sister, seen here on the far left, tragically passed away in February at the age of 44.

And Al Lupiano is going to join us now.

Al, I'm so sorry for your family's loss and all you've been going through. Thanks for spending time with us.

You promised your sister when she was alive that you wouldn't stop investigating what has happened. Tell us more about your Facebook post in March and the responses.

AL LUPIANO, FORMER STUDENT, COLONIA HIGH SCHOOL: I never envisioned we'd get to the numbers we have today. When I went live on Facebook we had 15 individuals.

Thanks to the help of media getting the message out and the benefits of social media, I'm up to 117 individuals now.

CABRERA: What all have you uncovered?

LUPIANO: We still have no direct links. We have a lot of theories. And I'm going to explore every theory until we turn up either the cause or we've eliminated possibilities.

Right now, we're still investigating it from a radiological standpoint to see if there's a radiation or radon involvement. But if that does not prove fruitful then we'll move on to the next level, which is air, water and soil samples.

CABRERA: When did you, your wife and sister all get diagnosed with your tumors?

LUPIANO: So I was diagnosed in 1999 at 27 years old. I've been very much involved in this field of acoustic neuroma, which is the benign tumor I have. I learn what to look for, how to help people, guide them on treatment options.

When my sister and wife were diagnosed, August of 2021, and discovered my wife had the same very rare tumor I had and my sister was diagnosed with a malignant glioblastoma, it really hit home. It really drove the point home that there's something wrong here.

And it begged a question, is something happening at our high school? And I decided then to start looking into it.

CABRERA: Did you alert authorities right away or how has that come about?

LUPIANO: Not initially. For the first six or seven months, it was spending time with my sister, making sure she was comfortable and had her needs met.

As well as doing investigations by word of mouth and digging on the Internet for obituaries and any clues of individuals like me, my wife and my sister with brain tumors.

It wasn't until I went public on Facebook that I asked for the assistance of the mayor. And from that point on, we've been escalating the situation to the state, the county and the federal authorities.

CABRERA: According to the National Cancer Institute, finding a true cancer cluster is very rare.

As we mentioned, an environmental engineering firm is now testing at Colonia High School for contaminants in and around the school, surveying the entire property.

They've also dug up records from the time of the school's construction. And were told it's going to take weeks, probably, before those test result comes back.

[13:40:01]

And state health and environmental protection officials tell us that they are prepared to investigate based on those results.

How strongly do you think this is linked to the school itself or something in your community?

LUPIANO: Most cancer clusters are difficult, simply because we don't have the numbers. We also have a larger area to look at. I've only been able to determine one link in the situation and that's a school. We also have very, very high numbers of very rare cancers, and both

benign and malignant. And I think that's going to help us find the cause.

I still believe there may be something present at the school. And that's why we're taking such an active role in trying to determine if there's an environmental contaminant involved.

CABRERA: At this point, what more would you like to see done?

LUPIANO: There's concurrent sampling that I think we're missing an opportunity to start undertaking.

We are doing the radiological scan and that's wrapping up this weekend. But that doesn't preclude us from doing soil, water and air sampling at the same time.

I think people want answers. There's a lot of children involved. There's a lot of teachers that work in the school that are very, very concerned, are they actively being exposed?

Waiting for samples to come back, in my opinion, is a lost effort. And we really need to be looking at things now.

We can do these studies concurrently. We don't need to do one at a time. Hit it with everything we have. We have the resources local. We have the technology. We have the skills to do this.

And the faster we get results and the faster we get answers, the faster we can satisfy the public that they're not being put in harm's way.

CABRERA: I should note the school is still open.

The mayor's office told us in a statement, "At this time, there's no discernible health or wellness threat to the staff, students or visitors at CHS and the school will remain open."

Al Lupiano, thank you so much for sharing your story. Clearly, there's so much more here to learn.

This one hits home for me. My brother is a brain cancer survivor. And so I'm really interested to stay in touch with you and learn more about what comes of this.

Thanks again.

I want to bring in Dr. Arif Kamal. He's chief patient officer for the American Cancer Society.

Doctor, first, just your reaction to what Al just shared with us?

DR. ARIF KAMAL, CHIEF PATIENT OFFICER, AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY: This is an important time in U.S. public health, right? We are recognizing, you know, more than ever before that there's an ability for people to be connected through social media and other networks where we can start to learn from this type of information.

It's certainly a moment of pause to recognize that a rare -- relatively rare tumor, which is primary brain tumors, can start to show up over time in a particular area.

And it also just highlights how little we know so far and how much there's to be learned about the linkages or potential relationships between environmental exposures and future cancers.

CABRERA: Right. Because as I mentioned, according to the National Cancer Institute, it's extremely rare to find cancer clusters from an investigation like this. Why is it so rare?

KAMAL: Well, oftentimes, it's because, you know, when you think of populations, they can be mobile. So in this situation, right, it's a group of people who were in one place over a period of time, but oftentimes move from there.

It's also because our ability to definitively conclude the relationship between exposure to something, which we are all exposed to many things in any given day over time, and eventual cancer is, oftentimes, just a muddy link.

So we do find it rare to find cancer clusters. But it's important to recognize here that brain tumors are also rare. This is an important moment to find both a relatively rare cancer and a potentially high prevalence as it's showing up here and understand what's going on.

CABRERA: In all, Al says he has found more than 100 people who attended or worked at this school that developed primary brain tumors. He and his wife both had acoustic neuromas. His sister had a more aggressive tumor, glioblastoma.

How common are these types of tumors, specifically? And can they develop from the same environmental source, even though they're different types of tumors?

KAMAL: Yes, that's a good question. So the incidents, meaning new number of cases of primary brain tumors, is different, oftentimes based on age.

In particular, when we see them in younger folks, children, teenagers and maybe even younger-aged teachers, we expect maybe five to, at most, 10 in 100,000.

As people get older, that can get closer to 15 to 20. But again, relatively rare.

If you look at the number of people that have lived in that area and certainly attended that high school, what we're seeing or what it seems to be is that the numbers significantly more than we would expect to naturally occur just over time.

CABRERA: So interesting.

Do you think it's safe for the school to remain open while they investigate?

KAMAL: So I think it's important to trust the process that's happening. We know most primary brain tumors take years to grow. We know that these are not things that happen over a matter of hours to days over even weeks.

[13:45:12]

And I think the investigations that are going on will highlight whether there's an immediate public health threat or not.

In most cases, when we find or potentially investigate clusters of cancers, the exposure is not something that is of an immediate threat as it relates to cancer.

Now, you know, as the process moves forward, there may be things uncovered that highlight threats in other ways. And we'll just have to take that day-by-day.

CABRERA: Dr. Arif Kamal, thank you for sharing your expertise with us and offering your insights on this situation.

KAMAL: Thanks.

CABRERA: Ahead, a story of bravery and survival. A Mariupol soccer team decides it's safer to flee the war-torn city than to stay. I talk with them about their experience.

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[13:50:23]

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VADYM BOICHENKO, MAYOR, MARIUPOL, UKRAINE (through translation): The truth is that the armed forces of Ukraine are defending Mariupol. Mariupol is the beating heart of Ukraine today.

Our guys are outnumbered 10, 15 times but they are defending. They're holding up and they are remaining there. And they are frustrating the enemy as much as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: That was the mayor of Mariupol, Ukraine, telling CNN today that his besieged city has not fallen to Russian forces despite Putin's claims. The mayor said about 100,000 people are still trapped in that city.

At the start of an invasion, members of a women's soccer team in Mariupol took refuge here in a basement. And as the fighting intensified, they decided to try and escape. And luckily, they succeeded.

I talked with that team's president and coach about their daring journey to freedom. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: I'm so, so glad that you found safety and managed to get out of that city.

How did you do it? How did you escape?

KARINA KULAKOVSKA, ESCAPED MARIUPOL, UKRAINE (through translation): For 20 days, we were in a basement in the epicenter of the events.

When this all started, we had, me and Yana, had just come back from Kyiv. We had been there to discuss our soccer life. And two days later, after we arrived, I woke up at 5:00 a.m. because of the explosions.

First thing, I called Yana because, in our female team, we have girls not just from Mariupol, but from other Ukrainian cities.

I told Yana, the war has started, and she replied, we need to urgently get the girls from their student hall to my home.

To be honest, we never expected to be on such a large scale. But several days later we realized that we wouldn't be able to get out of the city because it was encircled.

It became impossible to carry on living there. When their air strikes started, we decided to get into a car and try and get out of the city, whatever it takes.

CABRERA: And so just so I understand it, you were able to get through before the Russians started blocking entry and exit to the city?

YANA VINOKUROVA, ESCAPED MARIUPOL, UKRAINE (through translation): No, the exits and entrances to the city were blocked from the very first days when the city was encircled.

But all -- those residents who were leaving the city, they knew that they were risking their lives. They could be shelled at any time. So basically, they were taking this risk trying to get out of the city.

CABRERA: I look at the images of Mariupol before this invasion. And it looked like such a vibrant, busy city.

Your team represents this city. Do you think your team will ever be able to return?

KULAKOVSKA (through translation): I'm sure that our city will be even better and more beautiful than it used to be. It will be even more vibrant and bright with colors.

There will be children's laughter. There will be football matches. The children will be going to school. And all Ukraine will help us. And other countries as well.

And me and Yana decided to go back there and help to rebuild the city. CABRERA: I'm so sorry for your losses. And I'm inspired by your

strength. You ladies are so strong and courageous. And I know you will get through this.

But I wonder what is your message to Vladimir Putin right now?

VINOKUROVA (through translation): In order to pass a message to some person, you need at least to have some respect to him. But we don't want to pass any message to this person.

[13:55:00]

The only thing we want to say is that we, as Russian-speaking people, we were building our future. We were living very good life. We didn't need to be liberated from anything like the Russian channels keep saying that wanted to liberate us.

Our lives were perfectly good. And the only thing they liberated us from is our homes, our business, and our football team.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Our thanks to Karina and Yana for sharing their story with us.

That does it for us. Thank you for joining us. Have a wonderful weekend.

The news continues right after this.

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