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Kids Using Steroids; Senior Snap Flap

Aired February 24, 2005 - 13:29   ET

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

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


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Sports is a national obsession. We pay the pros big bucks, cities shell out major money for stadiums, and most of us can name a favorite basketball or football team. But in Texas, football is more than a game; it's practically a religion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that means you're Boobie's (ph) backup?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm actually Boobie's backup backup -- I'm third string right now.

BILLY BOB THORNTON, ACTOR: You know which way you're supposed to run? I ain't talking about the play. I know what the play was. I know what the play was, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: You can feel the tension. Last year's movie of the book "Friday Night Lights" showed us just how large the high school game looms in the lives of many Texas towns, and now a big city Texas paper, "The Dallas Morning News" has uncovered something sinister in high school locker rooms. The series of reports, which started earlier this month, investigates the widespread use of steroids by students.

Reporter Gregg Jones from "The Dallas Morning News" join us now to talk about his series.

Gregg, great to have you with us.

GREGG JONES, "THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS": Thanks for having me.

PHILLIPS: Well, I think we set it up, explaining through the book and through the movie, but unless you live in Texas, sometimes you don't realize how huge football is in that state.

JONES: No question about it. I mean, football is huge. Sports in general are huge in Texas, although I would say that what we found in this instance that this is not just a Texas phenomenon, that teen steroid use is going on across the country.

PHILLIPS: All right, well, let's talk about it. What tipped you off, what got you on this trail, and what really triggered you to pursue this, this focus?

JONES: I think that, in general, the increase awareness of steroid use, obviously, the Olympic scandals, the BALCO scandal in the Bay area, all those revelations; it begged the question of what is going on at the high school level? Obviously we also know that there's steroid use going on at the college level. And so we wanted to look at the high school level and see what was happening, and we did have the one case here in a suburban Dallas high school in Plano (ph) West where a baseball player, Taylor Hooten (ph), had used steroids and committed suicide in July 2003. So I think that that got the wheels turning.

PHILLIPS: Yes, there are a lot of personal stories and characters throughout your stories. Taylor Hooten is definitely one of the primary players in this, and talk a little bit more about that. His father actually started a huge push to educate families on kids and steroid use, and has there been a link between why he committed suicide? And has it been tied to the steroid use?

JONES: Taylor's death, it came after a period of several months where he was using steroids. And from the interviews that we've done with his girlfriend, with his friends, with his parents, he clearly had a radical change in his temperament. He had all the classic rage symptoms that are often associated with steroid use, and he also suffered from depression. And at the time he died, he was combating depression as well, and that is one of the side effects of steroid use as well.

So whether you can definitively say that steroid-related depression caused his death, I'm not sure you can. But certainly, Don Hooten and his wife, Gwen, are convinced that is the case, and it does happen.

PHILLIPS: All right, so from Taylor's story now to the high school that you investigated, Culleyville (ph) High School. Let's talk about coach Chris Cunningham. He denied his athletes used it. Then he kind of came forward and said it was a problem. Let's talk about this high school and what you found out in the locker rooms there.

JONES: We were already into our investigation of high school steroid use when we saw an interview that a Culleyville mother had anonymously given to the weekly newspaper in Culleyville, which is between Dallas and Ft. Worth.

PHILLIPS: Is this the woman you identify as Michelle?

JONES: That's correct.

PHILLIPS: One of your sources. And her son Patrick. Of course you didn't name their names, but go ahead.

JONES: That's correct. And so we -- immediately after that came out, I got in touch with her. We started talking. We -- she allowed us to interview her son, and so at that point, we started investigating his description of steroid use among athletes at Culleyville Heritage High School. And we very quickly uncovered information that led us to believe that his story was credible, and that there certainly as more that needed to be looked into. The school had begun an investigation into the allegations the mother raised. She actually phoned the school in late September and said, my son is using steroids, or has used steroids, and he has described steroid use among Culleyville athletes.

The school's investigation was somewhat slow. They were very skeptical at first. They were dismissive of what the mother had to say.

When we interviewed coach Cunningham in mid-November, he was adamant that he did not believe he had any football players and, in fact he didn't believe he had any athletes in the school that were using steroids. But after our interview, at that point, the school's investigation seemed to pick up steam, and within three to four weeks after that, nine athletes confessed to coach Cunningham that they had used steroids.

PHILLIPS: Well, Gregg, your series is picking up steam. Legislation now in action because of your investigative series. I encourage every parent to check it out, in "The Dallas Morning News."

Gregg Jones, thank you very much.

JONES: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: To Florida now, where tradition and tolerance are clashing today. A high school student near Jacksonville took on the establishment, and lost, sort of.

Roger Weeder (ph) from our affiliate WTLV takes it from there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're leaving right now?

All right, bye.

ROGER WEEDER, WTLV REPORTER (voice-over): Kelly Davis has taken a stand. She chose to wear a tux for her senior class picture.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If I would have worn the drape and looked back 10, 15 years, then I think I would regret it.

WEEDER: At Fleming Island High, Davis doesn't hide her sexual orientation. Neither, she says, is wearing a tux about making a statement.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had a choice between a tux and a drape, and I chose one of the two.

WEEDER: The school says the senior class picture is a statement. Clay County tradition dictates boys in tuxes, girls wearing drapes. The principal, Sam Ward...

SAM WARD, PRINCIPAL: This is about uniformity, about dignity of that photo, maybe about gender, but absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation.

WEEDER: The principal has the support of his boss.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her sexual preference is her preference, and that's OK. But the school shouldn't be the platform for her to make this statement.

WEEDER: Kelly's mother spent nearly $1,000 on two full year-book pages. Here, Kelly's in a tux. And her yearbook editor Kerry Sewell (ph) says it's a shame.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't want to have to look to the back of the book to find my friend's picture. I want her to be with the rest of us in the section.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Sorry about that. We don't usually report on lost cat stories, and usually I don't get caught drinking water on the air, but what the heck? Check out this cat. And will the owner of the tiger that was shot yesterday roaming around California please come forward? We'll talk to the man who's trying to find you.

And a potential global pandemic. A young survivor and how she faced down the dreaded disease, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Now more on the story that we told you about yesterday. That big cat spotted roaming a residential area near Los Angeles for two weeks, was tracked down and shot dead. It turns out it was a 425-pound adult male Bengal tiger. Again, officials made the difficult decision to kill the animal rather than try and capture it because of its proximity to a highway and a kids soccer field. State wildlife officials say that this incident -- well, the way it ended was not the tiger's fault and now there are questions for whomever was responsible for that cat's well-being.

On the phone with us now, Mike Wintemute, the spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Game. Thanks for being with us, Mike.

MIKE WINTEMUTE, CALIF. DEPT. OF FISH AND GAME: Thanks, Kyra. Hi.

PHILLIPS: Well, tell me, what do we know at this point? Do you have any leads on who owned this tiger?

WINTEMUTE: We have a number of leads that we're following up on. At this point, we're not commenting on specifics. But yes, we have talked with several people. We're getting calls from the public and following up on a couple of potential leads. Beyond that, can't really say much at this point.

PHILLIPS: Mike, is this someone that had the tiger for a while, claims to be the owner of the tiger? Is it neighbors that saw the tiger in his yard or some type of farm?

WINTEMUTE: We -- the calls we've been receiving have been primarily from residents in the area. There is a wildlife sanctuary that operated nearby that we're looking at, not to say necessarily that they did anything wrong. But it is one of the leads that we're following and we're continuing to pursue those leads, ultimately trying to find out who the owner is so we can learn why this happened, how the animal got out and try to prevent it from happening again in the future.

PHILLIPS: And of course, if indeed it came from the wildlife sanctuary, everything was legal, right?

WINTEMUTE: That's unknown at this point.

PHILLIPS: OK.

WINTEMUTE: Wildlife sanctuaries are required to have permits. California -- we're looking into whether the permitting was current and whether the animals at the sanctuary were what they supposed to be and kept in conditions they were supposed to be kept.

PHILLIPS: The good news, Mike, is that that tiger did not make it on to that soccer field, the kids soccer field close by. Mike Wintemute, thanks so much.

WINTEMUTE: Thanks.

PHILLIPS: Other news across America now, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is this guy and female sidekick? Well, they would be known as Bonnie and Clod, right? Well, among his many alleged poor choices, this suspected bank robber left his get-a-way car in a parking deck. Hello. Well, when he resorted to foot power, the local (INAUDIBLE) put the collar on him. Police say that they recovered all the money that Steven Rains (ph) is accused of stealing.

Forget knocking on heaven's door. Bob Dylan's just plain knocking. Today's top musical acts dissing his current competition as amateurs. Dylan says he wouldn't even think about playing music if he were born in these times and adds that he probably would turn to mathematics or architecture instead.

Michael Jackson probably not only music, math or architecture today, but a short while ago, he returned to a California courtroom to sit in while jury selection continues. Eight alternate jurors must be seated and given the speed with which the main jurors were impaneled, that could wind up by the end of the day.

Now, more on the 12 men and women who will sit in judgment of Michael Jackson when that trial gets underway. CNN's Miguel Marquez now reports .

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If such a thing is possible, Michael Jackson now has a jury of his peers. From a pool of hundreds, eight women and four men from northern Santa Barbara County have been selected to sit in judgment of the pop star.

TIM MOLLOY, ASSOCIATED PRESS: They appear to be seven white jurors, four Hispanic and one Asian.

MARQUEZ: Most jurors told lawyers they enjoyed Jackson's music and were impressed by his career. Most also said that they distrusted what they heard in the media and very few had seen recent interviews with the pop star. One juror's ex-husband is a police officer. Another juror said that her sister was a rape victim at 12 years old. When asked if that would prevent her from being on this jury, she responded hell, no.

The oldest juror is a 79-year-old great-grandmother whose grandson had to register as a sex offender and she says the experience opened her mind and gave her an education. She feels the experience will only help her be fair to Jackson. The youngest juror is a 20- year-old Hispanic male who divulged her sister and boyfriend had visited Neverland Ranch.

(on camera): A 50-year-old horse trainer was surprised by Jackson's size. She described his appearance as a small man with big energy. And a 21-year-old male paraplegic who wants to be a motor sports reporter said that when he was in the sixth grade, he visited Jackson's Neverland Ranch with a group from the United Cerebral Palsy. In the end, Jackson himself gave the OK for the jury.

DAWN HOBBS, SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS: You could see Mr. Mazro (ph) was asking him is this it, do you like these people? And he's nodding his head yes, they're going back and forth. And so it was very exciting moment in the courtroom.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): It's likely Jackson wanted one juror that didn't make the cut, a 50-year-old African-American female who used to be a corrections officer. She was outspoken and blunt with both prosecutors and defense attorneys. She doubted that Jackson could get a racially mixed jury. She was dismissed by the prosecution.

HOBBS: You could see Mr. Jackson was actually upset. He grabbed his head, he goes like this, he looks over at her like, I don't believe this.

MARQUEZ: On his way out of court, Jackson appeared pleased and ready for trial, flashing peace signs and waving to his fans. Opening statements begins as early as Monday.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And next our Dr. Sanjay Gupta on a chemical that new mothers need to know about. How a rocket fuel component finds its way into your body and should it change your plans to breastfeed? Medical news on LIVE FROM straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: A frightening new study documents the widespread persistence of a potentially toxic substance in breast milk. It's called perchlorate and it's an ingredient in rocket fuel. We first told you about it yesterday and now CNN senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rockets are probably the last thing that come to mind when you think of breast feeding. But new research finds that perchlorate, a toxic part of rocket fuel, is found in breast milk at potentially damaging levels. Turns out people are exposed through run-off water in irrigation of crops.

Perchlorate can make it into tap water and growing fruit and vegetables irrigated by contaminated water. Now just last the Environmental Protection Agency released guidelines on safe levels for adults. Now a new study by researches are Texas Tech University looked at 36 women in 18 states. Levels five to eight times higher than those considered safe by the EPA were found in those mother's breast milk. The Environmental Protection Agency is currently reviewing the paper.

RICHARD WILES, ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP: It's without question that the majority of infants will exceed what EPA considers a safe dose.

GUPTA: Nursing mothers eat perchlorate contaminated foods and pass it through breast milk to their nursing children. Higher levels can affect the thyroid gland and negatively impact brain development.

WILES: What you need is a high exposure for a relatively short period of time that can affect brain development and produce IQ deficits and in worst cases, even mental retardations.

GUPTA: That's a serious price for nursing babies and their mothers. And it's spurring strong reaction.

SANDRA STEINGRABER, MOTHER AND BIOLOGIST: I think that most women see their relationship between our nursing infant and themselves as one of a kind of sacred communion.

GUPTA: Sandra Steingraber is a nursing mother, biologist and mother of two young children.

STEINGRABER: The idea that chemicals can intrude upon that sacred bond is a violation of the right to a child to receive healthy and safe food.

GUPTA: At home, there is no real way to control perchlorate levels. You can't wash it off your produce, you can't filter it out of your water with traditional systems. And there are no commercial tests. For now, women like Steingraber are still focusing on the bigger picture. STEINGRABER: In my mind, the answer to this is not to take babies back to formula, which is an inferior food for babies, but rather to get the chemicals out of the environment in the first place and out of women's breasts.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And in other health news, a consumer group is suing the federal government, asking that salt be classified as a food additive so that it can be regulated. The Center for Science in the Public Interest says that Americans consume nearly twice as much salt as government guidelines recommend. High sodium diets contribute to high blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke.

Only six people in Vietnam who have been diagnosed with bird flu have survived. One of those is a 10-year-old girl who thought she would die of bird flu, just as her pet duck had done. CNN's Mike Chinoy visits her as she returned to the hospital for another checkup.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hung An (ph) returns to the hospital where she almost died last year. She's greeted by the doctor who saved her life. It's a routine visit now. But with Hung An, nothing is really routine. She's one of only six people in Vietnam known to have caught the avian influenza virus and survived.

"I had a little pet duck," she tells me. "It died. I buried it, but had to dig it up and bury it someplace else. The next day, I got sick."

Three days after that, with a raging fever, Hung An was moved to the hospital for tropical diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, where the bird flu diagnosis was confirmed.

"It was so hard to breathe," she says, "my chest hurt so much. I thought I was going to die."

"She'd never been that sick before," says Hung An's mother Tan Chao (ph). "When we heard it was avian flu, we didn't think she'd survive. We started making plans for her funeral."

Dr. Tran Tinh Hien shows me Hung An's x-rays from the most critical days. Her lungs, almost completely blocked from the fast- acting infection.

DR. TRAN TINH HIEN, HOSPITAL FOR TROPICAL DISEASES: In the south, in provinces, we have (UNINTELLIGIBLE) patients who die because patient admitted into hospital too late. We give all the anti-virals (ph), all the medicine but we cannot save the life.

CHINOY: Dr. Hien suspects Hung An survived because she was diagnosed early and got anti-viral drugs fast. Today, he says she's OK. Hung An's mother worries, though, because her daughter still tires easily, doesn't eat much and isn't doing well at school. Even so, the family knows Hung An had a narrow escape.

"it was so frightening," says Tan Chao. "When she recovered, we thought we were the luckiest people ever."

Today, Hung An is just like any other 10-year-old girl. But she says she's never going to have a pet duck again.

Mike Chinoy, CNN, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: This just in to CNN. New developments on Pope John Paul's condition right now. As you know, he was rushed to a hospital for the second time this month. It happened today after a relapse of flu and renewed breathing problems. Now CNN has learned that doctors are considering surgery to help ease the pressure on his inflamed windpipe, possibly performing a tracheotomy.

Here's sort of a generic outline of what that means. It's actually a surgical procedure. It's usually done in an operating room under general anesthesia and it's an incision that's made right there into the windpipe and it forms sort of a temporary opening. And that of course is called a tracheotomy. You can see here what it would look like.

You've probably seen a number of them before, the opening there, putting -- just to help relieve the pressure and help the pope to breathe better. We are getting word that is a possible surgery that medical experts right now are considering. We'll continue to follow the new developments there on the pope's condition as he remains in Gemelli Hospital right now.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired February 24, 2005 - 13:29   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Sports is a national obsession. We pay the pros big bucks, cities shell out major money for stadiums, and most of us can name a favorite basketball or football team. But in Texas, football is more than a game; it's practically a religion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that means you're Boobie's (ph) backup?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm actually Boobie's backup backup -- I'm third string right now.

BILLY BOB THORNTON, ACTOR: You know which way you're supposed to run? I ain't talking about the play. I know what the play was. I know what the play was, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: You can feel the tension. Last year's movie of the book "Friday Night Lights" showed us just how large the high school game looms in the lives of many Texas towns, and now a big city Texas paper, "The Dallas Morning News" has uncovered something sinister in high school locker rooms. The series of reports, which started earlier this month, investigates the widespread use of steroids by students.

Reporter Gregg Jones from "The Dallas Morning News" join us now to talk about his series.

Gregg, great to have you with us.

GREGG JONES, "THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS": Thanks for having me.

PHILLIPS: Well, I think we set it up, explaining through the book and through the movie, but unless you live in Texas, sometimes you don't realize how huge football is in that state.

JONES: No question about it. I mean, football is huge. Sports in general are huge in Texas, although I would say that what we found in this instance that this is not just a Texas phenomenon, that teen steroid use is going on across the country.

PHILLIPS: All right, well, let's talk about it. What tipped you off, what got you on this trail, and what really triggered you to pursue this, this focus?

JONES: I think that, in general, the increase awareness of steroid use, obviously, the Olympic scandals, the BALCO scandal in the Bay area, all those revelations; it begged the question of what is going on at the high school level? Obviously we also know that there's steroid use going on at the college level. And so we wanted to look at the high school level and see what was happening, and we did have the one case here in a suburban Dallas high school in Plano (ph) West where a baseball player, Taylor Hooten (ph), had used steroids and committed suicide in July 2003. So I think that that got the wheels turning.

PHILLIPS: Yes, there are a lot of personal stories and characters throughout your stories. Taylor Hooten is definitely one of the primary players in this, and talk a little bit more about that. His father actually started a huge push to educate families on kids and steroid use, and has there been a link between why he committed suicide? And has it been tied to the steroid use?

JONES: Taylor's death, it came after a period of several months where he was using steroids. And from the interviews that we've done with his girlfriend, with his friends, with his parents, he clearly had a radical change in his temperament. He had all the classic rage symptoms that are often associated with steroid use, and he also suffered from depression. And at the time he died, he was combating depression as well, and that is one of the side effects of steroid use as well.

So whether you can definitively say that steroid-related depression caused his death, I'm not sure you can. But certainly, Don Hooten and his wife, Gwen, are convinced that is the case, and it does happen.

PHILLIPS: All right, so from Taylor's story now to the high school that you investigated, Culleyville (ph) High School. Let's talk about coach Chris Cunningham. He denied his athletes used it. Then he kind of came forward and said it was a problem. Let's talk about this high school and what you found out in the locker rooms there.

JONES: We were already into our investigation of high school steroid use when we saw an interview that a Culleyville mother had anonymously given to the weekly newspaper in Culleyville, which is between Dallas and Ft. Worth.

PHILLIPS: Is this the woman you identify as Michelle?

JONES: That's correct.

PHILLIPS: One of your sources. And her son Patrick. Of course you didn't name their names, but go ahead.

JONES: That's correct. And so we -- immediately after that came out, I got in touch with her. We started talking. We -- she allowed us to interview her son, and so at that point, we started investigating his description of steroid use among athletes at Culleyville Heritage High School. And we very quickly uncovered information that led us to believe that his story was credible, and that there certainly as more that needed to be looked into. The school had begun an investigation into the allegations the mother raised. She actually phoned the school in late September and said, my son is using steroids, or has used steroids, and he has described steroid use among Culleyville athletes.

The school's investigation was somewhat slow. They were very skeptical at first. They were dismissive of what the mother had to say.

When we interviewed coach Cunningham in mid-November, he was adamant that he did not believe he had any football players and, in fact he didn't believe he had any athletes in the school that were using steroids. But after our interview, at that point, the school's investigation seemed to pick up steam, and within three to four weeks after that, nine athletes confessed to coach Cunningham that they had used steroids.

PHILLIPS: Well, Gregg, your series is picking up steam. Legislation now in action because of your investigative series. I encourage every parent to check it out, in "The Dallas Morning News."

Gregg Jones, thank you very much.

JONES: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: To Florida now, where tradition and tolerance are clashing today. A high school student near Jacksonville took on the establishment, and lost, sort of.

Roger Weeder (ph) from our affiliate WTLV takes it from there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're leaving right now?

All right, bye.

ROGER WEEDER, WTLV REPORTER (voice-over): Kelly Davis has taken a stand. She chose to wear a tux for her senior class picture.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If I would have worn the drape and looked back 10, 15 years, then I think I would regret it.

WEEDER: At Fleming Island High, Davis doesn't hide her sexual orientation. Neither, she says, is wearing a tux about making a statement.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had a choice between a tux and a drape, and I chose one of the two.

WEEDER: The school says the senior class picture is a statement. Clay County tradition dictates boys in tuxes, girls wearing drapes. The principal, Sam Ward...

SAM WARD, PRINCIPAL: This is about uniformity, about dignity of that photo, maybe about gender, but absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation.

WEEDER: The principal has the support of his boss.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her sexual preference is her preference, and that's OK. But the school shouldn't be the platform for her to make this statement.

WEEDER: Kelly's mother spent nearly $1,000 on two full year-book pages. Here, Kelly's in a tux. And her yearbook editor Kerry Sewell (ph) says it's a shame.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't want to have to look to the back of the book to find my friend's picture. I want her to be with the rest of us in the section.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Sorry about that. We don't usually report on lost cat stories, and usually I don't get caught drinking water on the air, but what the heck? Check out this cat. And will the owner of the tiger that was shot yesterday roaming around California please come forward? We'll talk to the man who's trying to find you.

And a potential global pandemic. A young survivor and how she faced down the dreaded disease, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Now more on the story that we told you about yesterday. That big cat spotted roaming a residential area near Los Angeles for two weeks, was tracked down and shot dead. It turns out it was a 425-pound adult male Bengal tiger. Again, officials made the difficult decision to kill the animal rather than try and capture it because of its proximity to a highway and a kids soccer field. State wildlife officials say that this incident -- well, the way it ended was not the tiger's fault and now there are questions for whomever was responsible for that cat's well-being.

On the phone with us now, Mike Wintemute, the spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Game. Thanks for being with us, Mike.

MIKE WINTEMUTE, CALIF. DEPT. OF FISH AND GAME: Thanks, Kyra. Hi.

PHILLIPS: Well, tell me, what do we know at this point? Do you have any leads on who owned this tiger?

WINTEMUTE: We have a number of leads that we're following up on. At this point, we're not commenting on specifics. But yes, we have talked with several people. We're getting calls from the public and following up on a couple of potential leads. Beyond that, can't really say much at this point.

PHILLIPS: Mike, is this someone that had the tiger for a while, claims to be the owner of the tiger? Is it neighbors that saw the tiger in his yard or some type of farm?

WINTEMUTE: We -- the calls we've been receiving have been primarily from residents in the area. There is a wildlife sanctuary that operated nearby that we're looking at, not to say necessarily that they did anything wrong. But it is one of the leads that we're following and we're continuing to pursue those leads, ultimately trying to find out who the owner is so we can learn why this happened, how the animal got out and try to prevent it from happening again in the future.

PHILLIPS: And of course, if indeed it came from the wildlife sanctuary, everything was legal, right?

WINTEMUTE: That's unknown at this point.

PHILLIPS: OK.

WINTEMUTE: Wildlife sanctuaries are required to have permits. California -- we're looking into whether the permitting was current and whether the animals at the sanctuary were what they supposed to be and kept in conditions they were supposed to be kept.

PHILLIPS: The good news, Mike, is that that tiger did not make it on to that soccer field, the kids soccer field close by. Mike Wintemute, thanks so much.

WINTEMUTE: Thanks.

PHILLIPS: Other news across America now, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is this guy and female sidekick? Well, they would be known as Bonnie and Clod, right? Well, among his many alleged poor choices, this suspected bank robber left his get-a-way car in a parking deck. Hello. Well, when he resorted to foot power, the local (INAUDIBLE) put the collar on him. Police say that they recovered all the money that Steven Rains (ph) is accused of stealing.

Forget knocking on heaven's door. Bob Dylan's just plain knocking. Today's top musical acts dissing his current competition as amateurs. Dylan says he wouldn't even think about playing music if he were born in these times and adds that he probably would turn to mathematics or architecture instead.

Michael Jackson probably not only music, math or architecture today, but a short while ago, he returned to a California courtroom to sit in while jury selection continues. Eight alternate jurors must be seated and given the speed with which the main jurors were impaneled, that could wind up by the end of the day.

Now, more on the 12 men and women who will sit in judgment of Michael Jackson when that trial gets underway. CNN's Miguel Marquez now reports .

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If such a thing is possible, Michael Jackson now has a jury of his peers. From a pool of hundreds, eight women and four men from northern Santa Barbara County have been selected to sit in judgment of the pop star.

TIM MOLLOY, ASSOCIATED PRESS: They appear to be seven white jurors, four Hispanic and one Asian.

MARQUEZ: Most jurors told lawyers they enjoyed Jackson's music and were impressed by his career. Most also said that they distrusted what they heard in the media and very few had seen recent interviews with the pop star. One juror's ex-husband is a police officer. Another juror said that her sister was a rape victim at 12 years old. When asked if that would prevent her from being on this jury, she responded hell, no.

The oldest juror is a 79-year-old great-grandmother whose grandson had to register as a sex offender and she says the experience opened her mind and gave her an education. She feels the experience will only help her be fair to Jackson. The youngest juror is a 20- year-old Hispanic male who divulged her sister and boyfriend had visited Neverland Ranch.

(on camera): A 50-year-old horse trainer was surprised by Jackson's size. She described his appearance as a small man with big energy. And a 21-year-old male paraplegic who wants to be a motor sports reporter said that when he was in the sixth grade, he visited Jackson's Neverland Ranch with a group from the United Cerebral Palsy. In the end, Jackson himself gave the OK for the jury.

DAWN HOBBS, SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS: You could see Mr. Mazro (ph) was asking him is this it, do you like these people? And he's nodding his head yes, they're going back and forth. And so it was very exciting moment in the courtroom.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): It's likely Jackson wanted one juror that didn't make the cut, a 50-year-old African-American female who used to be a corrections officer. She was outspoken and blunt with both prosecutors and defense attorneys. She doubted that Jackson could get a racially mixed jury. She was dismissed by the prosecution.

HOBBS: You could see Mr. Jackson was actually upset. He grabbed his head, he goes like this, he looks over at her like, I don't believe this.

MARQUEZ: On his way out of court, Jackson appeared pleased and ready for trial, flashing peace signs and waving to his fans. Opening statements begins as early as Monday.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And next our Dr. Sanjay Gupta on a chemical that new mothers need to know about. How a rocket fuel component finds its way into your body and should it change your plans to breastfeed? Medical news on LIVE FROM straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: A frightening new study documents the widespread persistence of a potentially toxic substance in breast milk. It's called perchlorate and it's an ingredient in rocket fuel. We first told you about it yesterday and now CNN senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rockets are probably the last thing that come to mind when you think of breast feeding. But new research finds that perchlorate, a toxic part of rocket fuel, is found in breast milk at potentially damaging levels. Turns out people are exposed through run-off water in irrigation of crops.

Perchlorate can make it into tap water and growing fruit and vegetables irrigated by contaminated water. Now just last the Environmental Protection Agency released guidelines on safe levels for adults. Now a new study by researches are Texas Tech University looked at 36 women in 18 states. Levels five to eight times higher than those considered safe by the EPA were found in those mother's breast milk. The Environmental Protection Agency is currently reviewing the paper.

RICHARD WILES, ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP: It's without question that the majority of infants will exceed what EPA considers a safe dose.

GUPTA: Nursing mothers eat perchlorate contaminated foods and pass it through breast milk to their nursing children. Higher levels can affect the thyroid gland and negatively impact brain development.

WILES: What you need is a high exposure for a relatively short period of time that can affect brain development and produce IQ deficits and in worst cases, even mental retardations.

GUPTA: That's a serious price for nursing babies and their mothers. And it's spurring strong reaction.

SANDRA STEINGRABER, MOTHER AND BIOLOGIST: I think that most women see their relationship between our nursing infant and themselves as one of a kind of sacred communion.

GUPTA: Sandra Steingraber is a nursing mother, biologist and mother of two young children.

STEINGRABER: The idea that chemicals can intrude upon that sacred bond is a violation of the right to a child to receive healthy and safe food.

GUPTA: At home, there is no real way to control perchlorate levels. You can't wash it off your produce, you can't filter it out of your water with traditional systems. And there are no commercial tests. For now, women like Steingraber are still focusing on the bigger picture. STEINGRABER: In my mind, the answer to this is not to take babies back to formula, which is an inferior food for babies, but rather to get the chemicals out of the environment in the first place and out of women's breasts.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And in other health news, a consumer group is suing the federal government, asking that salt be classified as a food additive so that it can be regulated. The Center for Science in the Public Interest says that Americans consume nearly twice as much salt as government guidelines recommend. High sodium diets contribute to high blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke.

Only six people in Vietnam who have been diagnosed with bird flu have survived. One of those is a 10-year-old girl who thought she would die of bird flu, just as her pet duck had done. CNN's Mike Chinoy visits her as she returned to the hospital for another checkup.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hung An (ph) returns to the hospital where she almost died last year. She's greeted by the doctor who saved her life. It's a routine visit now. But with Hung An, nothing is really routine. She's one of only six people in Vietnam known to have caught the avian influenza virus and survived.

"I had a little pet duck," she tells me. "It died. I buried it, but had to dig it up and bury it someplace else. The next day, I got sick."

Three days after that, with a raging fever, Hung An was moved to the hospital for tropical diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, where the bird flu diagnosis was confirmed.

"It was so hard to breathe," she says, "my chest hurt so much. I thought I was going to die."

"She'd never been that sick before," says Hung An's mother Tan Chao (ph). "When we heard it was avian flu, we didn't think she'd survive. We started making plans for her funeral."

Dr. Tran Tinh Hien shows me Hung An's x-rays from the most critical days. Her lungs, almost completely blocked from the fast- acting infection.

DR. TRAN TINH HIEN, HOSPITAL FOR TROPICAL DISEASES: In the south, in provinces, we have (UNINTELLIGIBLE) patients who die because patient admitted into hospital too late. We give all the anti-virals (ph), all the medicine but we cannot save the life.

CHINOY: Dr. Hien suspects Hung An survived because she was diagnosed early and got anti-viral drugs fast. Today, he says she's OK. Hung An's mother worries, though, because her daughter still tires easily, doesn't eat much and isn't doing well at school. Even so, the family knows Hung An had a narrow escape.

"it was so frightening," says Tan Chao. "When she recovered, we thought we were the luckiest people ever."

Today, Hung An is just like any other 10-year-old girl. But she says she's never going to have a pet duck again.

Mike Chinoy, CNN, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: This just in to CNN. New developments on Pope John Paul's condition right now. As you know, he was rushed to a hospital for the second time this month. It happened today after a relapse of flu and renewed breathing problems. Now CNN has learned that doctors are considering surgery to help ease the pressure on his inflamed windpipe, possibly performing a tracheotomy.

Here's sort of a generic outline of what that means. It's actually a surgical procedure. It's usually done in an operating room under general anesthesia and it's an incision that's made right there into the windpipe and it forms sort of a temporary opening. And that of course is called a tracheotomy. You can see here what it would look like.

You've probably seen a number of them before, the opening there, putting -- just to help relieve the pressure and help the pope to breathe better. We are getting word that is a possible surgery that medical experts right now are considering. We'll continue to follow the new developments there on the pope's condition as he remains in Gemelli Hospital right now.

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