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Pandemic Planning; Searching for Natalee Holloway

Aired June 30, 2005 - 13:34   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Right now in the news, ready or not? Well, we're awaiting an announcement from NASA within the hour on launch plans for the shuttle discovery. Our pal Miles O'Brien monitoring developments from NASA's flight readiness review in Florida. He's going to join us next hour with details
Phoenix: stolen vehicle, high-speed chase. Fleeing the police rarely ends well. And this 40-mile pursuit went from bad to worse for the fleer. Yes, that driver took this truck into the runway at Sky Harbor Airport. Not good. Ended up, well, the truck wrapped in a fence and the driver with explaining to do.

And how much is that doggy in the window? Florida police figure these bandits got away with a dozens pricey pure-bred pups in a brazen snatch and grab. The dastardly deed was caught on the store's 24-hour Web-cam, and now a $2,000 reward awaits anyone who helps collar the dirty dogs who did it.

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In Washington, a House committee has put the flu under the microscope, as government and health officials try to predict and prepare for a flu pandemic that experts call overdue. We want to check in with a global health expert, Laurie Garrett, with the Council on Foreign Relations, and is also the author of "The Coming Plague." We welcome her back to LIVE FROM to talk about where she thinks the U.S. stands on being ready for a flu pandemic. Good to see you again, Laurie.

LAURIE GARRETT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Good to see you.

PHILLIPS: Well, we're going to get into all the ugly news in a minute, but just a bit of good news. I want to run a piece of sound that came out of the hearing today, with a doctor from HHS. Take a listen. I want to get you to respond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. BRUCE GELLIN, HHS: The thin silver lining on this otherwise darkening cloud is that despite the wide geographic spread of the virus, despite its ability to infect an infect an expanding number of avian and amilian species, despite the small changes in the virus' genetics, and despite the occurrence of small clusters among people where in transmission may have been person to person, this virus has not yet developed the ability to officially transmit among people, a change that could trigger a pandemic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: OK, Laurie, so good news behind all the technical- speak there. Dr. Gellin basically saying, OK, it hasn't reached humans yet.

GARRETT: Not yet. That's the crucial point. Not yet. We don't know what exact genetic change the virus needs to make in order to become a human to human, typical, highly contagious virus. And we don't know how those changes normally get made in nature. So we have no way of knowing whether what Bruce Gellin just said on CNN was good news or just sort of dangerous news. We just don't know enough about the biology of the virus.

PHILLIPS: All right, and not knowing a lot, let's say, indeed, we end up, you know, our time is coming, are we prepared? And if not, where are the gaps?

GARRETT: We are not prepared. And, frankly, if this virus were to make the big leap, and still have this unbelievable virulence -- I mean, right now, it's killing about 55 percent of the human beings it infects. And the 1918 flu, which caused 50 million to 100 million deaths worldwide, had only a virulence of less than three percent. So we're looking at a wildly more dangerous virus than the last great horror that visited us.

But if it were to come and make that jump between now and our typical flu season start, which is in sort of mid to late September, we would be in very big trouble. We don't have sufficient antiviral drugs on hand. We're short probably in the neighborhood of 100 million rounds of treatment. We don't have backup supplies of antibiotics sufficient to deal with a massive level of pneumonia. And we certainly would not have vaccine. There is some experimental work under way to try and make a vaccine against this virus. But what we're making a vaccine against is the way the virus looks right now in strains that we find in chickens. But we don't know if that's what it will look like when it makes a successful transformation to be a human-to-human form. Then the vaccine that we're making might not work.

PHILLIPS: So the cases that we're seeing in Vietnam, I mean, we sit here and we think, Vietnam, far, far away from all of us. However, you're feeling is, we do need to worry about what's taking place in Vietnam and the impact it could have on us here in the United States?

GARRETT: Well, just think back, 1918, we didn't have commercial air travel. It took steam ships to get around the world. Yet that virus circumnavigated...

PHILLIPS: Yet, 40 million people died, right, globally in 1918?

GARRETT: That's the lowball estimate. It's probably closer to 100 million. And that virus circumnavigated the virus three times in 18 months. Today flu viruses go all the way around the world in a matter of days because of commercial air travel. So a flu virus that emerges in Vietnam could be a flu virus in Los Angeles in less than a week.

PHILLIPS: So do we have the right leadership? Do we have the right doctors and scientists in place to help us?

GARRETT: We have a lot of terrific people working very hard right now, but it is woefully inadequate. It's not their fault. Governments around the world have not taken this problem seriously. They've ignored warnings from the scientific community that have been coming forward for years.

This virus first appeared in Hong Kong in 1997, and here we are 2005, we're scrambling madly. This is crazy, totally crazy.

PHILLIPS: So can we catch up with this threat that's looming? I mean, is it going to take money? Is it going to take more scientists and doctors experimenting, trying to get this vaccine in order and enough of it?

GARRETT: It's going to take all those things and more. Remember, we're talking about a global pandemic. So we're not just talking coming up with a scheme to protect 200 and some million Americans. We're talking about a scheme to protect more than six billion human beings spread out all across planet Earth. And we just don't have machinery in place that's adequate to the task.

And right now, big problem. If I were to get Condoleezza Rice's ear, I would say, madam secretary of state, please, get on a plane right now, fly to Hanoi, fly to Beijing, fly to Nanping, fly to Yuncheng. Go to the leaders of these crucial Asian countries and say, how can we help you immediately to understand that this is a top priority for our country? It should be a top priority for your country. We are prepared to help you. What do you need so that we can stop a virus inside your clusters -- you know, small level -- before it has a chance to spread all over the world. That's our only help.

PHILLIPS: Laurie Garrett. Your book, "The Coming Plague," it's become a bit of a bible for us in the news room on this subject. Laurie, thanks for your time today.

GARRETT: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Well, straight ahead on LIVE FROM, we're going to talk to one of the volunteer divers on the hunt for Natalee Holloway in Aruba. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Now back live in the news room. We're going to head to Aruba and the search for Natalee Holloway. This man says he lied to the cops about what he knows about the missing teenager. Steve Croes is out of jail, no longer a suspect, and told our Paula Zahn that his ten-day jail stay was the price paid for a stupid mistake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE CROES, RELEASED FROM ARUBAN JAIL: I lied to the cops.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And what did you tell them?

CROES: I just told them that I witnessed when they dropped the girl at the hotel. But that wasn't true, because I didn't even know these guys.

ZAHN: Why would you make that up, Steve?

CROES: You know, I don't know. Normally, I'm not, like, that stupid, stupid person. I'm always, like, in the group of the guys that we go out with and stuff like that. I'm the only one that give them the good advice, like, please don't do this or don't do that. But this time, I did a stupid mistake and I got into jail for ten days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Live now to Aruba. Let's welcome Joe Huston. He's a scuba diver with Texas-based EquuSearch, a group on the ice cold trail of Natalee Holloway. Joe, thanks for being with us? Have you been able to go out into the water yet today?

JOE HUSTON, EQUUSEARCH RESCUE DIVER: Not today. We're still waiting for conditions to get a little bit better and we're waiting for additional resource and assets from the United States to come in and help us with the rough water conditions.

PHILLIPS: And what type of assets are you talking about?

HUSTON: Five of our divers went home yesterday, and so we're looking for additional highly-qualified divers to able to handle the surf and cave diving on the western and northwestern portion of the coast.

PHILLIPS: Let me talk -- let's talk a minute about technology and equipment that you're going to be using. What kind of special sonar equipment have you brought with you and how's that going to help?

HUSTON: We brought what is called sidescan sonar, and it allow us to be able to scan fairly large swathes of the ocean floor. The individual who is manning that operation is a technical expert, to be able to pick out what is man-made, what is not man-made on the bottom and identify any body. We have basically done the portion of the west-southwest portion of the coast, from a couple wrecks up at the light house and on out about four or five miles. And that's area's been scanned. And we're fairly confident there is nothing of interest in that area at this point.

PHILLIPS: So, Joe, have police officers asked you specifically, we're looking for a body, we need you to look for a body?

HUSTON: No, but when you go on a search, we take everything into consideration. We're still hoping to find Natalee alive. But we do know that there are areas, both offshore and onshore, that if someone was to disposed of somebody or hide somebody, they would try to look in those area. Obviously, it doesn't take much intelligence to understand that if we're look offshore, that we're looking for human remains or some sign of maybe somebody being weighted down or potentially clothing that the victim may have had on at the time of her abduction.

PHILLIPS: What about a possible weapon?

HUSTON: We are not -- obviously if we find weapons, we'll bring them to the police's attention, but we don't have any information on that at all.

PHILLIPS: You're doing this for free, right, Joe?

HUSTON: I'm sorry?

PHILLIPS: Are you doing this for free?

HUSTON: We're all volunteers. EquuSearch is a 100 percent nonprofit, volunteer organization. All of us down here are taking away from our families -- taking time away from our families and our jobs, and we are basically assisting on donations both locally and from the United States. And they've been generous. However, we're still in need of additional donations in order to be able to continue with the search on the island.

PHILLIPS: So, Joe, let me ask you. Why do you do this? Why do you do this for free? Why do you volunteer to come out and do something like this?

HUSTON: I think that every human needs to do what they can to help human man -- or humankind. And I know for myself, I do not have -- fortunately, I do not have a personal experience of having anybody that's been abducted and murdered, but I like to like people. And I'm out here to help as much as I can, try to get Natalee returned to her family, because I've seen what the families have gone through. I've been with EquuSearch for about three years, been involved with over 100 searches. And no matter how this turns out, just returning a -- having some closure for the family, I think, is very important.

PHILLIPS; Joe Huston. You let us know if you come across anything that's going to help this case, OK?

HUSTON: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Thank you, Joe. We're going to take a break. More LIVE FROM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Well, coming up in the second hour of LIVE FROM, we're going to talk live with one of the former Iranian hostages who says that the country's new president was one of his captors.

And on the much lighter side, is that the sound of wedding bells for two Hollywood hotties? The guilty pleasure, straight ahead.

OK, but before I am told we head to the next hour, we are going to bring you this report from Thailand, where police officials say that their street cops have been taking a bite off more than just crime. Now stay with me on this story. They're fed up with overfed officers. And now we're being told they're going to get an extreme makeover.

Aneesh Raman has more now from Bangkok.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There are two things these men have in common. They are all Bangkok police officers, and they've all got one of these. It's an unlikely battle of the bulge, a two-month mandatory weight loss program for police with waist lines over 40 inches. The bosses, it seems, don't want this as the face of the force.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The police here are certainly overweight. It is not just a matter of being fat, it's also creating a bad image.

RAMAN: One that's getting worse. Annual physicals showed half of Bangkok's police are becoming dangerously obese. And for those like Sergeant Nitok Sisaur (ph), who weighs 280 pounds, it's starting to take a toll. "I'm fat, very fat," he says. "So I have to diet. It's hard to put on my clothes, because they are so tight."

Not to mention his polyester uniform. Out on the streets, Nitok's exercise is minimal, a few hand movements here and there. His dinner time stall, now off-limits. And if motivation starts to wane, passing by, every so often, that other 50 percent, the skinny cops.

(on camera): For a lot of the big guys like Sergeant Nitok, the bulge is actually an extension of the work. His days are long. His food breaks are infrequent. And it spells disaster, because when the day ends.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They come to their home, open the refrigerator and eat everything.

RAMAN (voice-over): So this program is about more than just sweating away the excess. There's yoga for the brave, and also, dietary education. On the Bangkok streets, it's about the basics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is dangerous for themselves, if they let themselves be overweight. So that's the point.

RAMAN: Another point, slimming down is dangerous for the criminals.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I'm going to commit a crime, I'd rather have the fat cop than the slim cop.

RAMAN: Fat cops be gone. In Bangkok, the hope is that the change will be permanent. At least that's the hope.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It's really good, working hard, the entire body. But after the two months, I have to try and find time.

RAMAN: And then there's the other issue. Slimming down solves one health risk, sucking in exhaust fumes all day raises another. In Bangkok, for now, that's another problem for another day.

Aneesh Raman, CNN, Bangkok.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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