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Churches Burned in Rural Alabama; Politics Mix with Praise at Coretta Scott King's Funeral; Clinic Where King Died Shut Down for Questionable Practices

Aired February 08, 2006 - 13:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips. We begin this hour with anger, fear and confusion in the burned out ruins of nine churches in rural Alabama. Sickness is the way Johnny Archibald puts it. He's a member of Morningstar Baptist Church, or what used to be Morningstar Baptist, one of the four churches torched yesterday alone.
CNN's David Mattingly is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The church fires investigation in Alabama continuing today. You can see behind me in the rubble of what used to be the Morningstar Baptist church in Boligee, Alabama. Federal agents picking through the rubble, going through piece by piece with a rake, looking for any clues they can possibly find as to how this fire was started and possibly who started it.

Of course, the question remaining, why would anyone be targeting Baptist churches in rural Alabama?

MIKE BOUCHARD, ATF ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Most of the similarities we will keep close hold. But, however, there are a lot of common things that are pretty common. They're churches in remote areas. They're all the same denomination, of course. There are a lot of similar burn patterns. A lot of them were burned before they were noticed. They burned for a long time before anyone noticed the fires. So those are some of the similar things that we've seen.

MATTINGLY: At this point, there have been no clear suspects and no clear motive in any of the cases. Both white churches and black churches had been targeted. The only link is they are all Baptist and all in rural Alabama.

There's very little so far that investigators have been able to go to the public with, either. They say that in both places, on Friday and on Tuesday, a dark SUV was spotted. According to one report, it might have contained two white men. But that's about it.

Everyone asking the public to remain vigilant, to watch their churches, in hopes that this does not happen again.

David Mattingly, CNN, Boligee, Alabama.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Throw bombs in 30 minutes. Three people are killed, seven others wounded in a series of attacks today in Baghdad.

The first targeted an Iraqi minister. He escaped, but a civilian was killed. Ten minutes later, a homemade bomb killed another civilian in western Baghdad. Twenty minutes after that, third blast went off near a police patrol in southern Baghdad. Two Iraqi police were hurt.

He's delivered it to Congress. Now he's trying to sell it to you. President Bush stopped off in Manchester, New Hampshire today to tout his proposed budget for 2007. It's a lean one, way too lean for many critics, who say it slashes too many programs not linked to defense or homeland security. But the president says it's all about priorities.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's also, you know, kind of a debate in Washington about how to handle your money. There are some that, frankly, whose policies would make us look more like Europe than -- than we should, and that is kind of a centralization of power. The surest way to centralize power is to take more of your own money to Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: About two dozen protests gathered -- or protesters, rather, gathered across the street, some of them protesting the higher interest the Bush budget would slap on student loans.

Well, it's a lot like members of Congress, or like a lot of members of Congress, new House Majority Leader John Boehner rents a place on Capitol Hill, but Boehner rents his place, a basement apartment, from a lobbyist.

"The Washington Post" reports that Boehner's landlord, collecting $1,600 a month from his powerful tenet, is John Milne. The paper says that some of Milne's clients have stakes in issues Boehner oversees as chairman of the education and workforce committee.

A Boehner spokesperson downplays the connections. In his words, "John Milne does not lobby John Boehner on any issue and has not lobbied him on any issue during the time period in which John has been renting the property."

Lobbyists and ethics were dragged into the spotlight when former super lobbyist Jack Abramoff plead guilty to corruption. Later today, the Senate holds a hearing on prospective rule changes, and we'll be watching. Our Ed Henry joins me now from Capitol Hill in the next hour of LIVE FROM.

Well, politics at a funeral. A delicate, potentially volatile combination, as President Bush discovered at yesterday's marathon service for Coretta Scott King. Did some of the speakers go too far? Well, you be the judge. Here's CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): It was the kind of funeral Martin Luther King was denied. The 10,000-seat congregation filled with members of Congress and four presidents.

BUSH: Coretta Scott King showed that a person of conviction and strength could also be a beautiful soul. This kind and gentle woman became one of the most admired Americans of our time.

O'BRIEN: And while the president offered a dignified tribute bereft of political rhetoric, other speakers used some of their time at the pulpit for partisanship as well as praise. Former President Jimmy Carter, reminding us of the current administration's failures in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, those who are most devastated by Katrina, to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans.

O'BRIEN: The civil rights leader, the Reverend Joseph Lowery, turned up the political volume, praising Coretta Scott King and criticizing the war in Iraq in the same breath.

REV. JOSEPH LOWERY, CO-FOUNDER, SCLC: She extended Martin's message against poverty racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar.

We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But -- but Coretta knew and we know that they were weapons of misdirection right down here.

Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For billion are more, but no more for the poor.

O'BRIEN: Moments later, the former President Bush rose in defense of his son, using humor to try and deflate the tension.

GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would like to say something to my friend Joe Lowery. Hey, look, they used to send this guy to Washington, and I kept score in the Oval Office desk, Larry 21, Bush 3. It wasn't a fair fight, but -- but the advice, though, Joe, the advice I'd give this guy is Maya has nothing to worry about. Don't give up your day job, keep preaching.

O'BRIEN: Miles O'Brien, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Some people say a funeral is no place for political attacks. Others say Coretta Scott King was an activist who would have approved of the causes and caustic comments. Let us know what you think. E-mail us at LiveFrom@CNN.com. We'll read your comments later in the newscast.

In the week since Coretta Scott King died in Mexico, the clinic where she hoped to find hope has been closed. Mexico's government claims the Santa Monica Health Institute offered not so much hope as hype. We get the story now from CNN's investigative reporter Drew Griffith.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFITH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It bears little resemblance to what most Americans consider modern medicine: a two- story nondescript building on a dirt road outside Tijuana, Mexico. And yet it is here, the founder says, hopeless medical cases can find treatment.

KURT W. DONSBACH, FOUNDER, SANTA MONICA HEALTH INSTITUTE? Welcome to Hospital Santa Monica, the largest alternative holistic hospital in North America. We're a little different than most hospitals, as you'll soon see.

GRIFFITH: He calls himself Dr. Kurt Donsbach, and depending on whom you ask, the man starring in his own promotional video, who claims to be able to treat incurable diseases, is either a crook and a fraud or a person performing medical miracles.

This clinic, 16 miles south of the border, claims to specialize everything from arthritis to weight loss, from chronic fatigue syndrome to cardiovascular disease. Alternative treatments many patients say they just could not get in the U.S.

Coretta Scott King was brought here for advanced cancer treatment.

DONSBACH: All in all, we specialize in chronic degenerative disease conditions for which mainstream medicine has no answer.

GRIFFITH: Adriana Morones says the only answer she wants is why her sister died here.

ADRIANA MORONES, SISTER OF PATIENT: I wish I had the power to just close my eyes and shut it down and save people's lives.

GRIFFITH: Her sister, Dulce Medina (ph), was a 41-year-old electrical engineer. She had a successful career, a loving family, and a weight problem. Last September, she checked into Hospital Santa Monica, seeking a weight reduction treatment. She was to have a balloon inserted into her stomach.

MORONES: She wasn't terminally ill or anything. She wanted to lose weight.

GRIFFITH: According to the doctor who signed her death certificate, Dulce Medina died of a heart attack shortly after checking in. Her sister doesn't believe it.

MORONES: The receptionist or whoever answered the phone just said, "We do not longer perform that procedure and the doctor's not here anymore."

GRIFFITH (on camera): What do you think about this clinic?

MORONES: I think it's a fraud. It's a scam.

GRIFFITH (voice-over): Since her sister's death, Adriana has found that clinic founder, Kurt Donsbach, has a checkered past, complete with fraud, criminal convictions and dead patients. Last week she was shocked to learn someone as famous as Coretta Scott King was also a patient here.

King was here for four days, according to the brief statement from the hospital. She received no treatment and died while under evaluation.

(on camera) You would have liked to have probably talked to the King family before they went down there. What would you say to them?

MORONES: I'd say don't go there. I'd say find either measures. Anything you can do but go down to that clinic.

GRIFFITH: Criticism of the King family's decision to send their mother to the clinic has been so strong daughter Bernice King even addressed the issue during the funeral.

REV. BERNICE KING, DAUGHTER OF CORETTA SCOTT KING: I called on the doctors there. There are medical doctors there, contrary to the reports that you may read. Be careful what you read in the paper, please.

GRIFFITH: Dr. Stephen Barrett, retired licensed psychiatrist, has spent years giving similar warnings about clinics he calls quackery. He, too, was shocked when he heard the King family had put their faith in Hospital Santa Monica.

DR. STEPHEN BARRETT, MEDICAL WATCHDOG: I wouldn't go to that place to get my toenails cut.

GRIFFITH (on camera): It's that bad?

BARRETT: Yes, sir. And deceptive. I think that -- I think Donsbach and many of the other people who operate the shady clinics in Mexico mislead people. I think they give them false promises.

GRIFFITH (voice-over): On his web site, QuackWatch.org, Barrett tracks what he believes are unscrupulous doctors and clinics who prey on the desperately ill. He's been tracking the record of Dr. Kurt Donsbach for 30 years and claims he is no a doctor at all.

BARRETT: He doesn't have any medical credentials. He went to chiropractic school, graduated in 1957, got licensed, practiced for a short time and then basically went into the vitamin business.

GRIFFITH: Since then, Donsbach has been in and out of trouble. In 1971, he pled guilty to practicing medicine without a license. In '73, a conviction for offering to sell new drugs without a permit. In '74, guilty of violating probation.

In 1985, he was sent a warning letter from the FDA, advising him to stop selling an unapproved drug. In 1986, he was ordered by the state of New York to stop recruiting students for his nonaccredited medical school.

(on camera) And in 1996, he was arrested again, this time, smuggling unapproved drugs across this border and income tax evasion.

Yet with all these strikes on his record and no apparent medical certification, people from America continue to flock across this border, seeking his treatment.

(voice-over) We tried to track Kurt Donsbach at his home on the American side of the border and at the hospital's U.S. corporate office. We were told he was unavailable, and then came a phone call. It was from Kurt Donsbach, who says his lawyer doesn't want him to appear on any cameras.

But Donsbach did talk briefly over the phone. He told CNN he no longer owns the clinic, selling it two years ago, he says, to a Mexican doctor. But he says he visits once a week as a consultant to see patients.

He insists he is a doctor, with a license from Mexico. And tells CNN his clinic was getting results in people not happy with the treatment they were getting in regular medicine.

Last week, almost immediately after Mrs. King's death, the Hospital Santa Monica began drawing intense media attention and attention from local authorities.

The Mexican government has shut it down, kicking out the patients, most of them Americans. People like this woman who say the cancer treatment of microwave technology, vitamins and hydrotherapy have cured her and two of her friends.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One had pancreatic cancer, totally cancer free. Another one had colon cancer, totally cancer free with no surgery.

GRIFFITH: Asked if he regrets the ramifications of Mrs. King's visit to Hospital Santa Monica, Donsbach said simply, "I do not question destiny."

Adriana Morones questions everything that was done to her family members here. Her sister, Dulce (ph), came to this hospital on the recommendation of her two cancer-stricken in-laws. All three were being treated here at the same time.

One day after Dulce (ph) died, her sister-in-law was gone. Days later, her mother-in-law died, too. Two cancer victims and a woman trying to lose weight, all dead at the Hospital Santa Monica.

Drew Griffin, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, so is all that healthy eating just a waste of time? Well, new findings question the value of limiting your fat intake. Is it time to break out the bon-bons? We'll have the low-down on low fat diets.

The news keeps coming. We'll keep bringing it to you. More LIVE FROM next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Bird flu in Africa. No one knows how it got there, but there it is. The deadly strain confirmed for the first time.

It turned up in commercially raised chickens in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, with about 130 million people. Three farms have been quarantined and about 50,000 birds destroyed. So far, there's no sign of bird flu in humans.

The World Health Organization says that it's disappointed the virus has spread to a new continent but sees no reason to raise the level of pandemic alert. Sixteen other countries have reported the virus in birds. Seven of those have also had human cases.

One of those countries is China, where the government is reporting a new case of human bird flu infection. A 26-year-old woman is the 11th person to fall ill with the virus in China. Seven of the earlier cases were fatal.

The World Health Organization confirms 165 human cases in all, 88 deaths since 2003.

There's no evidence of an all-out human bird flu pandemic anywhere in the world. But if there is one, the U.S. is not ready. "The New York Times" says only a few of the nation's state and local health departments are prepared, and it's partly a question of money.

Out of the seven-plus billion dollars president Bush is requesting in the bird flu battle, the bulk is for vaccines and anti- viral drugs. Only $350 million would go to the country's 5,000 health departments, which comes to $70,000 per department. That's not much to enforce a quarantine, care for the sick and inoculate the healthy.

New York, Seattle and a few other cities are making progress, but most departments will need at least a year to get up to speed.

So you've been diligent about your diet, spurning burgers, ditching desserts, devouring nutrition labels, deep-sixing deep fried anything. Are you really better off?

A lot of people wonder about what they hear in the results of a huge new study that's out now. The headline, a low-fat diet does nothing -- that's right, nothing -- to lower women's risk of cancer or heart disease.

So what now? Good-bye oat bran, welcome back chili cheese fries? Let's ask medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

Yes, but then we have to talk about all those other things that are bad for us that those cause. So...

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. That's true. That's true.

PHILLIPS: ... we don't come out winning at all.

COHEN: That's true. And this study is very confusing. And it's very easy to come away from it feeling just what Kyra just said: I'm going to go back to eating hamburgers and deep fried food all the time. Why not? The study says it's OK.

Well, in fact, that's not what the study says, and it's very important to take a careful look at it.

What the study found is that these women in the study, when they cut down on all the fat they ate, indeed, they did not see a reduction in risk of heart disease and cancer.

But when they cut down on bad fats, when they made serious cuts in bad fats, they did, indeed, see a truly significant reduction in their risk of heart disease.

So let's take a look at what the difference is between good fats and bad fats. Because we've heard a lot about it, and you're going to hear even more. This is going to become the nutrition message for the future, that it's not just the fat you eat, it's whether it's a good or a bad fat.

That's a good fat. That's olive oil. That's good for your heart. It's a monounsaturated fat. That's fish, Omega 3 fatty acids. Also nuts are another kind of good fat. Those are the kind of good fats that you'll hear doctors talking about that don't hurt your heart. In fact, they help your heart.

However, there are also bad fats. For example, deep fried foods. Those are transfats. Hamburgers, saturated fat. Red meat, again, saturated fat. Experts agree those are bad for your heart. Eating a lot of those are bad for your heart.

So let's go through it again and review what the study found about specific types of fat. Good fats, this study found, weren't a problem for heart disease. Monounsaturated fat, the kind found in olive oil, Omega 3 fatty acids, the kind found in fish.

But it did find when women made serious cuts in bad fats, which are the saturated fat and the transfats, they saw a 17 percent reduction in the risk of heart disease.

Now it's interesting, 17 percent, that's a big reduction. That's definitely worth it. And these women weren't even exercising. So that's just changing their diet, they got a 17 percent reduction in heart disease risk. PHILLIPS: But the -- OK, but then there are foods that we think are good for us, or we go after the low fat stuff like a low fat snack, but that has a lot of sugar many times. Right?

COHEN: Right. A lot of times people say, "OK, I won't have that hamburger. I won't have that big dish of ice cream. Instead, what I'm going to do is have a big bowl of jelly beans or some of those low fat sugar-laden cookies that people really like."

Well, that's not a good idea either. Some of that is OK. But it can really mess with your insulin levels, especially as we age.

So what's important here if that you're going to cut down on the fat, you need to replace it with fruits and vegetables or low-fat protein like chicken or good carbs. So it's what you replace it with. Fruits and vegetables, obviously a terrific choice to replace the fat in your diet.

PHILLIPS: All right. Now everybody in the study over the age of 62, so obviously that makes a difference.

COHEN: Right. It makes a huge difference and that's a really important point. So these women who made major cuts in their bad fat, they found a 17 percent reduction in the risk of heart disease.

Well, that's -- 17 percent is pretty good, especially considering they only started at, say, age 65. Some of them have been eating poorly for decades. They've been eating poorly for a very long time and then just that one change in their 60s made a difference.

Imagine if they started changing their diet when they were 25 instead of 65. So the earlier you make the change, the better.

PHILLIPS: I still want to know what I can snack on.

COHEN: All sorts of things. Yummy things. We'll talk about it later.

PHILLIPS: That will be -- that will be the next segment. All right. Thanks, Elizabeth.

More fire and brimstone over those inflammatory cartoons. But have you been getting the whole picture? LIVE FROM reads between the lines, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Think it's cold where you are? It was 20 below in North Dakota this morning. A high of zero in Maine a few days ago. And don't even ask about Alaska.

But it's too hot in places, too. Expect 90 degrees or higher in southern California today. Is that a fluke or evidence that the world is indeed getting warmer, as the evidence seems to support? Let's get meteorologist Jacqui Jeras on it.

Hey, Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Kyra.

A loaded question there. I'll give you some of the facts, though, that January, for example, record warmth across the United States. In fact, so warm that temperatures were 8 1/2 degrees above the mean, which is very significant.

Now this is a map that shows you from NOAA, the areas across the U.S. that were cooler than normal and warmer than normal. There you can see it across Alaska, into the Pacific Northwest, where the cooler than normal temperatures were. And notice all the red, right here through the central plain states, into the Ohio Valley, across the southern Great Lakes, and even kind of sniffing on up to the northeast. Also warmer than normal across Texas and Oklahoma.

Now, the question is, is this trend going to be continuing? Well, NOAA's released their outlook for the rest of February, and they're expecting things to stay cool across the Pacific Northwest but warming up again across the southwest, into the northern plain states and cooler than average temperatures across the mid-Atlantic and into the southeast.

This is the biggest change, really, between the months of January and February, what we're expecting. So we could see things balance out a little bit.

But we just had an incredible number of records for January. In several cities hitting their all-time record highs for that month, including places like Bismarck, North Dakota, into Kansas City, Missouri, and all the way over to Washington, D.C., including Dulles.

Now on to that cold air that we're looking at right now. While it seems cold, at least comparatively speaking, not all that bad for this time of the year. Sub zero temperatures certainly not out of the question for February.

In Minneapolis, 24 degrees is your current temperature right now. Not even your high yet today. And average high temperatures are still down into the low 20s to upper teens. So even though it's a lot colder than it has been, it's still just a smidge above the average.

Into the southwest, our temperatures staying very warm here still: 73 right now in L.A., 72 degrees in San Diego. And those warm temperatures are being driven by those warm Santa Ana winds that are continuing to blow. We're looking at highs around 82 in L.A., 81 in Phoenix. We had a couple of record highs yesterday, from Red Bluff extending down into Sacramento. And we could see a few record highs across parts of southwest again for today.

High pressure is anchored across parts of the west. That's bringing in the off shore flow, and those winds as they move down the mountains, it compresses the air. It heats them up. It just dries out that vegetation. But that's really what's bringing in the warm temperatures right now. Another factor into this whole thing, Kyra, by the way, too, La Nina. And we talked a little bit about that last week on this program. And typically, during a La Nina year, we see warmer than average temperatures across the southern tier of the country. So we're going to have to wait a couple of months and see how that all plays out.

PHILLIPS: All right, Jacqui, thanks.

Well, could global warming melt polar bears right off the planet? It sounds far fetched, but the White House is reviewing whether polar bears should be added to the threatened species list. Environmentalists believe the sea ice the bears call home is melting so fast they could be extinct by the end of this century.

Moreover Bugs Bunny -- move over, rather, Bugs Bunny and Spongebob. There's a new cartoon character in town. It's called Billionaire Warren Buffett. To tell us why the second richest man is getting animated, Susan Lisovicz joins us live from the New York Stock Exchange.

Susan, he's already a bit animated.

(STOCK REPORT)

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