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Muzzling Mumps; Conversation with Michael Chertoff on FEMA

Aired April 27, 2006 - 13:30   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Iowa takes a shot at stopping an epidemic, and college-aged kids are the target audience. Mass vaccinations are under way at college campuses across the Hawkeye State. Iowa is at the center of America's worst mumps outbreaks in 20 years, with more than 1,000 reported cases. Mumps spreads easily in the college environment. Plus, people that age may have gotten only one MMR shot -- that's measles, mumps, rubella -- when they were growing up. Nowadays, children usually get two MMR shots. The free clinics run through Friday. More are planned next month.
Maybe you've never had the mumps, or maybe you had it so long ago you've forgotten what it's like.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta offers a quick lesson in how to spot it and how to avoid it in a report first seen on AMERICAN MORNING.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The CDC has rushed 25,000 doses of the mumps vaccine into the Midwest to try to control the largest mumps outbreak in the U.S. in more than 20 years.

DR. JULIE GERBERDING, CDC DIRECTOR: We have more than a thousand cases reported from eight states, and we also have additional cases undergoing investigation in seven more states.

GUPTA: Mumps used to be as common in kids as chicken pox is today, but thanks to a vaccine developed in the '60s, the disease really has gone the way of black and white TV. Now there are only a few hundred cases in the U.S. each year, and the last major outbreak in the U.S. was in the late 1950s.

But a recent outbreak in Great Britain just last year left about 60,000 people infected. That same strain of the disease has been found in mumps patients in Iowa.

The vaccine is about 80 percent effective with just one dose. The recommended second dose increases a person's immunity to 90 percent. But many college students never got that second dose, and officials say they believe that's exactly where the outbreak began, in a college dorm.

DR. PATRICIA QUINLISK, IOWA STATE EPIDEMIOLOGIST: We certain know college campuses, because of the close living quarters, the fact that they spend a lot of hours a day in the cafeteria or in classes together, and also their social behavior -- obviously there can be sharing of saliva with beer glasses and things like that -- they have a high risk of transmitting a disease like mumps.

GUPTA: The symptoms of mumps are usually flu-like. And because most doctors haven't seen a case of the disease in many years, it can be easy to misdiagnose at first.

QUINLISK: Initially, you might just have fever, headache, not feel very well, but most people will go on to developing the parotid gland swelling or the swelling of the salivary glands under the jaw. And they sort of get that classic chipmunk look.

GUPTA: The disease is also spread much like the flu.

QUINLISK: By somebody coughing and sneezing on another person. So you have to be relatively close for that. Or through saliva, kissing, sharing a glass, something of that sort.

GUPTA: And although mumps is really fatal, it can cause miscarriages in early pregnancy and other lasting effects such as deafness or sterility. So experts recommend taking precautions like you would with the flu.

Don't share food or drinks, and wash your hands regularly. Also, make sure you've had both doses of the vaccine. If you've already had the mumps, experts say it's unlikely you'll get it again.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And start your morning off right by joining Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien on "AMERICAN MORNING" at 6:00 a.m. Eastern every weekday.

The next star of reality TV isn't a real life person at all, it's on four wheels.

The news keeps coming, and we'll keep bringing to you, on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: At Virginia's George Mason University, a conversation with Michael Chertoff, the U.S. homeland security chief. Let's listen in.

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: ... full-scale national operation center. We agree with that. We're in process of building that capability now, even as we speak. So I think there's a lot of positive in this. I don't know that renaming is particularly a solution here...

FRANK SESNO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So you don't want to do away with FEMA as FEMA is called?

CHERTOFF: I think what we want to do is enhance FEMA, bring it into the 21st century. SESNO: One of the things they're saying, though, is that FEMA is so discredited that calling it FEMA and having it operate as FEMA -- for example, one of the things they want to do is put back together again two things you have taken out, which is preparedness and response. Put those back together under FEMA, rename it and relaunch it.

CHERTOFF: Well, here's my view on the naming issue. And, of course, I don't -- I'm not someone who believes that branding is a big part of what we ought to be doing. I'm interested in the substance, not the form. But when the department was originally created, actually FEMA was abolished. And FEMA did not exist and still does not technically exist as a name on the books. That was the original conception.

It was after a year of back and forth in the department, which is before my time, that the then Secretary Tom Ridge allowed them to take the FEMA name back. So, in a funny way, the suggestion here is actually to go back to the original naming.

SESNO: What about what Susan Collins says, that whatever you call this organization, it's discredited, demoralized and dysfunctional?

CHERTOFF: Well, first I want to say -- the one thing I would not want to see happen is for people to believe that the actual individuals who work at FEMA are somehow discredited. The fact of the matter is that there were tools that were not in place that our FEMA employees needed. But it is not a failure, for the most part, of the actual people who worked at FEMA.

SESNO: She says that the American people have completely lost faith in this.

CHERTOFF: You know, as I said, I mean, I think if you look at the fine work that was done, for example, by people who got up in helicopters and flew around -- and it was mostly Coast Guard, but we had some FEMA people up there. When you look at the long nights that were pulled day after day by people who were in the field at the Superdome and other critical sites, I think it's -- we have to be fair in admitting that the individual effort made by a lot of these FEMA employees was really above and beyond the call of duty.

SESNO: There's no question about that, but we also have to be fair in acknowledging what the American people see and saw, and now think.

CHERTOFF: Well, clearly, we have a circumstance now where the name FEMA has made its way into Jay Leno or David Letterman. And if, at the end of the day, slapping a fresh coat of paint on makes people feel we've, you know, done something different, I don't know that I'm going to march up San Juan Hill to fight that. But I think the substance is the important thing. And the important substance we've done is use the kind of 21st century tools that are available to start rebuilding and enhancing the organization that we have. SESNO: One of the most important things in the proposal that they made is to have the head of this new created organization, whatever it's named, not just report to the secretary of Homeland Security, but in a crisis report directly to the president, as well. Not unlike the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the way the Joint Chiefs operate. What do you think about that?

CHERTOFF: Well, of course, we all know, but it bears being reemphasized, the president is also in charge. I mean, we operate in a unitary executive, which means, at the end of the day, everybody works for the president...

SESNO: Yes, but I can't get him on the phone.

CHERTOFF: Well, the president gets to have on the phone whoever the president wants to have in the government. And, of course, my philosophy has been, in dealing with issues, particularly in this particular subject matter, to rely heavily upon and to encourage expression of the views of the very experienced emergency managers we have. So, again, I'm interested, here, you know, a month before hurricane season, not in engaging in moving the boxes around on the org chart. I'm interested in making sure we've got the planning finished, we've got the supplies prepositioned, we've got the tools built, and we've got the people ready to go.

SESNO: But just to be clear -- and I'd want to talk about your preparedness for this pending hurricane season, because I think everyone's biting their nails about that -- but to double back on this notion of to whom does the director of this organization report. Would it empower whoever's in charge of the disaster agency to be -- to have a formal phone line, hotline, relationship with the president of the United States at a moment of disaster and crisis?

CHERTOFF: I -- no. Listen, I think, frankly, the president has to have the ability to hear from anybody with expertise. But I think at the end of the day, you have to have a chain of command. That's what they have at the Department of Defense. That's what we need to make sure we have here. We need to have a chain of command in which the secretary, who has the ultimate responsibility, knows that his directions will be followed and that everybody's going to play through that chain of command.

SESNO: You think it's passed...

CHERTOFF: One of the main criticisms, one of the startling criticisms and one of the most unfortunate criticisms, to come out of this report is the insubordination by the then head of FEMA. And the lesson there is when the then head of FEMA decided to go outside the chain of command and operate like the lone ranger and try to call into the White House, what he did is he deprived himself of all of the tools of the department. It was only when we brought Admiral Allen in, who understood the chain of command and who followed the chain of command, that we were able to bring all of our forces to bear, and then the situation got a lot better.

So you know, I think that -- obviously, we -- I want to make sure and I have made sure the president gets the full range of advice that he needs, but I also want to make sure that I have the principle responsibility, as the principal federal officer under our natural response plan, I'm held accountable. I want to make sure, as a consequence, that I have full command and control over my department.

SESNO: Your recommendation, then, is this person continues to report to you or the secretary?

CHERTOFF: My recommendation is that we operate within the existing chain of command, that we would make available...

WHITFIELD: You're listening to a conversation with Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, taking place at George Mason university there in Virginia. Moderating and asking those questions is a veteran journalist, a CNN special correspondent and also a university professor there at George Mason. They're talking primarily about FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and how it, right now, operates. And responding to questions and criticism over whether that agency as a whole should be dismantled, whether it should be absorbed into some other agency or stand alone.

And Michael Chertoff was saying on FEMA that he says he is more interested in substance, not form. So changing the name or branding is something he's not necessarily interested in. He does agree that FEMA has had some problems, obviously, post-Katrina. But responding to critics who have said that it is discredited, he says not the employees, but certainly there were tools available at FEMA that were not properly used post-Katrina.

Of course, you can continue to watch this conversation at George Mason University with Michael Chertoff on CNN.com/pipeline.

And, of course, we'll have a conversation with the moderator and the veteran journalist that I just talked about, Frank Sesno, also coming up within the next hour and a half.

Meantime, there's a reality TV show for just about everything -- singing, dancing, ice skating, cooking. So why not designing cars?

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: More now on this morning's airport shooting in Cleveland. CNN has confirmed the man shot by police inside Hopkins International Airport has died. Police were trying to end the disturbance at an airline ticket counter when the offender somehow got one of officer's guns and shot him at least twice. Another officer then shot the man who died at a hospital. The wounded policeman is in stable condition right now.

CNN meteorologist Bonnie Schneider is keeping a close watch on your weather out there. Hello, Bonnie.

(WEATHER REPORT) WHITFIELD: All right. Thank you so much, Bonnie. Well, the news keeps coming. We'll keep bringing it to you. More of LIVE FROM at the top of the hour. We'll be right back.

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