tv Consider This Al Jazeera October 19, 2014 12:00am-1:01am EDT
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thank you for join us, i'm randall pinkston in new york. "consider this" is next. goodnight. >> ebola anxiety spreading as song demands new action from the cdc. also deep divisions among iraqi groups helping the coalition's fight against i.s.i.l. hello, i'm antonio mora, welcome to "consider this," those stories and much more straight ahead. >> there is a lot of fear of ebola. >> the global response is not kept up with the rate of expansion. >> i understand the people are scared. but what i want to emphasize is not an airborne disease. it is not easy to catch. >> we should not panic. >> i.s.i.l. is not the only
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group in iraq driving people from their homes. some iraqi factions are supported by the united states are accused of carrying out their own ethnic and sectarian cleansing. >> shocking new report. >> reveals stores of chemical weapons. >> report suggests the government secretly prevented soldiers from receiving proper care. >> allison grimes -- >> deceived the people of kentucky. >> i'm not bought and paid for by the koch brothers. >> will you divulge your source? >> never. >> we begin with facing tough questions from congress about the ebola outbreak. >> none of us can understand how a nurse who treated an ebola infected patient and who herself had developed a fever would
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permitted to board a commercial airline and fly across the country. it's no wonder the public's confidence is shaken. >> tom frieden faces calls for his resignation. >> we know how to control ebola. >> but the testimony was less than reassuring as both of the dallas nurses with ebola have been sent to hospitals elsewhere. co-workers clap for nina pham as she left for the nih. but an executive from her dallas hospital told reporters they still don't know how she got ebola. >> we don't know how or when they were infected. >> schools in texas and ohio cancelled classes out of concern that students may have been exposed to ebola. the cdc says thursday all passengers on the planes will be contacted because it's now believed that vinson may have
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had symptoms earlier than previously thought. >> we should be concerned about the appearance of ebola in the u.s. and the transmission to two health care workers. but we should not panic. >> joining us now from capitol hill is congresswoman diana de gette. congresswoman really a legislature to have you with us. you said at the hearing we should be concerned but not panicked about ebola clearly the right advice but let's hear what happened at the hearing. >> you said to chairman upton, we cannot have flight restrictions because of a for owtio isporous border. >> i was referring to the border border of gi
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guinea and west africa. >> there are hundreds of flights a day coming from europe about. >> it is also true that while we have no evidence of transmission from human to dogs, we really don't know if there can being. >> we don't know of any transmission from dogs to humans. >> as you have heard, there was misinformation, alarmism at the hearing itself. this very frightening cover of business week, are you concerned that the hearing may not have had all the effects you wanted it to have? >> i think we got a lot of good information at the hearing about what's going on and where we can go from here. it's important i think for american public to just understand. ebola is very hard to get. it is not like the flu or something elsewhere it can be transmitted through the air. it is only if somebody is in contact with somebody, when they already have the symptoms, and
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if that person contacts their bodily fluids. let's put it into context. we have one fellow, mr. duncan, who came from west africa, to the united states. and then, because of mistakes that were made, primarily frankly by presbyterian hospital in dallas, that several of the health care workers were exposed. now, i think what we need to do is a couple things. the first thing we need to do is continue working in a very aggressive way with our allies around the world to contain this outbreak in west africa. because then, people won't be going to the rest of the world. and the second thing we need to do is, we need to beef up our response here at home so that our emergency room workers and the people in the icus they can identify when peent present and they can take immediate action. if that happens then we can contain this outbreak. >> let's listen to something that thont
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anthony said. >> how long can this last? if you look at the kinetics and the dynamics of the epidemic, it looks very serious. when i say our, i mean the global response has not kept up with the rate of expansion. >> to your point the world is responding. the u.s. is throwing in thousands of military personnel and hundreds of millions of dollars to help. but we heard from the general who was in charge of the efforts in liberia yesterday, that our effort there, our 1700 beds aren't going to be up until almost december and by then there could be 10,000 cases a week. so why hasn't there been a more concerted international effort to stop this where it's started and is most dangerous? >> i think this is a real problem. i can't speculate why the
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response has not been more immediate. i sent a letter to chairman murphy in early september asking for this hearing because i was concerned about this happening. we have had outbreaks before and maybe the world health organization and others didn't take this as seriously as they should have. now the good news is we are taking it seriously as an international community, we are building these clinics and we need to do what we can to contain this in west africa to get it under control and if we don't, it will spread all over the world including the united states. >> the american public, we have been told repeatedly by authorities all the way up to the president that ebola was not likely to come to the u.s., that we were prepared with our robust health care system that health care workers would have ample protection. but now we've seen that most of that is not true. mistakes by the dallas health care authorities and by the cdc.
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are you concerned in a sort of bigger picture way that americans are losing faith in government? >> well, i think that people shouldn't overreact to what happened here. i think it's a serious problem. but it's clear, that presbyterian hospital in dallas made a terrible mistake when mr. duncan presented himself at the emergency room, had a fever and he said he had come from west africa. but they sent him home. but now you know, we're improving. now, believe you me, every emergency room in this country including the one at denver health in my district and around the country they have their eyes open if people come in. and in addition the cdc and the state health departments are beefing up their requirements. so i think we're acting appropriately to try respond to this. but there's no excuse for these mistakes that were made. >> and do you think it will be a
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wake up call, because while ebola is serious it's not a major national health crisis. but it certainly seems to pri bring into question just how prepared the country is to deal with a major threat. >> i've been on this committee that did the investigation today for some number of years. and we've had investigations into the avian flu, h 1 n 1, sars and other ep epidemics and far more admissible than this one. mistakes were made, but americans shouldn't think they are going to get ebola because the protocols are continuing to be increased and we need to remember that ebola is not transmitted through the air or anything else. that's very hard to get. >> that's an important point we've made oftentimes here. i'd like to ask you another question on a governmental level.
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tim murphy says he's concerned we aren't restricting the travel from west africa, and self failure. this is how you responded. >> we don't want to take steps that would endanger americans by interfering with efforts to halt the outbreak in africa. there is no such thing as fortress america when it comes to infectious diseases. >> to your point, 60% of voters favor the idea of restricting travel from west africa. because of other african countries have closed their borders to liberia, sierra leone and guinea, shouldn't we take more aggressive action about who is coming here from there? >> well, dr. frieden from the cdc certainly said it was a situation they would consider. but let's remember, people are traveling all around the world. this is a chart that we put into
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the record today, and it shows people go from west africa, they go to europe. they go to south america and australia, and everywhere around the world. and so if we don't contain ebola within west africa, even if we say we're closing our borders to people from those countries, still ebola will come here. >> congresswoman diana degette, pleasure to have you with us. >> thanks. >> fears coalition air strikes this week helped swing the momentum back to the ethnic kurds. but in iraq i.s.i.l. continues to gain ground near baghdad and while u.s. strategy in iraq requires unity among shia, sunni and kurd, a new film iraq divided shows the kurdish cleansing.
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>> do you think families should return? >> for more i'm joined from washington, d.c. by fault lines host josh rushing. josh good to see you, powerful reporting in your film which shows you in some cases on the front line, in one case walking with kurdish fighters, with i.s.i.l.'s black flag flying and booby traps on the ground. it must have been frightening. what struck me most was the scope of the violence and hatred that you found. has that surprised you at all? >> i've reported from iraq for ten years, seen that many, many times, found the same attitudes towards one another every time i've gone. the idea that there might be a unity government, let's say you have an open vote in the country
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and someone is going to take a ballot as a shia and say, i like that sunni politician, or that kurdish politician, that's just completely foreign. biden came up with the idea, the shia, sunni and kurds, there were millions of shia living in the sunni areas and vice versa but now unfortunately you can't, years of ethnic cleansing and killing each other and pushing each other out the lines are becoming much more clear in iraq. >> let's go down the line, some of the things you found. from the u.s. perspective any fighters willing to battle i.s.i.l. would seem to be the good guys in the conflict especially the kurds but again in the clip we just saw, these are kurds supporting in effect
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as you said ethnic cleansing. >> well, what the u.s. has seen is crisis. every other group on the ground has seen as crisis, and opportunity, the peshmerga, we went along the line, we saw pkk fighters, listed as terrorist by the u.s., shelling with artillery an iraqi town. we saw peshmerga, small groups of iraqi armies, that you would think u.s. would never support. all those groups were on what you might call this side of the front line, the u.s. might be reported as the good guys. but these are guys that the u.s. are not normally allied. but if you take a group like the peshmerga that the u.s. is normally allied with, they are certainly pursuing their own ends here. and as the u.s. gets involved it is helping them achieve their own end. for the kurds it is gaining more
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ground, more territory and particularly territory that includes oil. in fact just today it was in the iraqi press that the kurds are pumping out oil from kirkuk. so as the u.s. gets involved in this i think it needs to look at this as far more complicated, good guys against bad guys. every time the u.s. bombs it's well. >> in fact you've got sunnis in your film running from shia militias. shia militias technically fighting on our sides and sunni says i.s.i.l, prefer them to sunni militia. many were stuck on mount sinjar that you mentioned, you spoke to a bunch of people including a 63-year-old father who seemed as afraid of their neighbors as the terrorist.
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shias, do you see as joe biden suggested, you'll have a sunni land and a shia land? >> some would support that idea it would seem to me the only people that i spoke to that didn't support that idea were u.s. politicians, u.s. executive branch has a one iraq policy, all the minority groups from the kurds, the yazidis, the christians, the sunnies, supported break up and having their own semi-autonomous states. >> i wanted to be in on the big >> many of these involved
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his tentative steps have focused on the economy. >> american economic greatness has never triblg trickled down from the top. you've got two stark differences for this country. i'm not on the ballot for this fall, make no mistake, these policies are on the ballot, every single one of them. >> the democratic party has faced head winds, as president obama's approval ratings have bottomed out to the lowest of his presidency. while he's not on the ballot he's an enormous presence on the campaign trail. >> obama is a zero. obama is going to go down as one of the worst presidents. >> i would give president obama a 6 to 7. >> backs barack obama's failed economic policies. those policies are on the ballot, according to barack obama, every single one of them. >> joining us is
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christine todd whitman. the author of the new york times best seller, "it's my party too," and currently the co-chair of the republican leadership council and president of the whitman strategy group, a management consulting and strategic planning group here in new york city. >> good to be with you. >> as you said before the segment started it's really troubling times in the country, but president obama talks and almost immediately the stock market goes on a roller coaster. and we have i.s.i.l. in the middle east and ebola in west africa. how much of this is his fault? >> you can't blame him for all of this. there's enough blame to share. we've got to stop placing blame. let's talk about solutions and
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how are we going to solve some of these things? there are concrete things we can do and should do to help contain ebola. this isn't a partisan issue. when the economy tanks, it hurried everybody. urts everybody. we're starting to come back it's slow, not what we want, what can we do to make it better. how do we really deal with i.s.i.s. and i.s.i.l, do we do it from the air from bombing or do we want to do it? this is a perfect time to have a substantive discussion and partisanship is overriding everything. >> i want to get to partisanship in a moment. but this abc news post poll, lowest approval ratings of the president's two terms, down at 40% approval, the democrats themselves as i said their approval rating is 39%. that is the worst it's been
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since the 1980s. so it's certainly not a picture that is very positive for them. and when presidents have had this kind of approval rating at this point in their presidencies there have been wave mid term elections for the other party. do you see that happening? >> congress ratings are so bad most people are saying a pox on your house. while the president is clearly a factor in the races, i don't believe he's going to be an overriding factor. tip o'neil says all politics is local. races based on a candidate's misstep or something that comes out, the october surprise, last minute surprise, anything can happen. it certainly looks better than for the republicans than it did just a little while ago, a few weeks ago, but i wouldn't necessarily bet on the outcome at this point.
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>> to your point, the president's ratings are the worst they've been -- >> the less are -- the lesser of evils, that's not good for people. >> the president being a presence on the campaign trail, we also saw what happened in kentucky where the democratic campaign committee has pulled out money to support the woman who was really their best hope to unseat a republican incumbent in the senate. >> she could have made some of her own mistakes, it wasn't the president to influence that. >> it was the mistakes about the president, her being not willing to admit twice whether they voted for him or not. >> and then she talked about illegal immigrants as wet backs. so she's made some of her own -- >> made some mistakes. you were a politician, how can
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it be that a candidate makes mistakes and then doubles down a day later? >> it should be private your vote and if you don't want to say, you shouldn't have to say. this is a litmus test, you have to tell me who you voted for, it is the privacy of the ballot box and i don't have to tell you. >> 76% of people are worried about the economy, how big an issue is that going to be for people who are going to vote? >> at the end of the day, it is the economy stupid. it is the people's fear am i going to be able to continue working stay in my home pay my rent have health care. all those things are preying on people's minds. the instablght in the world and the -- the instability in the world and the lack of confidence that people have, congress's ability to deal with these, not just the president's but everybody, that's troubling when
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people don't have hope. >> partisanship, the question is whether the republicans have an answer as opposed to just being negative to everything the president proposes. there was a article in the daily baste, the argument that the piece makes, the democrats who are likely to lose the elections are mostly moderate narts senators and the republicans who are most likely to win are conservative. >> that was already happening. >> you think things are getting worse? >> that's already happening and my only hope is they are going to decide we've got to do something for the country. we elect them not to represent their parties but to represent us. and we elect them to solve problems and right now the problems are getting to the
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point where you cannot ignore them, you've got to start taking steps. things like ebola, there are positive and proactive steps we can take to contain this, both in africa and in the united states. and we need to do it all. we can't just say we're not going to -- we're going to draw up the draw bridges and the borders and close everything down. that's not the way the world works. it's going to be up to us the voters to let our elected representatives know that we care about this. >> i think the message has been made and let's hope it's listened to. christine todd whitman thank you for talking to us. >> it was good to talk to you. >> the seat erase, surrounding saddam hussein's chemical weapons. never found in iraq between 2004 and 2011, american troops recovered some 5,000 iraqi
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chemical war heads, shells and bombs. at least 17 american service members were exposed to must tar agents or serin gas. -- mustard agents or serin gas. i'm joined by joe cirincione, a member of the council on foreign relations. his latest book is nuclear nightmares, securing the world before it is too late. joe very good to have you with us. president bush went to war with saddam hussein in part because of weapons of mass destruction. 5,000 chemical weapons and bombs were all at least a decade old but does that support in any way bush administration claims that saddam hussein was still sitting on and could have used some of the world's deadliest weapons? >> oh no, those claims were disproved and the government
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reported that when they finally finished their inventory of iraq. there were no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, there were no plans to start their programs, we went into iraq looking for wmd but is this story in the new york times describes, when the troops actually found these old shells, weapons from pre-1991, they weren't equipped to destroy them. they weren't equipped to handle them and in fact, the government denied that these weapons were ever found . >> and the thing is that that official secrecy, former major general jarrod lampier said,
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chemical weapons in iraq, there were plenty. as i said, they were found repeatedly from 2004 to 2011. even though the claims didn't come close to substantiating, why the secrecy? >> this is so perplexing, this is a command failure starting at the highest levels. this is really something we should be asking former secretary of defense robert gates about, whose tenure covers almost exactly this period, 2004 to 2011. it appears that officials were embarrassed by the discovery. that these were old shells. that they were often u.s -- there was u.s. equipment involved in the manufacturing of these shells. but it's really hard to explain. if they had just told the truth, if they had just been transparent about this, then maybe the troops would have been prepared for the discovery of these shells, which continued
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during all this time and they would have gotten the treatment that they deserved. these claims that we take care of our troops first and foremost is just not true particularly in this instance. >> i want to talk about that in a minute but one final question about this couldn't they have argued though that it was proof that saddam's people had if know-how and could quickly ramp up production, that even if they were embarrassed that their biggest claims were not true, that at least saddam posed a serious threat? >> the report acknowledges that there were hundreds of shells found, we know now from the new york times that there were around 5,000, it doesn't help you understand it. there was apparently some level of embarrassment, some level of not wanting to expose president bush to further criticism. these are the questions we should be asking the commanders at the time and secretary gates.
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>> it's very upsetting to hear about the soldiers who were in contact with these chemical weapons and how they were treated when they reported their symptoms. james burns was exposed to serin serin gas, and here is what andrew goldman who was exposed to mustard gas had to say. >> i still have a lot of trouble breathing, have a constant headache. i've not had , not had a headache since 2008. sometimes it's worse, sometimes it's better. >> some soldiers were denied receiving the purpos purple heat because they were not injured in combat.
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>> they were initially awarded the purple hard then days later it was taken away from them. this is inexcusable. we all remember the early days of the war where we saw well protected suited soldiers in chemical gear. but these soldiers that found these shells didn't have any of that gear and in many of the situations were picking up the shells with their bare >> every step in life from the very beginning is the journey of exploration... of rebellion... belief... liberation... and the great unknown of courage... of ambition... of passion... and infinite discovery the 10th al jazeera international documentary festival from 23 - 26 of october
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>> politicians may come and go but 13 years after 9/11 the war on terror goes on. with hidden cost we have yet to tally. from veterans suffering from ptsd, osama bin laden is gone. but the national conference created to beat al qaeda has a life of its own. billions spent on a so far endless war. i'm joined by pulitzer prize winning author. bush and obama administrations, various spean subpoenas he has fought. james, good to have you. the title comes from john f. kennedy's speech, life and
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liberty, the war an terror we have paid a very high price. you list various stories of corruption and craziness. >> i would say crazy, we've poured hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars into it with very little thought, little oversight and enormous unintended consequences. >> has there not been this kind of corruption and waste and problems in other wars in american history? >> yeah, sure, there's always been war time corruption and war time gambling and husband lers wh hustlers whowanted to take advae situation. but those were finite periods. wars would start and then end. now we have an endless time with
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virtually no end in sight. there is yet another terrorist group we have got to fight. even after osama bin laden was killed and we thought al qaeda was dead now suddenly there's a new threat that everybody is getting all hyped up about. >> among the many stories you have in this book that are really shocking, one involves a las vegas hustler named dennis montgomery, this is a guy who decided he somehow had this ability to be able to find hidden al qaeda messages and videos, that al qaeda put out some airing on al jazeera, messages even in al jazeera's logo, some of this sounded crazy on its face, and the united states gave him money until they found out all he was was a hustler. >> he came to believe they could
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read al qaeda-coded messages, believe it or not the cia took this so seriously that they actually grounded planes in urine and mexico bound for the united states based on information in which they thought they had uncovered al jazeera -- al qaeda codes buried in the al jazeera -- >> and it was utter nonsense. >> there is absolutely no evidence any of this was ever true and it's very difficult to believe that the cia and the bush administration took it as seriously as they did. >> now something that was very serious, i know it was a very big story, you've described it as the most important story of your life which was about another of the reactions that happened to 9/11 which was that the nsa in particular was conducting warrantless surveillance of american citizens. that was a tremendous battle for you to get that even printed. >> right, right. it took about a year to get it in print.
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>> and the new york times only ended up printing it once you were going to come up with a >> yes. >> in the end looking back was that warrantless surveillance, to put it, simply unwarranted because people were really worried about a threat and diserdl deservedly so after 9/11. >> they turned the national security agency which was designed to spy overseas, to eavesdrop on electronic communications overseas of foreigners and they turned it against americans. and when they did that after 9/11 in secret with the bush administration, one of the people i profile in the new book is a woman named diane roarke, who is a house intelligence committee staffer who was one of the first people to find out what was happening and find out that this was going on and she tried to stay within the system to try to stop it. and i talk in the book about how
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she went to all the people in the government who she knew who she thought she could stop this, and she never went to the press. she never tried leak. and yet she was persecuted. her house was raided by the fbi. because they thought that she might have gone to the press. >> and in the end would it have been that hard? if they needed to conduct that surveillance to get those warrants? >> there was a secret court set up 30 years ago to do just that. to allow them to get court-ordered warrants to allow them to respond. >> and in the aftermath of 9/11 i would imagine a court like that would be very generous in giving search warrants. >> right. >> why did that happen? >> i think the bush administration at the time wanted greater power. it was a matter of increasing executive power in the wake of 9/11 and using 9/11 as kind of justification to develop a whole new counterterrorism infrastructure within the u.s. government. >> now i know you thought that
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things would get better under powm because he had promised -- president obama because he had promised more transparency. >> i think the facts speak for themselves. you look at how many prosecutions of whistle blowers and how many attacks and targeting of journalists that have been done by the obama administration, it's more than the previous pt presidents in history combined. it set a precedent, the u.s. used to be a model of press freedom. and now we've got al jazeera journalists imprisoned in egypt. that leads these dictators around the world saying, if the americans do it why can't i. >> you still face subpoena to reveal one of your sources in an ongoing case so you technically
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face the threat of having to go to jail, despite the fact that attorney general acre holder and president obama have both made noises that they don't think you should go. i want to play something that was on 60 minutes on sunday from the man who was the head of the nsa when you were writing about it. michael hayden. >> you're talking about ruining lives over things about which people are acting on principle. so i would be very carefully about it. >> i don't see the necessity to pursue, jim. >> when you hear the nsa say, the government shouldn't be going after you? >> i'm surprised, i was pleasantly surprised, i'm glad he has come around to that view. >> do you still think you're going to get a subpoena? >> it's hard to tell. there was a hearing in the case, it's still in the works i'm not quite sure what the government's next move is going to be. >> all right so this has been hanging over you for years.
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approach birth control for adolescent girls. to discuss a broad range of contraceptive options with sexually active teens. including intrauterine devices instead of more popular forms of birth control. joining us now from seattle to discuss the issues this all raises is dr. gina sacato who co-wrote the recommendation. thank you for being with us. using iuds or hormonal systems that are more effective than >> correct. it is the effectiveness of these methods compared to the other hormonal methods that teens were
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using and have been using in the past. >> and in fact a study published in the new england journal of medicine looked at sexually active girls 14 to 19, in st. louis, they were counseled on that broad range of options and 72% chose iuds and implants. so there were really significant benefits on a number of different levels. >> that's correct. there was a dramatic decrease in pregnancies, births and abortions among adolescents, such as an intrauterine device or a hormonal implant. and it's those type of results that has really driven the american academy of peed rat tricks to recommend these methods of
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birth -- pediatrics to recommend these methods of birth control. >> that drop in abortions should please everyone especially conservatives but the push back from groups such as the american academy of pediatrics, the new york times quotes the president of that group as saying this ignores the dire consequence is that early sexual activity can have for young people. how do you respond to that? >> i think those of us who work with adolescents know that the decision that adolescents make to become sexually active is not dependent upon whether or not they have a birth control method in place. and in fact, we know from the data that adolescents are often sexually active for several months before using any method of birth control at l all. the american academy obviously
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supports abstinence as a absolutely safe and foolproof method of avoiding pregnancy. but half are sexually active and for those patients our first priority is keeping them safe from unintended pregnancy. >> the recommendation though is still to use condoms because an iud or an implant won't prevent stds. any concerns that teens might be less inclined to use condoms if they have this kind of long lasting birth control? >> it's an excellent question. and one that researchers in the adolescent community have certainly started to ask. there's no reason to think that adolescents are less likely to use condoms with an iud than they already are to use condoms when they are using tepo-privera or birth control pills or rings.
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what i have found in my clinical work with adolescents, they understand the distinction between pregnancy prevention and sexually transmitted disease prevention, they are more concerned to use one when they have something planted in the uterus. >> the dalcon shield was pulled off the market because it caused serious pelvic infection, sterility and death, then the copper was pulled off the shelves. there is no concern about the iuds? >> you speak specifically about the dalcon shield that had a
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unique string that transported microorganisms from the vagina to the uterus. greater numbers than they have been in the u.s. for years, decades now. and the largest group using iuds in this country for many years after they fell out of favor was female ob-gyn doctors. to answer your question, yes, the iuds that are currently available do not carry the same risk that they did in the 1970s. >> doctor, thank you. we'll be back with more of
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>> curl up ing up with an e-reader might be smart for adults but is it smart to read to a child from a tablet? less beneficial than using a less traditional book in terms of both reading comprehension and language skills. and this supposed the benefits by interactive story apps. as technology advances should we try to keep story time old fashioned? joining me is
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julia parrish morris. author of story time, in the electronic era. good to have you with us. the american academy of pediatrics have encouraged parents to read to their children. why isn't reading reading, no matter what the source? >> the study you referred to that we published last year, found that when you're reading with a child, the extent that you have a rich verbal, social interaction and a conversation around the story and engage in what we call dialogical dialogic reading, the pages of the book, relating of the story, that kind of rich social interaction and rich verbal interaction is what
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supports reading comprehension, preliteracy skills, the kinds of things that we all hope to instill in our children. but in the case of an electronic book when children wanted to touch the pictures, they wanted to hear the sound effects, that interaction was derailed. parents and children talked more about paver, don't touch that or wait until it finishes reading the story and there wasn't as much opportunity to talk about the story and relate it to the child's life in meaningful ways, with both had an effect on language richness but on parent child interaction and story comprehension. >> it's an issue on both sides then, where parents aren't engaging kids in that back and for forth, but that the child is more distracting by the electronic -- by the tablet than he or she would be by a book? >> correct. correct. and this -- i don't think that
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electronic books are going to disappear from children's lives or that screen media is going to disappear from children's lives but i do think that we have a ways to go in terms of designing them in a way that facilitates the kinds of parent-child interaction and the kind of verbal and social interaction in a way that we know is most beneficial to a child's learning. it would be wonderful if we could focus as a country on designing the kinds of apps and story books that do support these kinds of interactions. >> but that's part of the issue. that these really aren't in many cases just a standard e-book like you and i might read. they're apps and they come with all sorts of bells and whistles that additionally distract children. they have audio, and video clips and puzzles and mini games as you are going through the book. >> correct. they sort of blur the line
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between a toy and a game and obook. so it's -- and a book. so it's tricky because in some ways you don't want parents to think, oh i'll give that to my child and that will satisfy the reading suggest that the aaap makes for the day. because they are not at this point getting the same kind of social interaction that they are in a traditional reading context and part of it is because you know it's more attractive to a child to have game features and sound effects and all of that. but really if what you're looking to do is establish preliteracy skills then the state-of-the-art right now is reading a traditional book. it doesn't mean you should never show your child e-books and never read them with your child. in fact if you can read them with your child and enjoy the experience and talk about what the two of you are experiencing together, the point is that no matter what context you're in,
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if you can interact with your child -- >> it's a good thing. >> -- in a positive and verbal thing it's going to be good. >> right. also the american academy of pediatrics, a different recommendation which is that children under 2 not get any screen time and only two hours per day for children over two. so when you're looking at these e-books that are targeted towards children, these apps that have all these things going on do you see this more as the screen time that the american academy of pediatrics is against or months as reading. >> well, currently, with the state of things i see it as screen time. and that's what our research has suggested. we -- now as a caveat, we only study children age 3 and age 5. so we actually did not study e-books in really, really tiny children, in early early toddlers.
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i'm 100% behind the aap's recommendation. there's no evidence to suggest that showing screens to children under age 2, zero evidence for it, if you could see a really clear benefit and the research just hadn't caught up yet maybe that would be something but not sure we're seeing an added benefit. we know it works for young infants. we know that social interaction is the way to go and we don't get the same kind -- it's the same question we had about television 20 years ago, 30 years ago. the research is pretty clear. kids don't learn from tvs as well as they learn from people and they're not learning from e-books in the same way our research anyway, three-year-olds are not learning the same way as they learn from traditional books. >> it mutt b must be a fascinate for you. julia parrish morris, thanks. the conversation continues on
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@ajconsiderthis, you can two years of community college, versus four years at a residential programme when the diploma looks the same. it's forcing tough choices on families that would be happy to reward hard-working high schoolers. >> i got the red folder. it was crazy, i was crying. mum said "what happened?" i told her the news. >> the talking are of two
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