green at the apollo theater at a fundraiser. he is there, reverend al green, and if original he could sing one more bar. >> it's wondeul talking to mtv. i appreciate it. >> thank you, gary. >> i appreciate what you're telling us, and we'll keep an eye out this week and have you back next week. >> i think you're wearing sneakers, by the way, gary. i'm guessing. i don't know. >> you know i'm going to keep it secret. maybe shorts too. >> all right. all right. more top stories at the top of the hour when cnn sunday morning continues, but, first, broken dreams. sanjay gupta md up next. good morning, everybody, and thanks for joining us. i'm on assignment in los angeles. got a lot of ground to cover this morning. what the presidential candidates are promising for your health care. we'll talk about that. also, my investigation on toxic schools. could they be making your students sick? first, a story that i have been looking at for noern a year now. there's growing evidence that

repeated blows to the head, the kind that you get on a football field can have lasting reprecussions. especially for young people. some states are writing new laws. in fact, one just took effect this month here in california. any player on a high school or middle school team who gets a concussion must be cleared by a trainer or doctor before going back on the field. even then, though, the risk is hard to gauge. you can't really see damage to the brain unless you actually look inside. of course, by then it's too late. >> reporter: football is a violent game, full of big hits. what are all those collisions doing to the brain inside those helmets? i met with kevin, a research esh from the university of north carolina. he can actually measure the intensity of those hits. >> so i'm going to give a moderate hit and see what happens. >> so it's recorded up here at

23.6 g's of acceleration. >> he recently won a mcarthur genius grant for his work on concussions in football. >> he is going to with stand an impact. 157 g's. >> wow. >> that's similar to a car accident. >> right. >> it becomes how many of those big impacts and the softer ones can a player with stand over a season or a career until there's cumulative damage. >> on average high school players sustain more than 650 blows to the head every season. >> go. good. >> that worries kevin because their brains aren't as developed as adults. the tissue of that brain is still very elastic. in fact, you can think of a brain like an egg yolk and the fluid around it being the whites. >> it's about that yolk moving within the shell or the skull in this case. >> a helmet really is not designed to do that to the level that will prevent concussion.

>> he also sits on the nfl health and safety committee. >> are you sort of looking for -- >> reporter: today he is showing me around the matthew b. feller sports spectacular. it's a hands-on clinic devoted to teaching parents, players, and coaches how to prevent head injuries. the event is named after this 15-year-old winston-salem high school sophomore. >> i mean, he was an eagle scout. he was an actor. >> reporter: his biggest passion was football. >> we go to see notre dame play army, i think it was, and we're right by the tunnel, and he looks at me and says, dad, are you going to see me run out of the tunnel? >> reporter: friday night, august 22nd, 2008, it was matthew's first varsity game for the r.j. reynolds demons with just minutes left in the fourth quarter matthew was hit. he doesn't get up. >> he couldn't breathe. he was struggling to breathe.

his pupils were totally dilated. no reaction. no movement. >> he died early sunday morning. you come back to your house without your child. it's just -- >> just unbelievable. >> i'm going to ask that when you leave this field today that you never again use the word ding or bell ringer. you mean a brain injury. >> reporter: they have since found meaning in their son's death by partnering with kevin. their message? you can make football safer. >> so what we're troog to show here is if are you watching the defensive player, is keeping the head up, and leading with that initial movement. his arms forward. >> your arms go forward. >> arms go forward. >> for the gafellars, it's so much more than a legacy. >> for me when i see all these boys learning and all the

coaches learning, i think people are going to be safer this season. there are going to be children that are not going to be at the hospital because of this event. that gives us a lot of satisfaction. >> can you see much more about this in my documentary next weekend. it's about a team that we followed in north carolina looking to turn tragedy into triumph. can you play a safer game and still win? big hits, broken dreams, sunday, january 29th, right here on cnn. the presidential race all the attention is on south carolina and the republicans. at last week i looked at mitt romney's hankdzing of health care as massachusetts's governor. today two of his rivals, newt beginning research has been blasting so-called romney care. he calls it big government, high cost bureaucratic. he hasn't always felt that way. in fact, back in 2006 gingrich called it exciting and said, "the health bill that governor romney signed into law this

month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the american health system." on the controversial question, should everyone be required to have insurance, beginning research says he has changed his mind. in fact, listen to what gingrich had to say about mandate specifically on nbc's "meet the press." >> i have said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond or in some way you indicate you're not going to be held accountable. >> that is the initial mandate, isn't it? >> it's a variation on it. >> one thing gingrich and romney have in common is they both want repeal of obama-care and start over. this week gingrich posted details of his plan on his website. some highlights of it. more high risk pools to cover people who are too sick to find insurance. also, change medicaid into a grant program. mostly run by states. give americans generous tax credits to purchase their own health coverage. now on to congressman ron paul of texas, as you know, he is actually a physician. he practices as an ob-gyn.

he says the government should stay out of the health care business altogether. he says medicare and medicaid are unconstitutional. that led to a controversial moment at a cnn debate where paul was asked a hypothetical question. what if you have a 30-year-old man who doesn't buy insurance and then gets into a terrible accident? who should pay the hospital bill? paul says the 30-year-old should assume responsibility. take a listen. >> that's what freedom is all about. taking your own risk. this whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody -- >> but congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die? >> no. i practice medicine before we had medicaid in the early 1960s when i got out of medical school. i practiced at santa rosa hospital in san antonio, and the churches took care of them. we never turned anybody away from the hospital. >> under paul's plan a person could buy insurance or choose to pay their doctors cash, but in both cases they would get 100%

tax credit for every dollar spent on health care. like the other republican candidates, paul says we can make health insurance more affordable by letting people shop across state lines, forcing companies to lower prices to become more competitive. now, in other news this week paula dean admits she has diabetes. that's right, paula dean. these known for kicking up rich, delicious southern food. more good than good for you. now she's promising some healthier versions. that got us thinking, meals you never dreamed could be healthy. think things like mac and cheese. could there be a healthier way? well, it turns out there is. we'll show you. that's next. this is an rc robotic claw.

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zimplt as we hunker down for winter, lot of us reach for comfort food. old favorites like chilli, spaghetti and meat balls, mac and cheese. there was a reason that some of your grandmother's foods tasted as good as they did, right? >> that would be butter and lard

and all that stuff we're afraid of now. >> it doesn't have to be so bad. >> it feeds all of the senses as well as the body. >> mac and cheese. >> you can start with a lower fat milk that will help to cut back on the calories, or you can add vegetables to it. >> for spaghetti and meat balls. sfoo instead of using beefr, you might use a lean ground turkey. in addition to that, you might switch up your pasta option and use a spaghetti squash. >> as for chilli -- >> you can add beans and mushrooms and carrots. those are great ways to increase the fiber. >> join us. grab a spoon. >> looks good. that's food for life. >> you know, on september the fit nation crew and i are going to be running, biking, swimming in the nautica malibu triathlon, not too far from here. training can be tougher, but any time i need a bit of

inspiration, i think of a triathlete named scott basset that does it all with just one leg. >> reporter: on a hot los angeles day you'll find scout basset logging on miles on her bike. she's a dedicated multi-sport athlete, but take a closer look. scout has run marathons and raced triathlons all with one leg. >> this has been very good to me. it's done a lot of long miles. >> reporter: scout lost her leg when she was just a baby. it was the beginning of a difficult childhood. >> i was burned in a fire in china, and when i turned 1 year old, i was placed on the streets in front of the government orphanage. when i came here to the u.s., i was 7 years old and weighed 22 pounds. >> scout had never left her orphanage before being adopted. overnight she found herself with a new family in a few country

surrounded by strangers and unable to speak any english. >> everybody is just looking at you, wanting to know what's going on, who you are, where you come from, and, i mean, it's like i'm not even sure what's happening to me. how am i supposed to explain that to you? >> reporter: exercise became a refuge. she saw other para-athletes race a triathlon with the challenged athletes foundation. >> being able to see that was something that changed my life forever, seeing what was possible out there. >> reporter: she started to race triathlons herself. swimming without any artificial leg because it would weigh her down. swimming into a leg with a food made into a bike cleat and then switching again to an artificial running leg for the end of the race. >> race by race, training day by training day i started to gain this confidence that i really had lacked for much of my life, and became just this person who really believed in myself for

the first time. >> reporter: she has no plans of slowing down. >> she now trains with the u.s. national para olympic team, and i'm hoping scout can milwaukee the fit nation lucky seven. seven viewers and i are two weeks from the launch, training for this year's triathlon. i want you to follow along. you are our partners on this and you'll get tips for yourself on fitness and healthier eating right here on sgmd. i'll show you what i found on my latest investigation coming up. imagine this. learning that your kids have been going to school every day in a building that's contaminated by toxic waste and no one told you. i can tell you this. it's not just one school. that's next. dad, why are you getting that? is there a prize in there? oh, there's a prize, all right. [ male announcer ] inside every box of cheerios are those great-tasting little o's made from carefully selected oats that can help lower cholesterol. is it a superhero? kinda.

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check your steps at foodsafety.gov.

sflimplts welcome back. i'm in los angeles this morning, and since the 1990s it is l.a. school district has paid a fortune to decontaminate land that it uses for public schools, including $33 million on just one site. they also had a $3 million

clean-up at a school named for rachel carson and al gore, a school ironically enough for environmental studies. the thing is this. toxic schools aren't just a problem here in los angeles. just look at what we found in the bronx, new york. it's a charlotter school called ps 51. >> she is helping her son brandon to get ready for the first day of school. brandon seems excited. marisol, she seems nervous. >> i always burn myself with this. >> reporter: this is more than just a case of first day jitters. >> i cannot wait to get to school. >> in august just weeks before school started marisol saw this emergency meeting notice taped to brandon's school. ps 51 in the bronx. that night marisol joined an auditorium packed with worried parents. chancellor dennis walcott opened the meeting with a dramatic

statement. >> so, first, i want to start out by apologizing to all of you. >> reporter: he followed the apology with disturbing news. >> we decided to do environmental reviews. your school came with a result that we were not satisfied with an elevated level of tce. >> tce is a carcinogen. prolonged ebbing posure can cause parkin son's, cancer, even death. tests at ps parkinson's, cancer, even death. tests at ps 51 showed tce levels at 100 times worse than what's considered safe. >> based on the final confirmation, we thought we needed to shut the building down. >> parents are upset. >> you are using euphemisms, you're trying to be nice. that was a building that was storing chemicals that were cancer-causing agents and because of the vicinity and the children that are involved, you didn't care. >> you guys, board of ed, first

allowed it to be used as a school for our children. i think it's so inappropriate. >> but the parents were even more upset by the fact that the department of education discovered the contamination in january. yet, parents weren't told and their children were kept in class through the end of the year. >> i voice my displeasure with our folks and myself as far as the timeliness of that notification and from this point on, whenever we get a positive notification around some type of environmental issue, the parent, community, the staff and school community will be notified immediately. >> i met marisol outside that contaminated school. >> the staff, the kids, all the people who are essentially in this building, a good chunk of their days, knew nothing about this? >> no. the chancellor said he was sorry. >> how worried are you? >> very worried. this is the school right here.

>> marisol says even brandon, who's normally up beat, is worried. do you like this new building? >> in hmm. >> do you know why you're in the new building? >> yeah. >> why. >> because it closed down because of tce, a chemical. >> what do you know about tce? >> it's a cancer causing chemical. >> we wanted to ask chancellor walcott why they didn't tell parents about the chemical in the school until months after they knew about it. after repeated requests for an interview, his office declined to speak with cnn. >> for the sheer callousness and recklessness of the behavior toward kids, this is as bad as i've ever seen. >> lawyer shawn collins has won a number of tce contamination suits for communities around the country. >> the people that ran this school and their environmental consultants knew for at least six months that there were dangerous levels, some cases off the charts levels, of chemicals

in the air that these kids were breathing and yet they let those kids go there day in and day out, every day for the rest of a semester. unconscionab unconscionable. >> collins says the buildings should never have been a school. >> it's an old industrial site. not a place to have kids going to school. >> new york city records show ps 51 did house a car garage and a lamp factory. tce, once used to degrease metal, could have been leftover waste. many schools around the country are built on old industrial sites according to lenny seegle, who digs up the past of toxic schools. >> we don't consider contamination before we decide where to put the school. and particularly in new york city, they have so many schools on leased properties, most of which are former industrial sites or at least many of which, i don't know the exact number, they had a policy of not looking for problems. >> segal believes that ground and water testing should be

mandatory. he also says ps 51 was probably always problematic. just weeks before brandon and the other ps 51 kids started at their new school, parents were hit with more unsettling news. tests revealed slightly elevated levels of a common but toxic dry cleaning chemical, pce. >> what's going to happen to our children? >> parents showed up at another meeting in october to confront the chancellor. >> i first have to say dennis walcott, how dare you. >> the chancellor dismissed the test results at the new school as insignificant. >> there was an open container and once that was corrected the levels came back down and things were fine. >> parents like marisol no longer trust the school system. >> what are you going to do? what's the plan? >> we're going to watch him consistently. any little thing that he gets is going to be an alarm for me. he's 8 years old and it's scary

that i have to see what's going to happen with him. i pray that nothing is going to come of this. but you just don't know. >> another thing i learned in doing this story, as many as one in three schools have air quality so bad, it can cause breathing problems. sometimes there are rules to protect kids. it's just those rules aren't always enforced. in new york city, for example, it's illegal for cars and trucks to idle for more than one minute outside a school, because toxic exhaust fumes can seep into the building. but in the past year in the entire bronx, that's the home of ps 51, police issued just 12 tickets for breaking that law. health advocates say the city needs to step it up. last month the mayor said he would look into it, but also said that officers have more serious things to tackle first. time for a short break. i'm going to be right back with a special preview ofmy upcoming documentary. and who ordered the yummy cereal? yummy. [ woman ] lower cholesterol. [ man 2 ] yummy.

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on any given friday at

countless american schools, more than 4 million kids are playing tackle football. they're our kids, and they're going head-to-head and helmet-to-helmet. i'll tell you a lot of things about this. we know it's not all fun and games. it can be dangerous at times. at j.h. rose high school in north carolina, they saw all of this firsthand. three years ago the worst happened to this championship team. >> my little brother. he's not moving, he needs help breathing. i mean, i just lost it. >> waller was tackled, walked to the sidelines, then collapsed. >> friday night's death of water is being felt -- >> it's a tough time for the whole community. >> we had a tragedy and it really brought it all to the forefront. >> we spent the season with the rose rampants, a team trying hard now to turn tragedy into triumph. and questions came up over and over again. can you play safe and still win at football? can you play safe and still have football be football?