was to sort of get out of the cycle of understanding of homicide and murder in baltimore which is difficult because the media, the way the media structured crime is a very sort of dramatic an ongoing story in baltimore, but we don't really take the time to look at it from the perspective of it's not

immediate. like in this particular moment let's try to understand it, and the reason we did that is fairly simple. baltimore is consistently one of the most violent cities in the country. no matter what. i mean, right now the mayor will tell you that crime is down, and that's true, but if you look at it relative to other cities, we are one of the most violent, i think the top five. the question is why and why do we keep doing the same things. in baltimore city the past 20 years as long as i've been a reporter the answer to that has been some form of law enforcement, zero tolerance policy where we arrest 100,000 people a year so it's always a question of law enforcement or a question of building more prisons and it's interesting we worked on this together but my thinking was when we talked about doing this he approached me actually was to provide some content, to take these cases

starting with a particular in the details and try it than some understanding of five baltimore has such a pension and that's not an easy question. but rather than to be overly philosophical, he was able to share with me cases and his insight which is why the story of the crime in baltimore is say laboratory of the extremes, extreme behavior and one of the 14-year-old should a woman he doesn't know from 100 yards across the street, or a group of teen girls said a man on fire while he was alive. these are things as citizens of the city better difficult for us to comprehend but must be comprehended in some way that is meaningful so that we can perhaps alleviate this problem my guess would be what i was looking for cover crime as a reporter and i'm part of the

problem. i go to a crime scene, write a story, interviewing a few people, now i'm a producer for fox 45 and, you know, part of the problem is just the 24 hour news cycle so we were hoping this book by combining both of our perspectives would add something to the equation of our understanding of crime and what it means and why do people killed. you have to think about it, we are a fairly unique city in the 600 or 700 times a year someone picks up a gun and aims it at someone and pulls the trigger and that doesn't include stabbings or people who buy from overdoses or undetermined deaths which are unclassified, is quite unusual compared to any other city in the country with dietrich and others compared to europe and other places. we in many places in many social situations shoes violence to settle matters that might otherwise be filled on less violent ways. so the question is what are the combination of the factors coming you know, what is it in

the psyche of the people who choose to take another life, and the only way really you are going to know this from someone who has sat in the box with people, has been a close to people we would consider, most of us consider doing things the would be at absolutely a principal with a would seem commonplace. that being said, maybe you want to talk about why you decided to participate in this together. >> for stuff i want to see the book also talks about how difficult the homicide detective job is it working in baltimore city. each and every day the historians, some of the difficult to allegis or with families who have lost loved ones. the ladies and gentlemen sometimes have to put their families second to deal with the family who lost loved ones to bring closure to their lives. so, detectives including myself at one point in time spent a lot of time in what we call the box,

the interview room and baltimore city, the homicide unit. we deal with the most violent criminals, a lot of repeat offenders and try to do the impossible. it sometimes is a difficult challenge a person's love for another i would say love and hate for another person. one particularly is the case with melvyn willson i wanted to talk about who in fact he was in melvin for 14-year-old, nine-year-old kid, sorry, lived in paris, having i guess he betrayed his loved by wanting to buy a young girl who lived in the neighborhood a gift and because of this for some reason he snapped and adopt a kid in

the woods and took his life and that was difficult because they can out of the case where social service was involved. the mother wound up going to jail for not protecting her kid to wage she should have. also the case of melody smith the police department received calls to come to her house and dealing with a person by the name of gregory he lowered the police officers away from ms. smith to show that he was the victim and not melody smith and to find out it was melody smith and in fact i think the police officers were there 50 times before we located ms. smith beaten to death.

in fact at one point while we were at the location, while we were at the location, ms. smith helped us out in the case by sending fedex a letter indicating who the suspect was that killed her and that letter arrived while we were there that day so that's also one of the things we discussed in the book. >> we talk and when i was a reporter and he was a detective as he let me know how dysfunctional the system was like in the case of ms. smith who filed the protection order and called the police 50 times and also in the situation with the state attorney's office where many times they would say look i know who did this, i know who murdered this person, and i have a witness but i don't have two witnesses, so the attorney's office will not issue a warrant and this became a big issue in the campaign.

to me it was you get a call that says luck, i can take a murder of the street right now but i can't get a warrant, and to me that spoke to this functionality in the system that we as citizens of baltimore pay a great deal of money to protect us and the oftentimes seems lost in politics and a lot of the other things that shouldn't really in fact an organization that is trying to take murder of the street there should be a sense of priority but there was a big problem. a lot of homicide detectives in the audience right now they can also understand what we've been through where there are suspects out there right now that we and shouldn't be walking the streets and we have a little bit of help from the state's attorney's office so now you've got an office right now let us take any

cases to court with the one witness and try to get these people prosecuted and off the streets. but for the homicide detective it is frustrating because you know a person committed the murder, you know he did this murder but you don't have the tools to take them off the street because they are to someone else and to some extent that's not fair to get these murders of the street. >> one thing used to say to me about the building, call me all the time and what would you say? espinel while i was driving my vehicle to look at the building i would say you know [inaudible] maybe we can help the people a little bit better. >> for both of us come he has to go to the homes of the people

whose sons or daughters have been taken from this world and as a reporter, we also talk to the family and when you see all the sort of obstacles to the clear thinking and truth with regards to the subject matter, it's become frustrated and is one of the reasons the book was so important was to give the people in the city the clear straightforward an obstructed view of what happens and maybe start to answer and have the ability to solve the problem which really has been beyond our ability of the murder in d.c. ready this year to 1254i don't know exactly this year in the city and that is true throughout the country. so why should we have to suffer from the worst homicide rate or one of the worst homicide rates and one of the problem is that we don't really have time or we don't really know exactly what's

going on the weekend deal with the situation if we don't have a sense of the truth and he was courageous enough and willing to share that so that i could write in a way that would be meaningful so that's why we did the book. >> with this book is also about is it doesn't give that challenge to the new version and details of what is on the streets of baltimore so i think people get this this book tells the truth, it tells what actually happens out there. it takes away from the news put out there, the details to stop to think this is what happens in baltimore city to try to fix this problem.

>> also just one other comment in terms of the media, a member of the media and i worked for fox 45 as an investigative producer, so i think the media structure is an important way to get fast news. it's more saying that everyone deserves a time to think about things. this is a more thoughtful look at it and immediately get it. so, i spent a lot of time discussing the cases and he gave me a lot of insight and that is more of what it is about. >> also to watch a love one a little bit better. by reading this book it shows you committing murders to and what they're looking for and to keep an eye on your kids so they don't become victims of homicide and that is what this book talks about. >> can i make a comment here? >> these guys would send material to me most in the

middle of the night and pretty much finished draft form and this is something i think everybody needs to read. i couldn't put it down and i don't like the rate crime story, i don't want to read about murder and what happens to people, but every time i read a draft i couldn't put it down it was so compelling. and kevin's perspective on what goes on in baltimore and what goes on in the police department is something that everybody in baltimore and other places needs to know about because it needs fixing and hopefully this book with his intention and stephen's intention is to hopefully do something about this. not that we can solve those problems necessarily, but we do run on investigative. we've run lots of stories about crime and murder and shootings and it seems like every week somebody is being shot and

killed and it's a horrible thing but we can't close our eyes to it and say i don't want to deal with that, i don't want to read about it is something we all have to deal with. >> we try as closely as possible to get into the psyche of the person that kelvin encountered in some of the cases and what he shared with me hopefully the book itself will give you the perspective and a homicide. >> as a reporter go to the east side and the west side and it's like you were going into a place where 30 people, 40 people have been murdered in a small area and it transforms the psychological landscape of the city. i was interviewing somebody today and he said the people who transformed don't blink because of a plank they might get killed

so they become very tense. he was talking about dealing with kids who witnessed three or four or five murders by the age of nine or ten. he's been surrounded by violence like a war zone, so the nature of the neighborhood is like a lack of support in community services and the things the give the neighborhood stability are hard to describe unless you see it for sale and i think that kelvin has seen it firsthand. >> did finally put an impact on why we wanted this book to come out. >> the could basically -- protecting it you have to start with these elementary schools. if you start at that level by the time the kid turns

15-years-old if you get them at the elementary school age and work with those kids, get these kids minds on the streets and narrow at that point. >> okay. if anybody wants to ask questions -- i'm sorry. this is he was very instrumental in helping us put together and he was a great part of what we did together. >> everybody should read it, right? >> you're not going to want to put it down. there's a lot of information in this book people need to know and i think that it's going to help a lot of people understand what goes on in baltimore city. >> we will have about ten or 15 minutes of q&a and then at the end of that, we have copies of the book on sale in the back and

i sure these gentlemen will be back to discuss further the book with you and signed copies of the book for you and we will obviously be open and the bar that will be open if you want to get another refresh the or something. so, that being said, who has comments or questions? >> i was wondering if you can talk about some of the conclusions of white people kill. that's the title. i have that question and then also the idea of this book giving a lot of details about murder and what goes on behind the scenes. i think there's a lot of unnecessary information and media daily it's not just weekly but every night about who gets killed and what happens, so what's the difference between that and the book? >> first of all the difference in this book perhaps is the intimacy of the narrative.

a lot of times in the media we don't have time to explore the character of behind the crime or the personality or the social circumstance where the context. why people killed in baltimore, and this is just simply from talking to people and going to the neighborhood is because a lot of dhaka times they feel that is the only choice they have, that their lives are so separate from the system that we all are used to participating in a lot of ways. i was talking to this young gentleman today and he was saying they don't, people in these communities don't think that they have the same future so when a conflict arises, it's easier to pick up the gun or the frustration, anger and isolation. i'm not making excuses from people who decide to do this. i'm simply telling you what i've learned from talking to kelvin and from going to the neighborhoods that there is a

sense of isolation and desperation that is implicated in to their life to an extent that it's the only reality that they know or this particular person who knows and it transcends all of a type of decisions we make in our lives to deal with things we can't deal with. we all reach walls in the places and we have places to turn but i think in a lot of these neighborhoods, the rec centers have gone, the schools are having trouble. there's a tremendous belief present but there isn't a presence that says we have a way to help your to show you a future where your life will be improved. there's lead poisoning. in the department a woman was living next door paying rent for her home and at the home had been abandoned and the landlord said its board of for the next person to read every one she called wouldn't help her. she called the health department. so there is isolation and that

isolation i think leads to desperation. but i'm not seeing that they did the right thing or that this is a moral justification for taking someone's life, but i'm simply trying to answer the question truthfully. a lot of times when you say that you say what the circumstances. people say that's ridiculous, you are a jerk how can you say something so ridiculous? and that's true but if we ignore the factors, if we ignore what type of community we created, then we are just going to be having the same conversation. one of the key elements of this book we call what why do we kill, not your they or someone else but we because we as a community i think sherry certain amount of response of the fees for everything that occurs, and until we really recognize that on a fundamental and complete level we are not going to solve this problem. if people think that it's wrong to say we have created this, then we will i guarantee for years from now have as many murders as this year.

i guarantee you. until we are willing to say collectively we have created a world where there are haves and have-nots to such an extreme people feel helpless and are going to acknowledge that we will never understand the psyche. it's like all these people who live in a duplex apartment and that was the thing i learned so much from kelvin as he would talk about these people and it wasn't like one of the killers was like -- it wasn't like anything i had ever seen any narrative. was matter-of-fact. melvin jones said he was cheating on me. no, he was a 50-year-old man -- to get these names wrong? sorry. so, you know, it was a matter of fact. it wasn't like he had been putting up pictures on his wall and had a helicopter and put them in the base and costumes on them it's not like that. not at least from my understand, right?

so, you know, we have to get past that narrative and to get past the narrative is to look at it collectively. >> you touched on the despair people feel. there are many studies that have shown kids growing up in the inner city particularly african-american boys don't expect to live to be 20-years-old. if you don't expect to live to be 20 then what is there to restrict you from doing whatever you need to do to survive as long as you can? >> telco -- >> one of the techniques i used and some might smile let this. when some i would call the interview room they don't want to talk to you and you try to get a sense of where they are going and they sit back and leaned back in the chair and i tell them okay recite the

alphabet and you'd be surprised with the education system we have a lot of people don't know the english language of the alphabet and that is what helps me with as a conversation with them. don't move save the lmnop, say to leave to take your time and say a-b-c... [laughter] and talk to me sometimes about [inaudible] sometimes they want to talk to and sometimes they don't but for the tactics and homicide we get our point across and they talk to us about why they committed this murder, why they did it or how they did it and that is what we try to accomplish when we are in the box to get the case is solved. >> that's one of the best stories in the book. you have to read that. yes? >> the local news casting has been for years if it bleeds it

leads. but when i watch local television news in baltimore, i had never seen as much emphasis on violence as today, not only one or two stories but five stories one after another. so the question is do we have more violence than we used to have as a different kind of violence or is this just a function of news policy? >> that's a really good question and, you know, i think if you look at the numbers technically we get fewer homicides than when you were a reporter at the sun we probably had 150 at that point or maybe the 90's, i'm not sure. but the reason, and i don't know the reason particularly is for this phenomenon with the crime gets more hits on the internet and as companies -- as media companies, you know, sort of transfer from print -- if you have a crime story verses about a city council hearing, the

crimes are four or five times as many as a story about who passed the most recent bill or whatever and that dictates decisions to come because internet advertising is based primarily off of how many hits you get. that's the very straightforward answer. now, why crime has become an obsession, can be the wire and we are a city best known for exporting misery and the becomes our cultural product is the fact the we produce a lot of crazy crime stories that go fire over the internet and become national stories. maybe that's part of it. maybe it's the fact that people just feel like this problem is so long it requires all of our attention and the thing is true also in the middle of the decade he politicized the issue and said baltimore city will not be whole until we reduce crime and reduce the homicide rate and it became purely political and the

numbers become political and so everything came down to what are your numbers? is the crime lower or higher and so the media cannot resist when a politician as proven wrong when crime continues and homicide continues to expose the story. it's almost like baiting them saying i'm going to reduce it under 200. we remember the beginning of the decade and remember how effective he did his job so with something like crime and make a currency the media can't resist and it becomes the whole story. >> i don't want people in baltimore city at the end of the year we have for example last year 220 homicides. don't expect that because in the back of my mind i always thought one homicide was too many. you drag on 220 or 230 when you shouldn't have won but that's the way the society sets things these days and we are trying to

change that. another question? yes. >> your opinion to make baltimore special or other states of the same racial breakdown? what makes baltimore unique? >> based on homicide? >> what about the city in particular the [inaudible] >> i'm not understanding the question. >> basically is their anything that makes baltimore unique that involves the homicide rate. >> if you drive to baltimore city especially on the east side you are going to see abandoned homes to get the education

system themselves. ask them to see their abcs and they don't know it. the system needs to be better and a lot of people living on the streets where these days to be the best they can. i'm not trying to make a right what they're doing because it's not right but you have to educate people a little more and that is why they should start with the elementary system because a lot of them in high school and middle school are from different gangs and it's like the bounty hunters themselves most will commit their crimes at 15 to 16-years-old, kids in middle school and elementary school. we have to do something to try to educate these kids and a starts of the elementary level and not the middle school and high school level because if you can save some of those grades that's fine but get to the young

kids and let them know you can be whatever you want to be in life but it starts right here. a lot of them are ready to join any gang it's the only family that they have. >> baltimore is a grand experiment in my perspective and social isolation us policy. everything is extreme and baltimore whether it be proper texas, car insurance. [laughter] the idea seems to be we can isolate baltimore and keep those problems from baltimore county or the howard county and maybe it's very similar to the social powers of suburbia that baltimore has tried to do things and say we can put people in a certain spot from the ken portales educated, sicker and will work out because they will be there and we will be here so i think baltimore has tried to

do this to the extreme where murder and violence is the alpheus outcome of that experiment. i'm from new york and new york was a little different in that regard there was more of a sense that the city was self sustaining and important. in baltimore some of the thesis seems to be the baltimore is supposed to fail and is designed to fail and when you write a story that the failure everyone reads it and says great, you got it right, thank you for the story i told you this wasn't going to work. so it's like a self fulfilling prophecy is the set up. maybe this is the outcome that is supposed to happen maybe this is what happens when you design a city to be isolated, part to be isolated from the other part when you don't have a full

community. >> [inaudible] >> my question is is there a plan [inaudible] [laughter] >> i got that question again but investing is steve and i talked about it and looking to about two years away but we definitely explore that option. >> almost everybody that rights into the investigative asks that question when is the next book coming out and they haven't read this one yet.

how do you turn it around [inaudible] >> the best way to get to baltimore or baltimore city is part of maryland and that would be the big part of changing, making devotee deal with the consequences of what we created in baltimore and then if you did that and affect people's lives significantly and the power to change things i think you would see substantial change. rather than creating the system of isolation make everybody accountable. i'm sure that will never happen in our lifetime but i think once the interest of the community with a small part of the community you will see substantial changes as long as we can isolate people and right crazy stories about her six murders and create this virtual wall it won't change. but once people are accountable,

and for granted maryland pays a lot of taxes to as a kohl supports baltimore city but it's go downtown. what used to be a manufacturing center is a center for the prison i took the philosopher on a tour and he was like a can't believe how many prisons you have. it goes on forever. even the warehouse. that is what we do now. when we decided that is not affected and that is not what we want to do politically to the people in the city, we want to house them or somehow segregate them then things will change but until then nothing will change. >> [inaudible] basically it's something the systems in place within baltimore city hour own society here to try to stop these

murders. >> i think part of the issue that we have that we are narrow minded and our approach to responding to people and their problems, so i agreed that as young as we can get them any to be responding to them but it's not just the use it is everyone in our lives we sometimes need to be working with, and i just hope we are really clear that this is about class, this has very little to do with race. this is about class and lack of resources. >> it does also, you know, if you look at the statistics in the prison system african-americans are more affected by violent crimes were likely to be incarcerated than in areas with environmental concerns. as a yes it is class but the race has always been a backdrop

of the important story in the city. we have the sergeant who fought discrimination in the baltimore city police department and the was a very major landmark lawsuit so it is definitely part of that issue. but you are right you have people that are suffering more and poor people who are getting killed more. so that absolutely is true. i still think it raises important issues here. >> in baltimore city closed down the center, they closed the rec centers, they closed a lot and people really don't understand the importance of grabbing kids as working before. i was working the senator reading on the fifth grade level and it is a thing about race and particularly the target the young will black males in baltimore city and until we

raise our voices and start to try to do something about that, with these petitions force them to do their jobs, i don't really see a lot changing three estimate how you to a situation where you have kids growing up in poverty and see around them some of the largess of the baltimore community to see the big hotels and the inner harbor, you see the condos in canton and highland town and other parts of the city and to say to them you can have this, how do you make them believe they can have that without becoming drug dealers and living the life of crime because that's the way they seem to get it, the drug dealers and the gangsters are the ones that have all of the money in their community so how do you do that?

>> still going back, i know the we are dealing with a lot of parents that are not doing their job, and i see when i was on the police department everyone wanted to point at the police and the churches, everybody wanted to point of schools, and yet there is a problem there the we have to go back and educate some of these young parents and like i said, it was starting with in that center. i worked in that center and i actually worked with some of those kids and they saw a difference. and i told them i'm a product of a project to it. so you don't have to get out here and sell drugs to be able to afford a halfway decent house, a car or something like that. the ftc sometimes unfortunately positive images outside their home and shut down again like i

said police officers where we really care about these kids. estimate your in example to how did you come out of that and -- >> it was for the low-income families. i had my mom and my dad there. i had a father that let me know -- right, my sister -- i had nine brothers and sisters. it was difficult, but we understood. you didn't go out here robbing people were doing this or doing that. >> the sergeant will tell you and you read it in the book about the girls who patrick taylor. the one was a college student in atlanta and her mother was a supervisor for the social security administration and wouldn't believe when he called

to tell her her daughter just confessed to murder. this can't be my daughter. my daughter is in college in atlanta, she's not even in baltimore. >> they actually had to put her daughter on the phone to admit to the murder. estimate you talk about studying these elementary schools. have you talked about -- have you considered the fact of -- >> eight months to two years but we don't have kids ready for school and those schools ready for kids. maybe before elementary schools. >> that age is going to be difficult for the kids but there

has to be something put in place in the elementary school system to get them a better sense of what is happening out here is wrong and he can make a better way but of those things i believe based on an expert is not at this time. >> to more questions. we will go to you and then somebody -- >> i agree with kelvin. it's not the same as it was 20 years ago. we need to get back to the states. you know, you have a kid that is in the fifth grade and then you put them in school and tell them all these marvelous things of what you can achieve but that's

not tangible to them with mom, dad and sister, brother accused one another and abuse legal substance. >> i just want to go back to the kids for example [inaudible] some of the things they were doing for him. >> when i interviewed who that kid i've got to give it to the kid he held out a long time beebee 2:00, 2:30 in the morning he looked in the area and finally that kid who looked up

at me and said okay i did it, can i go home now? but this is what he's doing. he thought when he submitted this a shot of this leedy in the back of a head as a dare. >> and he didn't even know her. >> i think part of the problem, too, is really quickly we see things that have been crystallized over decades and we see a snapshot and a crime and we don't always get the perspective of what led to the culmination that led to that crime. >> you have a question? >> [inaudible] and also what is the most gruesome case. i've been a homicide supervisor since 2006.

we have worked a lot of a gruesome cases. you can go into a scene and see a body on this side and a hit on this side. you can go to the scene where you see bodies -- i hate to give the gruesome scenes but you don't see what these detectives see on a normal basis. you can go on the scene and see a body that has been in the house for months in the summertime and is covered with all kinds of -- you know, so as you try to get that person out of the house, they've been in the house so long say you see things like that. then homicide a supervisor, a lot of times i had some friends

because i have to look at them and see after you come from a homicide scene are you okay? i won't mention their names, but as well as people who face these things to the panel. >> just so we don't end on such a gloomy note, you had one question? >> yes. i want to know how the media has responded to the book. have you been able to get coverage or -- i'm curious to know. >> well, we have had a preview. [laughter] from the be - is here, i think, somewhere in the back. kind enough to run an excerpt so there's been a fairly positive for amongst people. i had a woman call me today

who's been trying to get the book for three days, calling me personally i don't know how she got my number but trying to attract on the books so more than a media even to think there's a lot of people who personally tracked on the look and have been interested in it because of what kelvin has been willing to share, something people really want to know. what is it like? so it's been more of a personal leave and then a media event like so wired. >> on investigative we will probably have some of our. investigativeworks.com. >> also the book is on sale in the back. >> we also have a lot of media attention over in the u.k. as well, people helping us with the sale of the book. >> we are going to do a tour of europe. we are. >> i said this in the book, 22

years i've been a police officer for baltimore and these cases a lot of times i had to put my family second to help other families get closure in life, and my wife is here tonight, she's standing over there when. [applause] 22 and a half years and my daughters, are there, too. islamic and this is my fiancee treatise mix thank you for coming out and putting up with the heat. [inaudible] get copies of the book on sale in the back and please feel free to browse around. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> good evening everybody. i'm the senior political look him in with two esteemed colleagues from the media, jeff who made his name at the ledger and what is now "the new york post" and ted sherman who continues to make his name and most people it's the series on the sewer commission which may not mean a lot to people down here would assure meant a lot to chris christi because he went after it and sort turned upside down and about 100 people felt and having gotten back up yet, which is what this book is somewhat about. it's about the downfall of the number of people who were not expecting to be taken down and all or many go to prison as a result and whose lives have been

ruined. you'll remember ensure what triggered this book was the incident dhaka this book is all about. the mass on a day in july of 2009 of political figures mainly in northern new jersey and the rabbi is from the shore from brooklyn, from the orthodox community. they decided to write a book about that case, and i want to start by asking them josh, why did you write a book about this case? >> because nobody understood what happened, why it happened, when it first happened in july of 09. ted and i were as close to it as anybody that wasn't in handcuffs and frankly, we didn't understand it. we come into the office on a

muggy july morning having been tipped off the night before that something big, quote on quote, was going to come down and in new jersey there's always something big and a politician getting arrested and a corruption case. but my god, we were getting reports from our colleagues that the fbi headquarters or down in brooklyn, and it's a dozen politicians, it's too doesn't. you have red eyes and their long black coats with their ritual fringes blowing in the breeze, the deputy mayor of jersey city who shows up handcuffed, 70-years-old wearing a low cut dress. what is this. >> and a former burlesque queen. justin all we knew is we had a well-to-do put together business in new york city deputy mayor and we hear that there's an

informant in the middle and the fed won't say who would this and nobody in the stands the first thing or how it came together and then when we finally found out what ties everything together we still didn't understand it. why would anybody take you back? why would anybody trust solomon? he'd been arrested already on a $50 million bank fraud. i will go through the details which are extraordinarily hilarious and stupid and sad but he had been harassed already and people are wondering his money at this time he somehow not a lawyer by the fed. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> carl elliott, what is your book about?

>> it's about the way that medicine has changed as it's been transformed essentially. traditionally medicine has been largely a self policed boehner based profession, and over the past 40 years or so, it has been taken over by a range of market based forces in the industry and clinical trials and the medical education industry, a whole range of profit based businesses which because of the fact medicine as traditional place of regulate it now operate without oversight. >> and what are the root causes of that? >> of the transformation? a lot of things. part of what interested in the

book is the emergence of the pharmaceutical industry as a huge force beginning largely in the 1990's and that was the period in which the sort of age of blockbuster drugs began so they started hitting for the fences looking for drugs ticket market to as many people as possible usually for the mile and chronic illnesses. when the pharmaceutical industry started to become so enormously powerful began to go much stronger so you had the emergence of the clinical trial industry, medical education industry, oversight businesses, for-profit institutions. i think a lot of people don't realize how profitable the

industry spent the past 20 or 30 years and it's been tremendous. >> your experience with that transformation and the pharmaceutical industry currently has a doctor? >> i don't practice medicine. i originally trained in medicine and went from medicine to the undergraduate school for so for the last 20 years or so i've been teaching medical. the root of the book begins with a phone call i got in minnesota from a local psychiatrist who wanted to sit in on the medical ethics course i was teaching and explained to me this is because he was being disciplined by the state licensing board for problems with a research study

he was doing. it was punishment he had to take a course on medical ethics, and not knowing any better on said sure and let him and it went fine. a few years later, a contract research business ended up in 20 cities where i live and the for-profit trial sight i had an interest in fees and started doing some digging and looked to see who's their researchers were and i saw that this guy that had to in my class was one of the researchers so i started to wonder mixed ackley but he did to be disciplined by having to take my class. and it turned out that his license had been suspended for two years because he was responsible for the deaths and injuries of 46 a number of whom had committed suicide and 17 of

whom were in the research studies that he had done. largely seriously mental elma as with schizophrenia and a lot of them were suicide as he was cycling in and out of the research studies often research studies for risch they were not eligible even after they started to deteriorate. one of them actually had committed suicide in the teaching hospital in mercy, and what struck me about that is his disciplinary i could find it in minutes if you put his name in a google search, all his problems came up the very first hit. and yet despite the fact he had been judged responsible for the death and injury of the 46 patients he was about to trial.

the fbi hadn't sanctioned him and the pharmaceutical industry was willing to hire him in fact he's still working for the industry now. and this sort of shocked me that a researcher this dangerous and this bad was still allowed to do clinical trials and pointed out to me just how we can do our oversight system is. >> your research, how often did you find the was the case that researchers that violated always were allowed to continue conducting research for a privately contract it institution versus on a university campus? >> nobody really knows and that is the difficulty because there is no one keeping up with this information. the reason he was able to do this is simply that nobody was watching, and still nobody is watching. you know, you have steeped

licensing boards but they are not responsible for the clinical research. you have local institutional board's committees of the ethics committee's. but now these are largely if private for-profit boards paid for by the sponsors of the research, and if they don't like the answer they get home if one tells them this is unethical to simply go to another run and another one until they get the answer they want. the fda, which is the most of the nominally interested in protecting subjects of research only inspect about 1% of the trial sites come 99% of the files lights go on expected. and for that reason i can't answer that question. nobody can. of course nobody's watched. >> would your recommendation be to improve the medical industry and particularly that process?

>> welcome their needs to be if a different system of oversight. it's crazy to have the main oversight body is being paid by responders of the studies they are supposed to be regulating. that's just a recipe for the kind of problems that we see. i would say we need to take drug testing out of the hands of the producers of the drug and why should the pharmaceutical industry be responsible for testing their own drugs and then publishing the research. they have a financial incentive to come up with results that are positive for their products. and as long as the testing process is in their hands, that incentive is always going to be there. so even taking drug-testing out of their hands and putting it into the hands of an independent

drug-testing body. >> thank you.