cost pollutant that causes political dissent, and this is what they are paying for. tobrutal repression in order be able to continue their role. in the meantime the israeli -- the venezuela financial support is critical to cuba. -- ine 15% of the cuban comes from venezuela. continue to hold ond nail to the government of venezuela. there are supposed to be $21 billion in operative in nonoperative resale. or $14 billion are in cuba. oversight.cise close the head offices of the national

oil company and some banks are now in caracas. venezuela is going to experience whener time like it did the soviet union collapsed, and therefore, controlling venezuela is a question of life and death. the only resident in history is germany with austria. we are talking about a country that has 30 million people being taken over by one that has 10 million people. they are running the government,

the intelligence services, and worst of all, they are running the public financial institutions. how they run their own economy, cubans are now doing the same in venezuela. so, we went from 28% of venezuelan people to six percent-a percent. these the districts are not reliable because nothing is reliable anymore in venezuela. include anlopments almost total news blackout from venezuela. but the outcome of what is going on is very clear and reveals where this government is going to go. first of all, whatever you hear of inflation are,

they're much worse in the provinces than in caracas. they begin in the provinces and then going to caracas. people who are in caracas, the number given is 20%. the provinces, the numbers 35%. got means that you have to and grab whatever is in the supermarkets in the hope that when you get home you will be able to exchange things you don't need for things you do need with somebody who was looking out to go and grab them. very many cities in the interior are virtually

powerless. our youth feels there is no future for them. just to elaborate what he , they have been terrorizing the people of caracas. they are controlling the interior of venezuela. there is a participation of our youth in the independence wars. insecurity has been around for years in venezuela. it has the highest homicide rate in the world.

[laughter] [indiscernible] i want to tell you, if you analyze totalitarian regimes throughout history, this is how they operate. it has happened everywhere in the world. come and they denounce , and they use a minor event to justify their repression. it is a supreme irony that the letter he hasrt

received is from president bashar al-assad. was facing a brutal attack on him and the will of the venezuelan people. a simple rule states that when somebody talks about somebody else, he is really talking about him or herself. i closing, i would say that don't think the regime would .urvive an economic collapse need international intervention to get away from violence. intead of a dialogue venezuela, what we are going to see is a lot of people dead because of this regime, the

invisible hand of the economy ringing down the economy of venezuela. , venezuela ise being supported by a cuban regime desperate to prolong its existence. it is very nearsighted and taking no action to keep the golden goose. i would like to suggest what it that we thinkdo would be good for venezuela. we don't want violence of any nature because i would create more pain among the venezuelan people -- that would create war pain among venezuelan people. more than that, it would give moral authority and justification to this repressive

regime to kill more people in venezuela. i am welcoming very much what ambassador rice just said. you have to withdraw visas and we should deal in a more intelligent way with americans. it is an issue that allows us to and to suppress bank , and to do a lot of things that the united states wanted to in service to transparency. it has taken a government that wants, a very long time ago, had

a democratic society, and use the resources of oil to suppress the people of venezuela but in mirror imagete regimes in other places of our hemisphere. ,herefore, i think the dialogue in order for the dialogue to , you need to have these pressures. we need to use these practices in an intelligent way, and then, know abouti don't the catholic church, but definitely the vatican to get and act with the true commission.

the first thing we need to asked to the government is to give us an account of the students that .re arrested they have to respond [indiscernible] they need to have due process respected. with those things, i think we could start turning things around in venezuela. thank you so much for this opportunity to talk to you. >> thank you. i spoke to one of the leaders of the opposition who was imprisoned a few days ago and already has trumped up charges against him. as you formulate questions, and

we would like to field questions if we couldience, but the powerpoint presentation a please, things we would like you to talk about are in this presentation. what we do that, i would like to open up the floor for questions. right has to leave us, so if there are questions for him, perhaps those could come first. >> terry miller, former state department official. the political left around the in latind certainly america and right here in the united states has shown an appalling tendency to excuse repression by regimes, certainly cuba, venezuela, ecuador, bolivia, nicaragua, el salvador,

there is a whole long-range. it is dressed up with a little veneer of .nti-americanism the afraid that romanticized view of latin even affectimes may the view of our current administration, and if so, what are the possibilities for the u.s. to take effective and constructive action at this time against a regime like venezuela or cuba. >> you and to take one or two -- you may want to take one or two more. bias.e right about the a harvard educated elected mayor district ofst

venezuela, one of the biggest, who has never been violence in his life, has been described by the associated press as a lopez,ne aristocratic caused demonstrations that of turn violence against the democratically elected government. i am emphasizing some of the adjectives they use, and these are two or three news organizations that have a inutation for objectivity, my view, when it comes to latin america. reporting the passes for acceptable in latin america would never be accepted in the that'sstates or europe. ok, because we're dealing with

the little brown people, as we see them, frankly, a lot of these liberals see them, and this was written in a book by venezuelan governor almost 40 , from the noble savage to the noble revolutionary, because a lot of our liberals ,nd europeans see these people castro and che guevara, you know, it's really too bad they had to kill a few hundred thousand people, because after all, they are trying to bring good things, and if they fail at bringing those good things, we have to recognize that they meant well. ?k, now, what do we do i don't want you to think i am cynical about this. it is only the result of 45 years of dealing with latin america. with the united states should do, and i think, frankly, your question goes in some way to the obama policy.

i don't want to turn this to the electoral or political debate, although i am to. show the and you gain failure of constructive engagement as articulated -- ukraine show the failure of constructive engagement as articulated by the president in the campaign of 2008 and subsequently, when he said that we should never fear to sit down and negotiate with our enemies, and in fact, that is what we should do. how well did that work out for you in north korea, and iran, in syria, in libya, in cuba, in venezuela. if you ask 59 bipartisan members of the united states senate,

they have not close the book on those conversations. the world is not the way we wanted to be. i wish it were. of people likell assad. like chavez. like castro. like mao. like stalin. like hitler, who are perfectly willing to kill, i mean kill by the millions, to advance their ideology. and in the last 75 years, only one nation has stood in the way of those people, and that is the united states. and we have not stood in the way only by diplomacy. there is a role for diplomacy in the world, and i have to confess that at times i have had to be diplomatic. it only as a last resort. instrument, but as i said, it does not work with

certain people. has it worked with assad? how many people has he killed yucca he is perfectly willing to kill -- how many people has he killed? he is perfectly willing to kill people outside his circle. it is not ideological. they can be right, left, center, completely ideological. amin, what ideology did he have? we have to recognize that these are not good people. needcept the fact that we these police in our neighborhoods and cities because there are people with knives in their back pockets willing to stab us to death. if the nation's policy is not icked up by force, sorry, know this is probably not very popular in some circles, if it is not backed up by force, it is a failure.

i apologize. i have an interview to go to, , i thank you very much appreciate it. >> please join me in thanking ambassador right. [applause] the next move to series of questions, would you mind explaining, because the subject of the panel discussion today is understanding the protest taking place today in venezuela. if we can steer it back to what is going on on the ground. >> this is the capital city, where there was the first protest.

it has very important historical because it was from this that people marched toward and march toward venezuela. they were separated and threatened with disappearance. this group marched to caracas from aablished a regime 70 years. because of the political , the government reacted severely and decided we .re going to crush this

we cannot have this kind of reaction. this is what they are calling the night of the pencils. they go and take over one by one , in order to force people to get out of the houses, and when they are outside, they arrest them or kill them, and that is what this picture is showing. the night of the pencils, the military strategy for repression.

this is the march of the night of the pencils. as you can see, nobody has any weapons. the only thing that makes it is how massive it is and how many people came. i think even to this defense -- it came as ats surprise that they had a clear capacity to convey so many people to their marches. students in the march. there were representatives of different universities and high schools attending. are the russian airplanes that were used to threaten and terrorize the people of san crystal.

these are warplanes and they to scare very low people into getting out of their houses. >> ok as we prepare for the next series of questions, please introduce yourselves. to ticket off, could you -- kick it off, could you give us a scale of the number of marchers and what is happening at go we know things have been growing in the last couple of weeks. do we know what the plan is going forward? what is the situation today? what is the composition of the protesters? we know it started as students, but then others from civil society and regular people have

joined. if you could give us an idea of who they are, that would be helpful. in valencia, an important , the face ofuela the people in those pictures marching in the streets changed to a more focal -- focused protest. the students continue to show their willingness to go out and the people in general continue to show their willingness to protest. the leaders of the opposition, and given the facts, are trying to refocus or rechannel the way these protests are being held.

anotherng for [indiscernible] is flattery. we are trying to move the energies of the people to a more organized, issued a mandating message of hered test. from theo stay away claim that we are somehow participating in the violence, the violence has spiraled. we are going to see, i think, over the next few days, a to another situation that is going to be more focused

and organized, and i hope it will, form of manifestation. there is always the government trying to provoke something different. so, there are a lot of things triggerjust to reactions from certain sectors callingty, and we are everyone in venezuela to stay away from temptation, stay away .rom publication -- provocation the issue of closing streets concern neighborhoods are creating more problems for our own people then to the government. they are dealing with security and governance issues. we want to show the government how angry we are with them.

[indiscernible] is going to be a transformational process in this , and it is not going to stop because these are organic manifestations. i would say that's until and unless the government is willing commit that they want to to serious dialogue and to toious immune occasion, and show some signs of institutional guarantees for the opposition, .his is going to continue these are three or four events that we have to keep an eye on.

these have consistently been on the table as dialogue issues. a number of supreme court justices have already had their mandates expire. there need to be hearings in congress with a qualified majority to decimate -- designate new members of the supreme court. of course, the government does have a way, and less they keep impeaching immunity and taking to jail our congress people, which they continue to do, one is threatened by , unlessent as we speak we continue to narrow our numbers through that process, they do not have the tools they need to accumulate to designate a justice.

authorities have their mandates expired and need to be redesignated. there is only one way that could somene to ensure democratic urine tees to the opposition, and what we are democratic- guarantees to the opposition, and what we are saying is to .ave designation the one in office right now is a deputy. keye are three institutional figures that we whenever and designate and createtwo thirds

a balance in institutions. this is not about the opposition asking the president to leave. this is very important, and i want to convey this message. there not demanding president to leave. we have challenged his election, and we expect that to be decided at some point. we are not doing anything , andde of the constitution to stay within the framework of the constitution. it is very interesting that we are seeing the opposition embracing the constitution every day more and more. and we see them detaching from

the constitution. they always claim we are working on the side of the constitution. there is a very important historical event that you all need to keep in your minds to understand the nature of the mood and where the mood is headed. important political victory was the day we won the referendum to reform the constitution. in hisated chavez attempt to reform the constitution. until that day, that constitution was approved by them and with their votes. the opposition rallied in the and said no, we did not want that constitution. was from 1999 until 2006 or a nationale had

referendum to reform the constitution that we said we did not want that constitution. we now say we won that constitution. that was the day in which that 100% of the people of venezuela took in their hands the constitution that was given by shabbos himself. so who is betraying the legacy? if the legacy is embodied in that constitution, who is betraying the legacy, because we embrace that constitution and we thatto do it through constitution, not outside of the constitution. we have said once, twice, and a million times that what is good for all of us is the constitution of the republic of venezuela. and we want to make that very that the manifestations cannot be about anything different than enforcing the

rule of constitutional law in venezuela. >> i know there were a couple other hands up. maybe we could take several questions at once. thank you. i used to be in the state department myself. i want to ask something that is a little bit of a challenging question that goes a little bit to what you are talking about unconstitutionality. it is two parts. first of all, i'm very curious maduro became when there is a far more ruthless, effective politician than maduro who really is quite helpless. he was rather hapless about the things that happen to him. i wonder why that happened. i think it might be the cuban

situation. i don't know. from the point of view of the opposition, and i heard it here today through your words, it has always been about looking to the next referendum, the next election, the next point of where there might be a reflection or a decision, but i have never seen any indication of a kind of program or philosophy of government or philosophy of nations coming from the opposition. if the achilles' heel of the government coming upon us is economic and financial collapse, why are you not preparing, for example nationalists? i see no nationalists saying cubans are taking all of our .oney it is all of this sort of

two ortic, episodic, three major concepts. you could try to pry off some of the poor people who are very loyal to shabbos. they may be poor but they are also venezuela and very proud of the nation. >> thank you. answer, we have a few other questions. we are going to take several of the time. hi, just to sort of amplify, first of all, is there any sign this particular point, especially with the leadership taking the country over a financial cliff? are we seeing any sort of re?cking thei obviously, the people in the

streets will follow the higher orders. it'sdly, it sounds like the police and the national guard. is the army moving in? you saw a picture of the air force that showed a picture of the air force trying to scare people. is the army getting engaged. that is always a critical turning point. you probably have a heckuva day coming up. if i remember, march 5 will be the anniversary of the death of which, i presume the regime will want to take to the streets and have something really big plant. -- planned. >> i would ask you please to limit your responses. we have to give up the room.

like to sayly would that the only people who have to leave venezuela is the cubans. not anybody else. in this dialogue that has to start has to start in venezuela. the key to getting the cubans of this clays where they -- theelong best place key to getting the cubans out of this place they don't belong is if you hold visas or go after practices. they will understand. that is the only way. nationalism, i don't think venezuelans are nationalistic. i think they are afraid. years,, mind you, for 40 there was always imperfections

in democratic society. there was debate. there was consensus building. there was aggregation of interests and solution of conflicts. neither thek opposition or anybody in that this isught going to evolve in this way, and they were completely and anpared to fight authoritarian regime, and they are still unprepared. are learning, but they are learning at a very high cost. that is not a thing you learn through theory. you have to practice. in the practice has begun to be very very dear because of their pain. helps then't think it fact that -- because of the cultural heritage and the way the economy has always functioned in venezuela, which, a spanish, comes from

heritage, whereby whatever wealth there is in the underground, it belongs to the state, the crown, the government all people they come from this tradition are very good at extracting rent, but they are not good at creating value. the only thing that really liberates you from the state is when you create value. so, otherwise, you have societies like you have seen at the lastenezuela over 15 years. oppressive. you are going to have your interests intertwine somehow with the people who are in the venezuelan state, and you have

seen what they are learning. they're learning there is nothing else left. the only thing left is oil, and the only ones that want the oil desperately are the cubans. thoughts. give some about the program. these, i wantay everybody in the audience to , you have trees of apples and trees of oranges and you cannot ask oranges to grow from the apple tree. put together a coalition of different forces, extreme left movement the

ofticipated to the very end the movement in venezuela. the last resistance paul of the 1960's to right-wing organizations. to demand, bet thatonstitution, more than aspect of the program. we do it with diversity of opinion. if you jump into venezuela.org, there are hundreds of documents that show the variety that all the political parties have. we have communicated that to the country in a way that has allowed us to escalate from 37% in 2006n the election

to 50%, to say, to be honest, i mean, you can go out of this room and say well, i don't agree with this that he won the election. but you have to agree that it was a 50-50 election. [indiscernible] us, it is also a learning we also adaptse the fight and focused the fight. for instance, in the electoral front, we learned every election more and more on how to make it for them more difficult, more complex, to use fraud. in the recall election, we did

not have -- if you asked me, did you win the recall referendum against hugo chavez, i would have to say i think we didn't, but i don't have any way to tell haveecause we did not witnesses or electoral control on 90% or 80% of our territory. in this last election, the government had in the april 14 election, the government had to take out a witness i 4:00 p.m. in 2000 polling stations by force. they used force to get them out of the polling stations when they were bringing people to vote for what they called assisted voting. the legislation says you must assist somebody who is blind, somebody who is old. they assisted hundreds of people and of 5:00 said you have not voted, you are a beneficiary of

this program, come vote. every time we go through this, we develop technology, we develop -- a few months ago, we went to lima. assembly we put together every year. many organizations go, we always go. i met people from a significant number of countries. haveall said, we don't something for the mood. let's demand something for the mood. as i said, apples to apples and orange tree to orange tree. this is exactly what we have ofn saying in the evolution

this focus. we have to understand that among have000 conflicts that taken place in the country in 2013, roughly 58% are [indiscernible] driven demands and complex. it is not the same message for aseone in this march today the message of someone who once or maybe in power or voted in munro and is demanding that his house, that was supposed to be delivered to him last month, is becauseg constructed there is not a break in the land. he is to mandating his house. we need todo that? develop a strategy and a message that does not create the short circuit of a message because we

need to bring a landslide to the side. veryis why the mood is carefully working through the only measure that we have as an sittingion, which is people around the table and a finding that strategy in a situation where we do not have a episode -- elect orel episode in the next few months. the mood is trying to adapt to this new reality. somebody mentioned [indiscernible] issue,constitutional kumbaya had to be the transitional president for a few days. the only question was whether middle row could be the sitting president. they violated the constitution in many ways.

that is part of the point we made to the international authorities before we were rejected by the supreme court. i know him very well. i was a congressman and he was a governor when i was in congress after my governor lost the election. i had to sit with him because i was a representative of the .ational assembly i know the man. i have been in a room like this talking to the man. i was in congress with him for five years. he was a member of an initiative i put together on reconstitution efforts. i know him well. but that tension -- and i need , but that tension does not get us to lose our

focus. if they are fighting and they are together, we have to focus regardless of that fact in our own unity. can achievehing we if we, banking on their division, do not preserve our unity. there is no way we can defeat the people if we do not preserve the unity of our opposition. interests keepat them together and interests will split them. but the only thing they need to be certain of is that if they are split, we are united, and that is where we are. that is our platform. demand apples for the apple tree. demand origins to the orange tree. we are not the orange tree. we aren't the apple tree.

>> i think that will have to be the final comment from and excellent panel and an excellent session. thing?i say one more >> than that will have to be the next-to-last comment. >> i know they are here, friends and members of staff of congress. i have heard that there is perhaps an initiative to curtail sales to venezuela. that would increase the pain of venezuelan people. the people who follow them are aggression from the united states and we are going to have the same story over and over again which is that this policy does not work and it is going to work to the detriment of the united states and to the people of venezuela. that is a very bad idea.

and i think it should not even be considered. >> on the subject of what specific strategies could be taken by the international community, i think it is important to have that discussion, and we may even have the diversity of views on that, which is part of what democracy is all about, but what i think we do not have any diversity of views on are the facts, and the facts that are taking place in venezuela which is the reason we are gathered today is a situation of crisis in which spontaneously, a large and growing number of peaceful venezuelan students, joined now by average citizens throughout the country are daily protesting, at great risk to themselves, because they possess no arms, they are doing this in a peaceful manner, and yet there have been deaths, injuries, there are currently a number of

people still in prison. there are people unaccounted for. there are official numbers and estimates unofficially that these would be much larger than what they are. we do not know today with the end result of these protests are going to be. we of course hope that this will result in a positive process in , but frankly, i have to say that given the track record of the venezuelan government, the fact that they paid lip service to the thesement, i think actions have shown something else. it seems to me that something else we can all agree on is that the role of people of goodwill around the world, the role of governments, is to support them and ensure that the principles of democracy and the american charter signed by every single except in the hemisphere

for cuba, including venezuela, are respected. i think that is really the most andrtant point right now, this is a crossroads for venezuela, of course. we do here and no foreign government will determine the destiny of venezuela. that is for venezuela to decide, but we hope they do so in an atmosphere of respect and peace, listening to all the different perspectives. i think that is what we have to continue to do, and call on the international community to keep an eye on what takes place. thank you all for being here, on aaking the time to come rainy friday. please join me in thanking our excellent panelists. [applause]

and especially thanks to the heritage foundation. if you've any closing remarks you want to offer. >> i would just like to thank you all for coming out today. i urge you to continue following the situation in venezuela. i don't think we have seen the worst of it. the situation is still unraveling, and it is definitely something more people need to pay attention to. on that note, have a great weekend. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

>> the beauty of america is that in this country we have the ability to write the script of our own life. we are, in a sense, in the driving seat of our own future. and the biggest decisions in life are made by us. america creates a sense of possibility, and out of that, you can become an activist, a offunity organizer, living the great capitalist explosion of wealth that you did not even strongmenick so many -- strong men have made assertions you have to take on astonishing.e

'se is the idea that america great contribution is wealth creation. on fact at all. 90% of the residents who lived here were murdered. that is a part of it to. about america? tonight at 8:00 on c-span. you aight, we will show town hall meeting with new jersey governor chris christie speaking on a range of topics, including federal funding for hurricane sandy recovery efforts. he was asked about his relationship with bruce springsteen. here is a look. >> when you go home tonight, alld you please destroy

your bruce springsteen cds? he is not a friend of yours, governor. >> the cds could be destroyed. i have it all on my iphone now. yak -- this?s first of all, thank you for your kind words at the top. secondly, i don't think i have ever been under the illusion that as a bruce fan of his music that that meant he and i were necessarily simpatico on a number of other issues. so, there are lots of people in new jersey who do things to make us proud. that makeay do things us proud and other things we disagree with.

i have had this conversation with a lot of different people, especially folks in the arts, over time that i have been governor. but what i can tell you is despite the fact that you might be right, although, as a guy who has been to 130 two bruce springsteen concerts -- listen. i don't do drugs. i don't drink. this is all i've got. i still live in hope that someday he is going to wake up goodo, you know, he is a guy. we can be friends. he told me we were friends a year and a half ago. but i live in hope of that. think we geti attached to certain people as youngsters, which i did, it's hard to let that go. are probably giving the wise, sage counsel that i should accept, but my heart keeps telling me not to. so, thank you very much.

>> you can watch the entire town hall meeting with new jersey governor chris christie tonight starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern right here on c-span. on the next "washington journal" james sherk of the heritage foundation and david matlin for the center for american progress will talk about the proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. then emily miller of the washington times looks a gun ownership in america. following that, even baird of the federal wildlife tracking sales iniscusses ivory the u.s.. plus, we will take your phone calls, facebook comments and tweets. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. journal,"washington bethesda,ve in

maryland. over the next two hours, we will show you our discussions with four of the institute's directors, including the national institute of child and human health development, and the institute of arthritis, muscular, skeletal and skin diseases. we begin with the director of the national institute of neurological disorders and stroke. host: 31 thousand people work at the national institutes of health. there are seven separate institutes. their budget is about 31 billion dollars a year. they are located in bethesda, maryland, just outside the washington, d.c. borders, and story landis, is the director of the national institute of neurological disorders and stroke. what is a neurological disorder? >> there are many neurological

disorders. that is a disorder that affects the brain or the spinal cord. for example, stroke is the fourth leading cause of death and disability in this country. parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder that affects movement and cognition. multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, those are the common ones, and then a whole host of rare disorders. lou gehrig's disease, spinal aggregate,rophy, in there are somewhere between 300-600 neurological disorders. it depends on whether you are a lump or to use the larger number, or a splitter -- a lump or will give you the smaller number or the splitter will give you the larger number. in the u.s.people suffer from a neurological disease? guest: many. stroke, as i said, is the force

most common -- is the fourth most common disease. it is a very large number. if you put together all the brain disorders, including mental illness, drug addiction, neurological disorders, it is the largest source of int: what kind of progress the last 30 years have we made in this country on strokes? extraordinarye progress. the rates of strokes have significantly decreased. we now have treatments where if you have an acute stroke, it can get theu -- if you right treatment, there is a one and three chance -- one in three chance he will leave the hospital with no consequence from that stroke. the decrease in incidence is due

to the recognition of the same factors we recognize for heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, responsible for causing strokes, and just as people have recognized we can incidence ofthe heart disease has gone down, and so has the incident of stroke. for your institute, will what is your budget? our budget used to be 30.9 the entire's. we have regained about half of it after the sequester. host: what is your outlook? guest: we have seen the president's budget. we hope for additional increases. we have scientific opportunities to acknowledge causes and

develop treatment has never been better. excellent signs that we could fund to make roberts. are there signs that some of these neurological disorders, are they inherited? guest: yes, indeed. i would make distinctions between the different diseases. one of the most exciting doesn't -- advances in parkinson's disease is the wreck mission -- that it has ation genetic basis. there are a number of gene mutations that have been shown to cause parkinson's disease. there are a number of genes which have been shown to increase your risk for getting parkinson's disease. , recognitionf als

that there are genes that can cause it and genes that can increase your risk factors. for multiple sclerosis, we do not have any genes that we know of that can cause the disease, but people have begun to describe factors that increase your risk for getting it. host: you are not a medical doctor, is that right? i am a phd with a degree in developmental marrow biology. host: what does that mean? when i had a research laboratory, what i was interested in understanding is how, during development, the then forms and all of appropriate connections responsible for brain function actually get made. here's a story by jim walsh, out of the minneapolis star tribune. a pacemaker like device offering hope for epilepsy patients.

all were involved in the critical -- the medical trials for the device. they enrolled the highest number of patients in these trials. the system was approved for commercial availability in the united states. it talks about how the system developed and how it is being used. 's role when it comes to developing something like this and working with the fda? guest: i should back up a little bit. has multiple causes. for about two thirds of patients, the seizures can be controlled either by medication or by surgery. for about a third of the patients, the current treatments do not work.

we have been thinking about alternative strategies for treating patients that do not respond to drugs or surgical ablation. what we did was to support recorded fromwho areas of the brain to determine where the seizure would start and develop algorithms to detect when a seizure would begin. that was one set of studies. a second step the studies learn how you can stop a seizure before they started. if you put those things together, you have a device, neuropace, that allows you to detect when a seizure might begin and gives brain stimulation before it really gets started. we supported everything that went into that device. partnership, we provided funding to get the

device made. role in thecritical development of that device. host: when it comes to working with the fda on approval processes, is that something the nih institutes do? guest: we work closely with the fda to understand what the andoval processes will be think about helping the people who develop drugs or devices to understand what kinds of evidence they will have to to bring to the fda to bring up -- to get approval. phone numbers are on the screen divided by region. you can see the numbers there. we heard a lot about concussions during football season.

website, the nih and nfl tackle concussion research. what are you doing? guest: we have a partnership through the foundation with nih with the football league that will allow us to get a much better understanding of how repeated, mild concussions actually gives rise to pathological changes in the brain. that, over time accumulates and can result in behavioral disturbances and dementia. at two funded a project institutions. the will be looking at neuropathological changes that occur in football players and soldiers with evidence of detections over time, to the brain changes. the goal would be to move from looking at autopsy brains,

brains of people who have died, to developing strategies to actually diagnose the effects of concussions in living people. that is one of the projects. your researchof done on the campus in bethesda? guest: yes. we have a project that is joint and the navy hospital across the street. it is looking at traumatic brain injury -- injury in civilians. host: let's take some calls and tweets. we will begin with a tweet from james. pop that aspirin the second you feel funny. what is your reaction to that? guest: i am not a physician.

the institute has worked hard with the american heart association to educate people about the signs of stroke and if you feel weakness on one side or have difficulty talking. there are seven signs you are supposed to look for. what we would recommend is that you actually go to an emergency room as quickly as possible so that you can be diagnosed and treated by a stroke specialist. >> what the current treatments for strokes, and what are the symptoms? the most common cause of stroke is a clot in a blood vessel that deprives a part of the brain of oxygen and nutrients. a consequence,

brain cells begin to die. a point where it is salvageable. if it happens quickly enough, within three hours or even 4.5 hours, you can prevent cell death. that is the first thing you want to do. we are interested in figuring out how you could protect brain cells from dying for a longer period of time. that is a major area of research. if you do not treat the stroke completely, we are interested how we can help people recover as much function as possible.

story landis is the director. susan is calling from north richland hills, texas. is not why called in. what i wanted to mention was the concussions. kidse been encouraging my and grandkids not to let their children play football. what i called about was about a asr and a half ago, i got up usual, early saturday morning. go get my coffee and something popped in my right eye. that i cannot see out of that i and i found out later that had i been able to get somewhere they might have been able to save the site. i ended up in the emergency room

and they did a cat scan and so forth. and euros ahey minute left eye. an aneurysm in the left eye. i did a coil behind the left eye. it has changed my life. i am functioning. it has been an interesting experience. guest: i am glad they were able to detect the aneurysm and the other eye. we go back to the question of kids playing football. i think there is significant that mildn now concussions should be and can be prevented. many football programs, particularly in junior high and

high school and in college are beginning to limit the amount of full contact play that happens in practice. there is much more attention to whether a player may have received a mild concussion and removing them from play and making sure they are out of play for a week or two weeks or longer until recovery has been complete. one of the problems as we do not have good ways of detecting a mild concussion. all decisions are made based on self-reports of confusion, dizziness, headaches, nausea. nih is trying to develop more effective ways of knowing when a child or young adult or an adult football player has suffered a concussion. host: there is a new project

that you are working on. what is that? guest: we have methods that allow us to image the human brain, the living human brain. see tracks, develop a wiring diagram. we can also see what parts of the brain are active in a human brain in a particular activity. two we have done is to fund institutions to create a database with 1200 human connect ions. this data will be available to any investigator to ask interesting and important questions. the questions coming up are the brains of of identical twins identical.

one of the most important weervations here is that have developed the tools that allow us to make these maps of the human brain, and having better tools will out west to learn even more -- having better tools will allow us to learn even more. this is to give us tools that will help us understand how the brain works, to actually translate the language of the brain at the speed of thought. a very exciting initiative. we are looking forward to additional advances that will make a difference, not only for understanding normal function,

but for helping us to think about disease. host: story landis has been the director of national institute of neurological disorders & since 2003. she joined the institute in 1995. does the u.s. government earn any money by licensing technology that is developed in nih laboratories or by nih research contractors? if an investigator in our intramural program, an investigator who is on the nih campus, develops and patents something, then that investigator and the nih will get funds if it is licensed. patentst get funds from and things that are developed at the university. 9/10 of our money goes out to universities and medical schools across the whole country.

every state has nih funding. that case, the investigator and the university hold the orent and they get royalties income from their discoveries. host: joe, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i was wondering, does your agency do any investigation into chiropractic manipulation injuries? the a survivor, one of luckiest people alive. we talked about many kinds of stroke, blood pressure, so on and so forth, but nobody talks about this. hope, somewhere along the line, you will open your chapter up and investigate that. many people are injured by chiropractors and their neck manipulation.

chiropractic manipulation way that kind of dissection can a cure. that is a topic that we investigate, no matter what the cause is. itare interested in why occurs and what are the best treatments for that. there is another part of the study complementary and alternative practices like chiropractor he. -- they would be the group that would look at how you can make .ure the use of that how many studies is the

nih doing to study the treatment of brain disorders and seizures using medical cannabis? been: recently, there has a developed evidence that particular derivatives of be effectivemaybe in sees -- treating seizures. one of the goals -- most of these are anecdotes. they are not in a real, clinical trial. that would give you compelling evidence for the use. we are considering whether or not that time to trial should be something we should fund. host: does the nih track incidence of stroke by region? are there pockets where it is significantly higher? studies like that are

through the center for disease control. nds has funded studies that look at stroke in the -- incidents. that tracks incidents across the country. it has enrolled 30,000 people. it is clear, even before that there's something called the stroke belt which runs through the south. is buckle of the belt georgia, south carolina, north carolina. learning why there is a stroke belt. are born in the stroke belt, you will take that higher risk with you when you move someplace else. lots of interesting data coming out of that study.

host: why is there a stroke belt? have you discovered that? diet: it has to do with and a number of aspects of behavior of people who live in that belt. ares also clear that there differences in risk of stroke. stroke is one of the diseases where there is the most asperity -- mostcaucasians disparity between caucasians, african americans, and hispanics. we are trying to figure out why those disparities exist and are trying to develop strategies for reducing them. one of the most significant is highwe believe blood pressure, hypertension.

which of those groups have higher stroke rates? guest: african-americans have a much higher stroke rate than caucasians and hispanics have a slightly reduced from african-americans, but much higher than caucasians. collins,n, tennessee texas. -- is shut down due to a lawsuit. host: what is 23 and me? testing through google. it is shut down right now due to a medical lawsuit. i was wondering what she can do to get that resolved.

second question is, why is there a four-hour test to determine if deepson is able to get brain stimulation? it is a four-hour test to determine if you have dementia or not. there are tests that 100% of the people have failed and i have read the articles. why would you require a person to do a dementia test to get deep brain stimulation? is this something you're familiar with? ,uest: deep brain stimulation if you have parkinson's disease, a movement disorder, we have excellent ways to treat the symptoms of parkinson's disease. in the early stages of the disease, this is by replacing a narrow transmitter, which is lost is a particular population in ourselves do. a compound that

will replace that lost signal. treatment with a dopamine replacement does not work any longer, it is a benefit for movement disorders, but it is of for the cognitive difficulties that occur in the later stages of parkinson's disease. there would be no reason to give a patient who was having cognitive problems in parkinson's deep brain stimulation. it would not be a benefit. and there is simply no treatment now for using deep brain stimulation for other types of dementia like alzheimer's or frontal temporal dementia. it is a way of making sure the patients that won't benefit from

deep brain stimulation are not given it. are you familiar with this 23 --host: are you familiar with this 23 and me company? aest: 23 and me will give you list of a broad range of disorders. you send in a scraping of your cheek and they do a dna analysis. the concern is that you are not will not- a position be helping you understand what the results of that dna testing -- a physician will not be helping you understand what that result of the dna testing is. you cannot put it into perspective. people mayncern that not be able to interpret the data that they are getting from 23 and me without discussing that with a physician.

this is not an nih issue. this is an fda issue. host: there is another trend where people get preventive mris , or early mris, just to see where their body is and where it stands. do you think that is a good idea? guest: i would not want to offer an opinion on that. host: how closely does your institute work with mental health and aging institute? guest: we work extremely close -- institute? guest: we work extremely closely with them. the one that the institute is primarily responsible for, but we find a lot of the early research. we work with them to decide which ones we will pursue and which ones they will pursue. in the case of mental health, there are some diseases like tourette's where we both fund

research and we want to make sure that we are doing, luminary things and not overlapping things. nihof the institute at which fund neuroscience research are part of something called the brain blueprint. we have a small pot of money that people have contributed for major projects and one of those projects, for example, is the human brain can and don't -- connectome project that i just mentioned and another is ways to get new treatments for brain disorders. host: and finally, story landis, jd letting tweets in wondering about the neuron brain mapping that mrs. landis was talking about earlier. is there open source software for that? there is open-source source software for neuroscientist to use to analyze neuroimaging data.

there is also an open source software for neuroscientist to use to understand the behavior of small groups of nerve cells. and a big part of the brain initiative will be not only developing tools that will allow us to understand brain function theer, but also computational tools that will be needed to interpret those data. the: story landis is director of the neurological orders and stroke institute, at the national institutes of health. thank you very much. i hope you can come back sometime and talk with our viewers again. we are talking with several other directors this morning. coming up next is dr. alan guttmacher, the director of national institute of child health and human development. as soon as we get him seated out at nih, we will beginning to talk -- we will begin talking to him and take your calls.

in the meantime, we will take some calls. josh in indianapolis, good morning to you. caller: good morning. guestwe don't have a right now, but if you have a comment you would like to make. original callmy was a question, but my general comment would be, my wife was diagnosed with ms years back. there were some strong drugs and some of which were hard to get off of, because they didn't -- she didn't like the way they made her feel. my question is about marijuana. i hear about it in different parts of the country and how it seems to help people. option --, it not an it is not an option. i don't know if it would help her, and i've been afraid, because it's illegal and i didn't want to be involved in criminal activity. have you heard reports or seen somewhere that marijuana

helps ms patients? yeah, we did various researches on our own, because the only options we had were things like klonopin and valium and ssri inhibitors, which is the equivalent of prozac, you know, really strong things. the thing that kept coming up in our research was that marijuana seems to help people with the symptoms, because there is a lot of pain involved when you have a flareup. that was one of the things where people get those medical marijuana cards for it in places where it is available. host: and it's not available in indiana? no, it's not available and it's a crime. i would have to go somewhere and we would have to move. when you're a guy like me, you don't want to be involved in stuff like that any kind of your taste you, because you wonder if it's something that could help. visit a lot of propaganda that you are hearing from around the country? --it actually available

doesn't actually help and it's just not available because of the stigma around it? i'm just confused because in indiana we cannot even have access to it and i'm wondering if it would help or not. host: have you ever reached out to nih or look at the website for research or anything? no, i've done a lot of web searches where you google all over the place. i found area resources that said marijuana was bad. i don't know if that came from the nih or not. after listening with this conversation -- to this conversation with the director, i might go there. understand that medical marijuana dispensaries are even available in washington, d.c., so it even says something to the rest the nation if the feds are saying it's ok to get marijuana or miracle -- medical -- to get marijuana for medical reasons.

that is josh in indianapolis. thanks for calling in. there are 27 institute at the national institutes of health. $31 billion is their budget. 31,000 employees and another one of the directors is dr. alan guttmacher, the director of the institute of child health and development. dr. guttmacher, thank you for joining us. what are some of the issues that your institute looks at? guest: we look at a broad swath of issues, really. oh -- gives away that we are very interested in child health, and we are also interested in physical health, but also intellectual development and cognitive development, but also an outgrowth of our original interest in children's health with maternal health and a lot of women's health issues and gynecologic health issues. we are particularly risk -- interested in reproductive

health and biology. and another area we are particularly interested in is rehabilitation medicine. host: what is one of your current focuses? guest: we have a number of them. that we are intensifying is to see what we can do to prevent preterm birth, premature birth. the reason for that is that it continues to be a huge problem both in the united states and globally. we have been working on this and doing research on it for years, both in terms of prevention and also better treatment for those kids who were born prematurely. and we have made real inroads with that, but there are still a long way to go, both in figuring out the causes of preterm birth so we can do better at preventing it, but also in treating kids born prematurely, so that they will have fewer health and mental consequences for being born early. whatat extent --host:

advances have been made in recent years and what are some of the nih contributions to that? guest: if you go a little bit longer than 20 years back at about the same time that our institute was created -- we were born as an institute in 1962 when president kennedy signed an act creating our institute in an interesting submission of traditional presidential multitasking. he signed that on the same day as day three of the human missile crisis, the same day that the joint chiefs were asking whether to bomb cuba. he took it upon himself to create our institute. only a couple of months before that, he had had a son who was born at 34 and a half weeks, that is about five and a half weeks early. and he lived only for two days. the presidentn of of the united states that lived for only two days.

today, a child born at 34 and a half weeks would have overwhelming odds of not only surviving, but thriving and doing well. it is those kind of improvements -- real improvements because of research. back when kennedy's baby was born, we did not have the knowledge of biology that we do today. one thing we would like to do is drive down the rate of preterm birth in the united states. we do not stack up so well compared to a number of other developed come -- countries in terms of preventing preterm earth. we have made inroads in the last for five years, but we need to be doing a better job of that as well. host: what is the budget for child health and human development? guest: our budget is about one and one third billion dollars a year -- $1.3 billion a year. where do your research

dollars go? majority go all over the country and to some degree, all over the world, but really mostly in the united states. 80% of our budget goes to what we call extramural investigators, investigators in academic institutions and also private companies and other types of instant plate -- other types of institutions around the country. have a research budget here at our intramural program where we have over 1000 scientists, technicians, and other folks working on various scientific problems here at the nih. has been guttmacher with the nih since 1999, originally coming to work on the human genome research project. why is the official name of your institute the unit kennedy shriver? -- the eunice kennedy shriver? wast: as i mentioned, it created by kennedy in 1962. that is because a couple of

people effectively lobbied a couple of years leading up to that. one of them was bob cook, the head of pediatrics at johns hopkins in baltimore. he had a long-term career as a researcher in mental retardation, what today we would call intellectual development to disabilities. in doing that research, he had become quite well acquainted with a woman you use own family had been -- a woman whose own family had been touched by issues of mental retardation and that was eunice kennedy shriver. the two of them as a team spoke to many folks in congress and in the nation. there is an advantage if you want to lobby for something in washington to have your brother be the sitting president of the united states. eunice's work was instrumental in creating the nih and in those days it really focused on the issues of developmental disabilities.

also child element in general. host: recent studies by your institute, one in eight u.s. children obese by kindergarten. guest: i think your fund -- room purring -- i think you are referring to a study that we from atlanta.ch what they did was they looked at longitudinal studies conducted by the government, primarily conducted by the department of education, though nih has been a contributor for years. a launch a student -- longitudinal study of kids for years. they analyzed the data from the study and noticed a couple of interesting things. one of them was, if a child was overweight in kindergarten, they had a one in three chance of obese, even more overweight by the time they were in eighth grade.

a four-time greater chance than other kindergartners who were at normal weight of that happening. the other thing we noticed that was very interesting was that there was very little change in the kids weight status after they reached the age of 11. by the time they reached 11, they sort of self determined whether they were going to be normal weight, overweight, or obese, and this seemed to last for a long time after that. and we clearly know that kid to our obese in adolescents have a much greater risk of various kinds of health consequences in adulthood. us toe ways, it helps think about obesity almost the way we think about cigarettes. it's the kind of thing that once again instituted, it's very hard to stop. it's possible. if you are obese, you can actually gain normal weight, but it is very difficult to do, just as once you start smoking cigarettes, you can stop but it is very difficult to do. we probably need to increase our efforts to prevent, just as we do with cigarettes, prevent kids

from becoming obese, and doing it at a very early age, because to show now have data that as early as kindergarten this pattern seems to be set, and we have some suspicion that it is even before that. host: the numbers are on the screen. if you would like to talk to dr. alan guttmacher, director of child development and human development at the national institutes of health. we will begin with lane in ohio. theer: i want to make comment that my husband was a whennt at nah -- nih back dr. devito was the director, i 1964-65.y in i just wanted to tell them thank you so much. he was given less than six months when he went in. he had hodgkin's and was on chemotherapy at the time.

die.gave him six months to he was 29 and he did not die until he was 61 and he was cancer free when he did die. host: what was the process? what year was this approximately? caller: about 19641965. host: the nih was pretty young 1964, 1965.bout host: the nih was pretty young then. caller: are you familiar with dr. devito? guest: what she is talking about is wonderful to hear. we had something called the nih clinical center, which is one of the world's largest research hospitals. you can only be a patient of this hospital if you're on a research protocol. and it continues to this day to offer hope to patients who may not have it other places. from all overs

the united states. it does a wonderful job. i can tell you myself i happen to be a cancer patient on a protocol at the nih clinical center myself. i can well appreciate lynn's is a story that we repeat every day here at the nih. host: dr. guttmacher, you are currently a cancer patient? i am, and i get my cancer research protocol there. i know it has been good for me. it makes me feel good, because i know in doing this, i've created a research legacy myself. i've contributed to a study of an experimental drug that was just approved by the fda last month for more general loose -- general use for folks with leukemia, like i have. it has been wonderful and has helped me, but in doing this research i like to think it has helped other people as well. host: when it comes to something like leukemia, which is maybe a little bit outside your area, but child leukemia i know is a disease that is pretty

how do you work with the private organizations and other hospitals and the fda ?o coordinate leukemia research or is it not coordinated? guest: it is very coordinated. it is very important that it be cord needed. leukemia is a rare disease, but among childhood it is quite common. for kids born in the 1960's or 70's it was almost a death sentence. the chance of dying from it very quickly was well over 80%. we have reverse those numbers now, so the chance of dying from it is well less than 20%. that is because of research, but also coordination. for instance, working with private industry. nih does not manufacture drugs. what we do is the very important fundamental research first to come up with drug targets, ideas of where in this complex

biological mechanism we can create any cancer, leukemia in this situation, and where are the places we might be able to attack to really try to do something effective and treat the cancer. the fundamental research and as he gets closer to application, very often there is a coordinated handoff to private industry so they can actually develop the drug and help pay for the testing of the drugs, which is quite expensive. and then once it is developed, make those available to people. aware of the national institutes of health, so part of it is developing products based upon those ideas that else people. we work very closely with the fda. for instance, the drug that i just mentioned, it is an fda approval process that it had to go through. we are trying to work closely at the nih with the fda to try to get our different processes in

sync as much as we can to make our research as effective and rapid as possible, while still looking at questions of patient safety. host: stan is calling in from atlanta. you are on the "washington journal" with dr. alan guttmacher. caller: good morning. i have two questions. one is just the funding of the nih for the benefit of the public. there is a lot of money spent early on to investigate. does the benefit to does the public the extent that private organizations tend to? the second question is concerning children. early on, does that -- do health protocols maintain the quality as opposed to being

exposed to soda commercials that really take down the health due to lack of nutrition or missing elements in your food? host: thank you, sir. dr. guttmacher. guest: i think you bring up a couple of good points. agency.ike any federal we received our budget each year. the administration suggests a budget and the congress debates that budget in both the house and the senate. they come to agreement and come up with a budget and the president signed that bill. that is how we get the budget. does it help people? i think if you look at the advances in help -- health over the last century, however you want to look at it, they have been dramatic. we live longer and healthier lives, and a lot of that comes medical research. nih is a primary funder of biological research not just in the united states, but in the world. we have an impact on health

hearing home, and globally it is very effective as well. it is not the major reason for our existence, but it is a form of soft diplomacy. there are many folks around the world that have think the u.s. for the ways we have improved their health. it is thing clearly is that the biomedical sector is such an important driver for the american economy. we provide lots of jobs throughout the country. again, we don't exist primarily to help the economy, but we certainly do that. what we exist primarily to do is to do the kind of research that really improves health. i can tell you as the director, we -- when we decide what kinds of things to fund, one of the foremost considerations in our minds is what impact this might have on the public health. it is -- is it something interesting to know or will this knowledge improve people's health? we certainly focus on that. and leading into your second question, one of the nice things is we are not a

disease institute. we are focused on normal health and normal development and how we maintain that. yes, we are very aware, for instance, to talk about the specific point that you brought up, we have something called the ,edia smart youth campaign which works with kids around the country to help them to be able to interpret, deal with the bombardment of media messages and other things they get about health, some of which may not be such healthy messages. we really give tools to the kids to help interpret and understand those things so that they can make healthy choices in childhood. and we hope and have reason to believe they will be healthy choices that will stay with them regarding their health throughout their lives. host: curtis in georgia, good morning. caller: thanks for having your dust on. i want to -- your guest on. i just want to thank all of them

pediatric field. my wife was 5.5 month pregnant and we had to go through the counseling of them telling us about the chances of our child being born stillborn or being retarded and all of that. we went home that same night and we made the decision to go ahead with the pregnancy. we finally got to hold him after that month. he was born right at two pounds. we finally got to take him home. in the first graded tested him for the gifted -- grade they tested him for the gifted program. he and another person scored the

highest sat scores in the whole southeast state of georgia. what kind of medical care did he get when he was in the hospital for that first month when you could not hold him? i had a very good paying job that i've had for eight years and i would deliver all of the parts that night just so i could be at the hospital during the day. i watched him do many things. of course, i know nothing about the medical field. 24/seven.ere with him .- 24/7 it was like he was their baby. i couldn't touch him or do nothing, but just look at him. host: curtis, thank you for sharing. any response to that caller question mark guest: it is certainly a -- to that caller?

guest: it is a heartwarming story. these are specialized facilities all over the country that did not exist years ago, but today are giving effective care to lots of premature babies, babies born maybe at term, but have particularly severe health problems. there's a whole range of medicine, specialized therapy, medicine, all coming into play to care for these kids. some of them are born and don't do as well as curtis's son will stop some continue to need care, whether in terms of health problems or mental issues. we treat them all over the country with tons of benefits to tens of thousands of kids all throughout the year. there a direct

connection to nih work prior to some of that medical equipment getting out into the hospitals? guest: absolutely. nicu's a network of that do lots of research, some with quality of care to improve what they are doing and to see what kinds of best practices there are. we have a small business innovation research awards with development of a particular kind of reference -- respirators and other types of technology used in that setting. without knowing the details of curtis's son, i'm sure they benefited from nih research. host: if someone is concerned about their child right now and they wanted to contact the nih, what is the process they would go through you -- go through?

our website is chock full of information for parents and for others. they could put nichd in their search engine. that is probably the place to start. questions, further it can guide you. sometimes it might be the nih or possibly other kinds of organizations. iki even in the world of w and everything else, your own doctor is a place to go. the best place to start is with your pediatrician or family physician taking care of your child. if you have other questions, our website can be quite useful. host: the next call for dr. guttmacher is from california. caller: i think the dr. may have just answered some of my questions. 1968 and heorn in

was two months premature. school,ld in grammar the teachers inform me that he was having problems. i took him to two different psychiatrist that found him to be quite a delightful little boy and could not find anything wrong with him. but as he grew up, he was always , but heally inclined could not follow instructions very well and he could not hold a job. he has been with me all these years now. he is 46 years old. i guess, a lot of the questions and the things that the dr. has have answered my questions. mikael in alexandria, you're on the washington journal -- "washington journal." aller: i wanted to ask

question because i went on the website and they were talking about like a phosphate and ddt that will build up in the body. there was a study by a navy doctor that correlated the increase in dementia as well as alzheimer's. was,hen the other thing the food that is modified. usually, it is modified to be able to grow with more pesticides. i went to a place called whole foods. they say that 70% of the u.s. food is genetically modified, and canada there is a huge percentage also. can you address that russian mark -- can you address that? there are agents myanmar

meant which can be unhealthy. we fund a lot of -- there are agents in the environment which can be unhealthy. we fund a lot of research and our lead on those kinds of studies. fund a lot of research to find out what kinds of chemicals in the environment might be unhealthy, and which might be safe and good to have because and may help agriculturally other ways that are important. we fund a lot of research on that. the question about the link to various kinds of things to autism is something we are spending a lot of research to figure out. it does appear that the autism rates in the united states have been increasing, but we don't know what the agents are that might play a role. autism is almost like every other health condition where clearly, genes for averill and nongenetic factors play into the environment broadly. it's not just toxins in the air, but there could be other kinds

of things that have an influence on it. we are trying to figure out what the factors are that play a role there and we are making roads there, but we have a ways to go. in terms of genetically modified foods, there are reasons for people to discuss its impact on the agriculture, economy, and other kinds of things. in terms of its health impact, there has been no data whatsoever that show negative health impacts from genetically modified foods themselves. we continue to look at each -- at the issue. the one thing about the research is there always more questions to look at, etc. to think is no reason that genetically modified foods are a damage to your health. andr impact in the economy agriculturally is a different and more complex issue, i think. host: here is a tweet from american hero joe. there sure are.

there are questions ethical -- about allssues kinds of issues. there are all kinds of ethical issues about who gets to define the quality of life. what about the child's role in this? they are way too young to have an opinion. they are very complex issues. we fund research looking at these ethical issues because they are so complex and important to us, both as health care providers, but also important to all of us as a society. host: and finally, dr. guttmacher, if his name sounds a little bit familiar to you, quite a medical pedigree. who are some of your relatives that have been in the medical field? might be some proof that going into medicine is genetic and environmental, i suppose. both of my parents were and are physicians. my father died many years ago. my mother, i suspect is watching right now. they were both psychiatrist.

i am named for mike father's identical twin brother -- my father's identical twin brother. he was also a renowned dr. and he, in fact, delivered me. i have a very good uncle and a very good obstetrician, i'm proud to say. host: and he was one of the founders of planned parenthood, correct? guest: he was not one of the founders, but he was involved in a very active timeframe of planned parenthood back in the 1960's and 1970's. host: and your involvement in the jfk assassination in what way? guest: [laughs] .hat might be a bit misleading my father was involved in the lee harvey shooting by jack ruby.

he was the lead defense in determining whether he was fit to stand trial. you have thoroughly done your homework. host: we appreciate your time. guest: glad to be with you. dr. garying up next is gibbons, the director of the institute for heart, lungs, and blood. that is the next topic. we are live this morning at the national institutes of health, ,riginally founded in 1887 located in bethesda, maryland, just north of the district of columbia, 27 separate institutes, 31,000 employees, and $31 billion per year budget. as we get dr. gibbons seated, we will talk with maria in los angeles. no guest, but what is your comment? gone?: he is