captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: breaking from decades of secrecy, medicare unveiled what it pays individual doctors. and the data shows a tiny fraction of physicians each received millions in a single year. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill, also ahead this wednesday. a major flaw was found in a key tool for internet security, setting off alarm bells across the tech world. and exposing passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive user data. and we return to bangladesh, nearly a year after the factory collapse that killed more than a thousand people. to see what has and hasn't been done to make these workplaces

safer. >> for their part factory owners, complain that their international customers have talked about improving conditions but haven't been willing to pay for it >> woodruff: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs

station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: another school was engulfed by sudden violence today, when a teenager stabbed and slashed 19 students and a security guard in pennsylvania. it happened just minutes before classes began at franklin regional high, in murrysville, about 20 miles east of pittsburgh. the 16-year-old suspect was finally wrestled down. police did not release his identity, but did say he was armed with two knives. emergency officials said a fire alarm may have limited the casualties. >> we're teaching children in school now if they're in a hallways and they hear something going on to basically run out of the building. so pulling that fire alarm could have saved lives without a doubt to make people think there was something going on a to get out of the building.

one person's actions could have saved ten peoples lives or caused ten people not to be injured. >> ifill: several of the wounded were in critical condition, including one with a deep wound that narrowly missed his heart. >> ifill: at fort hood, texas today, the commander-in-chief and the troops remembered the victims of last week's mass shooting. they gathered at a somber ceremony that's become all too familiar. >> ifill: for the second time in five years, the nation's largest army base honored soldiers killed not in wars abroad, but by a gunman from within their own ranks. as before, president and mrs. obama were there. >> once more, soldiers who survived foreign war zones were struck down here at home where they're supposed to be safe. we still do not know exactly why. but we do know this, we must honor their lives not in word or talk, but in deed. and in truth.

>> ifill: the shooter, 34-year- old specialist ivan lopez, opened fire at the base last wednesday, after an argument over a leave request. today, helmets and boots marked the three soldiers who died: sergeants timothy owens, carlos lazaney-rodriguez and daniel ferguson. lopez also wounded 16 others before taking his own life. it was over in eight minutes, but the president said, the grief endures. >> i know that the men and soldiers they became-- their sense of service and their patriotism. so much of that came from you. you gave your sons to america, and just as you will honor them always, so too, will the nation that they served. >> ifill: today's service took place on the same site as in november 2009, when mr. obama last visited fort hood.

that was five days after major nidal hasan shot and killed 13 people, in the worst mass murder ever at an american military installation. now, as the community grieves again, leaders are left to ponder what else they can do. >> ifill: there was no talk today from the president or the army chief of new initiatives against such violence. instead, it was a day reserved for comforting words, amid the echoing refrains of mourning. >> ifill: the agents who guard the president have new rules about taking a drink. there was word today that the secret service has tightened its alcohol policy after a pair of embarrassing incidents. "the washington post" reports the agency also demoted the head of the special operations division and reassigned nearly two dozen agents. >> ifill: a string of bombings killed dozens of people from syria to pakistan today, and wounded scores more. the state news agency in syria reported two car bombs exploded in the central city of homs,

killing 25 people. in iraq, car bombs killed at least 24, and left burned vehicles littering the streets in shiite districts of baghdad, and a town to the south. and in pakistan, a bomb tore through a busy produce market on the outskirts of islamabad. at least 21 people were killed in that attack >> ifill: in ukraine, the government warned it won't wait forever to end standoffs in two eastern cities. pro-russian separatists are still occupying regional government buildings in donetsk and luhansk, and still demanding votes on declaring independence. in kiev, the interior minister said his government wants the confrontations resolved within the next two days. >> ( translated ): i am sure that both political and force options are available. but it seems like another option will be taken up which is something in between. for those who want dialogue, we propose talks and a political solution.

for the minority who want conflict, they will get a forceful answer from the ukrainian authorities. >> ifill: in washington, assistant secretary of state victoria nuland said there's no doubt the russians were directly involved in the unrest in eastern ukraine. and secretary of state john kerry spoke twice by phone with the russian foreign minister. optimism rose today among australian officials leading the search for that missing malaysian jetliner. that's after they picked up two more "pings" that may very well have come from the plane's "black box" recorders. lucy watson, of independent television news, reports from beijing. many of those on the plane were chinese citizens. >> the australian government is confident they are looking in the right place and daring to use positive words after analyzing the signals detected. >> i am optimistic that we will find the aircraft. the transmission was not of natural origin. we believe the signals to be

consistent with the specification and description of a flight data recorder. >> the sheer depth of the search is the problem. on the surface the australian ship old shield listens for pings. at 1,250 feet down, it's as deep as the empire state building is high, four times deeper than where the pinger locator first picked up a signal. the wreckage of the titanic was at 12,500 feet but flight 370 could be on the ocean floor at 15,000 feet, nearly three miles down. >> it could have shifted. it could have picked up by the ocean current and tossed miles. it could have fallen off the edge of a cliff and be further down than it was before which is why we've had periodic and

intermittent detections. >> operations in the air push forward too, scouring for debris and signs of encouragement are there. another huge auto recall is in the works. toyota announced today it's calling back nearly 6.4 million vehicles, including two million in the u.s. their problems range from defective engine starters to faulty air bag cables. no injuries or crashes have been reported. and volkswagen has halted sales of 27,000 vehicles, for transmission leaks. bank of america will pay a record $770 million in a federal settlement over credit card "add-ons". it involves claims of misleading customers about credit protection, and of billing for identity-theft protection without approval. and, hewlett-packard is paying $108 million over charges it bribed officials in russia, mexico and poland. in other economic news, senate republicans blocked a democratic bill on closing the pay gap between men and women. and on wall street, the dow jones industrial average gained

181 points to close at 16,437. the nasdaq rose nearly 71 points to close just under 4,184. and the s-and-p 500 added 20 to finish at 1,872. the women's basketball team at the university of connecticut savored a record ninth national title today, and its fifth undefeated season. u-conn beat notre dame in last night's championship game, 79 to 58 in a battle of unbeaten teams. it was the second straight title for the huskies, who finished the year, 40 and 0. u-conn also won the men's national title on monday night. connecticut teams last won both titles in 2004. still to come on the newshour, medicare payments in the millions, to a tiny fraction of physicians; the security flaw setting off alarm bells across the tech world; the deadly factory collapse in bangladesh, one year later; new scrutiny of the drugs used in lethal injections; plus, commemorating a legendary singer's fight

against racism. >> unprecedented data is putting a new spotlight on what doctors are paid in the longrunning battle over how to trim the nation's health care spending. the data, the first of its kind released by medicare, offers a rare look at how $77 billion was paid by the government to 880,000 providers in 2012. among the key finders, just 3% of doctors and medical providers received at least one quarter of all those payments. news analyses also showed medicare paid nearly 4,000 doctors and providers more than $1 million apiece that year. the release of the data has long been the subject of an argument

among consumer groups, watchdogs and doctors' trade groups. shannon petipiece reports for bloomberg news, and dr. artis -- ardis deehoven. doctor, what do you think is the most important information here that is now available that wasn't before? >> i think some of the things that are standing out the most to us is that there is a small number of doctors, as you mentioned, where a lot of this medicare money is being concentrated. a lot of that money is going there. about 3% of doctors are getting almost a quarter of all the medicare money that is paid to doctors. that was surprising and that was interesting to us, and i think now the idea is to drill down in the data and find out why these doctors are getting so much.

in some cases, there are likely going to be instances of waste, overuse, fraud -- in some cases, there will be a perfectly good explanation why some doctors are getting paid high amounts but it raises questions that we haven't been able to ask before but this is the first time we're getting a look at the data. >> woodruff: is it something that the doctors who got the most money have in common with one another? >> there are a lot of ophthalmologists. eye doctors on this list. that surprised us. among the top 25 highest paid doctors, about half were ophthalmologists and we looked into this a little bit and found out that's being driven by some of these new, very expensive drugs that are now available to treat people with a condition of blindness called macular degeneration that's very common in the elderly. a lot of doctors are using these drugs, administering them in their offices, and that's where a significant amount of medicare going which i don't think many

people realize until now when we were able to crunch these numbers. >> woodruff: up until now, shannon, what was the general understanding of how medicare was supposed to work? >> the idea of how it is supposed to work is that the doctors who are treating the most seniors, who are providing quality services, that they're properly treating their patients, the seniors, the 50 million elderly and disabled who get this money. you know, what is the concern has always been is that there is a lot of waste in the system, that there are doctors who are doing excessive procedures, excessive tests and that's what people are going to be looking for in this data. >> woodruff: finally, just right now, shannon, why this is being released today by the medicare agency. >> it's been kept from the public for about three decades. when a judge put an injunction

on this data, saying that doctors' privacy should be protected and this data shouldn't be released. "wall street journal" sued to have the data released. in may a judge lifted the injuvengz and the obama administration said they were going to release -- lifkted the injunction and the obama said they would release the data, to be able to lift the veil on payments and activity that goes on in this $600 billion a year medicare program and be able to let consumers, watchdog groups, members of congress, patient advocates see this data and hopefully use that to try to tease out waste and find out what works and what doesn't in the system. >> woodruff: i'll turn now to dr. ardis deehoven, president of the american medical association. how do you explain what appears to be a lopsided system of payments here for medicare? >> it's very early, right now, i

think, for us to really understand all the details involved. there are many elements to this that have to be reviewed and understood. it is very clear that our concerns have been around safe guards of this information. is the data correct? are we taking into consideration how this population needs specific care, and obviously releasing data doesn't address part of the issue, so i think on the front end of this discussion we have to be clear about the fact that we have to spend more time doing the dive into the data, what does it mean, how patients are being served and how they are being provided the care they receive. >> woodruff: based on what you have seen, dr. hoven, is this the way the medicare system is supposed to work? >> well, physicians need to be paid for providing high quality care to their patients, and the patients deserve to get the high quality care that they need. clearly, we need to pay more attention to details.

i think right now in terms of how this is working, raw data is not specifically the way to look at it, and i think one of the things you have to look at, as was already mentioned, is the cost of drugs built into these payments. remember that physicians, particularly in ogilvy practices, oncology practices -- in ophthalmologist practices and medicare will only pay for 80%. the patient pays 20% and the physician's office is responsible for the difference if, in fact, the patient can't use the drug, it is wasted, responsible for storing it. costs of providing the care are very important and i think if we review this data, if anyone reviews this data they have to be careful about how they interpret the information. >> woodruff: just on the surface of it, the fact that ophthalmologists were half of those who were the highest paid,

what would be the explanation for that? >> my interpretation initially -- again, i'm not an ophthalmologist, would be the fact that these doctors are taking care of people with significant retinal diseases -- retinal degeneration diseases. these are difficult to manage and very costly. >> ifill: just in connection with that, dr. hoven, when people look at this and they look at the number of procedures, the cost of procedures, and because you pay more for something does that mean it's a more valuable procedure? how do you answer that? how do you answer the quantity versus quality question? >> high-cost care doesn't necessarily mean high-quality care and i think we're all very aware of this in this day and age. >> woodruff: the other question that comes to my mind is why was the american medical association opposed to the release of this data for so long? is there damage done by this

release? >> to the first question, it is clear that we are very supportive of transparency in data release. we want it to be accurate. we want it to be usable in the appropriate way. we want some safe guards in place to make sure that that data is not simply out there in an uninterpretable way and unfortunately i think that may be the case with the way c.m.s. has presented this data. we are very concerned about quality, and we're very concerned about making sure that physician practices are able to do what they need to be able to do, to take care of patients. >> woodruff: can the a.m.a. and other organizations get additional information out there that you think will put this information in context? >> yes, i think we can. now that we've seen the format it's presented in -- and by the way, we did not know what this information would look like. we received it at the same time as everyone else did. now that we have this

information, i think it will enable us to continue our dialogue with c.m.s., with medicare, to talk about the ways to improve the way the data is presented, to make it more user-appropriate and giving interpretation guidelines in an appropriate way as well. >> woodruff: seeing what you see right now, dr. hoven, do you still believe it is a mistake to release this to the public? >> i don't think it's a mistake to release it to the public. the important thing is you want data to be released in a way that is usable and appropriate and that the safe guards are in place so it is not misused in the care of patients. >> woodruff: let me come back to you, shannon with bloomberg news. for ordinary folks out there watching this, if they want to look at this information, what's the best way to see it and understand it? >> it is complex to go through. it's available on the center for medicare and medicaid services website. it is a big chunk of data.

it crashed our computers around bloomberg when we were trying to download it into an excel spreadsheet. if you get on there, you can go through and search for your doctor and you can see things like how many of a certain procedure did a doctor perform, how much was my doctor paid, was he paid more than his peers for medicare, and people may have questions about whether their doctor has been doing too many of a certain procedure on them and they can see how ittep compares to their peers. did my doctor a lot more stents than other cardiologists? that's a way people can use this information. as dr. hoven was saying, it has to be put into context and there could be explanations why there is going to be an outlier in this data, but it allows us to ask these questions, and patients can ask their doctors, "i saw that you get a lot more money from medicare than the average cardiologist or average ophthalmologist. why is that?" they may have an explanation. they may not.

it allows people for the first time to see this information about doctors which it has been a black box until this point. >> woodruff: the questions have begun, and we thank you both for joining us with some of the answers. shannon of bloomberg news and dr. ardis deehoven of the american medical association. >> ifill: you may have heard headlines today about a major lapse in internet security, and the possibility that millions of passwords, credit card numbers, bank information and commonly used web sites could have been exposed. it involves a bug or security leak called heartbleed, which can be used to read encrypted information. hari sreenivasan gets a breakdown on what you need to know. >> sreenivasan: essentially, heartbleed can be used to read the memory of computer servers. the places behind a website that store your information, including the lock and key system which protects your usernames and passwords. you probably see this encryption

in the form of a green lock when you conduct a transaction and exchange information. the breach was revealed this week but apparently has existed for a long time. russell brandom of "the verge," an online site covering tech news, is here to help explain. how significant is this breach? what can hackers do? >> all those i talked to were running out of, like, extreme language to talk about. catastrophic. bruce schneider said on a scale of one to 10, this was an 11. unlike anything we have seen. part of what's so unnerving about it is we don't really know how much anyone got. when used on a server, it will spit back a little chunk of memory of whatever is in the

working memory of the server, so what's in the random chunk? we don't know. it's a little likephishing. but there is a lost sensitive information. >> what are people -- there is a lot of sensitive information. >> more disconcerning to security professionals is the idea that you have the private key behind the certificate. the green lock. it is the key to that lock. if someone got that, that means they can unlock it whatever they want. even after the patch is made, that key can still be used to snoop on traffic that's coming between these servers. >> what happens to me as a consumer? what do i do today after hearing these headlines? >> it's hard. there isn't a lot for consumers to do. this is a server-site breach. fundamentally, it's a breach on the other end. these people that you trusted

with your information, maintaining the service, it's an issue of their security, not your own security within your computer. a lot of people are saying change your password which is a good idea. i would say change it now and once in a couple of weeks because someone does have the key to that lock, the first time you change it they might get that password too. early and often is the phrase. always good. >> are the large companies, the yahoos, the googles of the world, they can put 10 nerds in a corner and fix this problem today but what about the small- to medium-sized companies? people who have outsourced creating their online store front to someone else? >> part of the concern is even the large kuchlsz can't -- i mean, like, we saw -- part of the concern is even the large companies can't -- there are some doubts about did anyone

know before google discovered it, which is still unclear. i think in terms of the mom-and-pop store fronts, the patch is out and they can update their s.s.l. certificates today and this is all across the across the world, i.t. professionals are doing that now as we speak. >> why was this breach, the part we were told in the last couple of days is that this breach has existed for years. >> it's been possible since 2012 but it didn't occur anyone to approach a server in exactly this way. we know that the google engineer who discovered it along with a separate engineer, they finally were able to say, "wait, if someone does this it will be a huge problem" but that took a lot of creativity and a lot of time. the concern now is did anyone before them think of this and instead of doing the right thing and publishing it they wanted to use it for nefarrious ends and

use it to get into servers that they shouldn't have had access to. we don't have any evidence that that took place but it's obviously a huge concern for the security community. >> and we don't have evidence that it didn't take place either. >> exactly. >> thanks very much. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: it's been almost a year since a bangladesh factory collapsed, killing more than 11,000 garment workers and injuring 25,000 others. special correspondent fred de sam lazaro returned to the country recently to see what's been done to make factories safer, and whether victims of the disaster have been compensated. his report is a partnership with the pulitzer center on crisis reporting. >> she had been rescued after spending two days under the

rubble. doctors said she was lucky to survive the building collapse that claimed more than 1100 liefsz and fortunate that her spine remained intact. that's not the way she feels today. >> sometimes i wonder how i can continue this life. i cannot do anything. if i bend to pick up anything from the floor, it really hurts. sometimes i say it might be better to die. >> the 19-year-old says she's in almost constant pain, unable to sit or stand for more than a few minutes at a time. we had to interrupt our interview so she could stretch. >> i had surgery on my spinal chord, and the doctors said not to do any hard work because hurt my spinal cord. they said it could take a long time to heal. >> though most days are spent in bed watching tv in the tiny one-room home she shares with her parents and two younger

sisters. she was a bread winner until last april. now, she frets being a burden. her mother also had to quit her garment factory job. >> i have to care for her, and there is no way that i can take a job outside of the house. our big concern is how long she will be this way. about her future. >> they are like millions of impoverished rural families who moved to the capital city in recent years to work in the garment industry that's second now only to china's in size. the father's earnings are about $3 a day. about all this family has. >> when she was in the hospital, people took down her name and i have heard of people getting compensation but no one has contacted us. >> when they learned, several neighbors gathered around clutching pictures of relatives who died in the building collapse.

some said they received just $1300 u.s. dollars from a government fund. some complained it had gone to the wrong family members. there are no reliable records of who worked in the building or which companies which contracts and therefore might bear responsibility for compensating victims. add red tape on top of that and relief has been slow to reach victims and families, says a labor organizer. >> it is the fault of the government, part of the buyers and nobody can deny the responsibility of that. >> all but the workers, he says, have benefited from an opaque trade that relies on low wages and lax regulation. the image of many global apparel companies was threatened with the workers rights consortium. >> they work very hard to create as much distance as possible between the reality for the workers who create their products and for the consumers

who buy and wear those products, but when an event like this closes those distance it shows the consumers the conditions under which their clothing is being made and it creates an impression on the retailers to change practices. >> in general he says european brands have acted more responsibly. 153 companies recently signed onto a legally binding multimillion dollar worker safety accord to respect and raise regulations to building standards. most big american names did not join the group. a few did. >> we have the company which earns calvin klein and tommy hilfiger and others who are household names in the u.s. like adidas and h&m, but the wal-marts, the gaps have not chosen to be part of this critical process of change and that is extremely disturbing to watch. >> some experts say liability concerns have kept the american

companies from legally binding commitments but rami nesba says just because they didn't sign doesn't mean they've done nothing. >> just as a gentleman's agreement and understanding and perception not necessarily has to be legally binding. >> he says has so-called alliance group has hired international and local engineers to do safety inspections of garment factories. >> we are trying to engage the workers. we are establishing outlines to listen to their voice so we can be as responsive as possible. >> the alliance collaborated with the european group on common safety concerns, recently sponsoring a building safety expo, for example. it introduced owners of the 4,000-odd factories to things like fire doors and sprinklers, virtually unheard of in bangladesh. for their part, factory owners

like shamir have talked about talking but unwilling to pay for it. >> the buyers say "we'll go somewhere else. >> besides building improvements, the factory owner groups said wages were increased. the legal minimum offered workers has gone from $38 a month to about $70 a month. >> we have increased our salary. the new salary structure has been declared. >> they are not paying you more even though you raised the wages? >> absolutely. >> workers' representatives claim that wages even with the recent increases of the government are well below what's considered liveable in bangladesh. labor organizer says there is a long way to go on other rights

workers are supposed to enjoy. >> the workers are enjoying the freedom of association, and government is likely to implement the existing laws. >> government is greatly influenced by the garment industry, he says. many members of parliament also own garment factories. for his part, he says in two decades four million workers have been brought out of dire poverty, and the tragedy will make the multibillion dollar ready-made garment business more transparent and prosperous, he says. >> $50 million. >> more immediately, government and officials say the families affected by the tragedy will

begin receiving compensation. the british retailer prime mark announced a fund to help families who produced its garments in the building. for her part, chasna acttar fantasized about the world beyond. >> people who wear the clothes made by workers like us. for fun, when we were making shirts i put my mobile number in the pocket of the shirts. i knew that the people who wear these shirts could not speak bangla, so i write in english, "if you like the shirt, call me." >> did you get a call? >> she got three calls, she said, limited by the language barrier to no more than a brief greeting. that was before her cell phone was lost in the collapse.

>> woodruff: late last month, three major u.s. retailers said they would provide compensation to victims of the building collapse: wal-mart contributed one million dollars and children's place and gap gave half a million dollars each. fred's reporting is a partnership with the under-told stories project at saint mary's university in minnesota. >> ifill: a texas inmate is scheduled for execution tonight, the second this week, and the sixth this year to die by lethal injection. but even as the number of executions has declined in the 32 states where the death penalty is legal, the manner in which inmates are put to death is now under scrutiny. that's because the practice of lethal injection itself has grown more complicated. supplies of the needed drugs have dwindled, in part because european manufacturers have been banned from exporting them to states that intend to use them in executions. the scramble to replace those drugs with others manufactured

here has delayed some executions and thrown others into court, as inmates and their lawyers question whether the new approach will result in a cruel or unusual death. for more on this issue, we turn to megan mccracken with the u.c. berkeley school of law's death penalty clinic. and dr. joel zivot of emory university hospital. >> megan mccracken, is the problem the shortage or the availability of these drugs? >> it's about the availability of the drugs. there is no shortage of the drugs. rather, the pharmaceutical companies have made the decision that they don't want their names and their products used in executions, so they've set up logistic distribution so that departments of corrections cannot get their drugs for the purpose of execution, but the drugs remain fully available, widely available for clinical use in hospitals and clinics so that patients who need them can still get them. >> which drugs are we talking

about? walk us through them. >> primarily we're talking about pentabarbital. the brand name is nembutal. the pharmaceutical company decided they didn't want the product used in executions so they restricted distribution so it's not available to departments of corrections for that purpose. >> dr. zivot, from a medical perspective, what kind of problem does this present? >> from the medical perspective, nide to be clear that the lethal injection is not -- i need to be clear that medical injection is not a medical act. if you're asking me what is the role of the drugs and how does it affect my practice, pentabarbital has a particular use which is related to the treatment of seizures.

other medications used in lethal injections are medications that i require to give patients and if i have to be competing, so to speak, with the department of corrections over who gets certain kinds of medications, that creates an unusual kind of circumstance where medication that really is intended to heal is now in fact used to kill. >> woodruff: part of the questions being raised, doctor, have to do with whether these are effective for what they are designed to do even if they are designed to kill and whether in fact some of these inmates are suffering more than they ought to. is there any way to measure that? >> i think that you have really come down to where the problem is. first of all, i want to say, too, that none of these medications -- and i'm going to call them that for now because that's how i think of them -- are ever designed to kill. these things are used now and

repurposed for the purpose of killing by the department of corrections but not because that's the intention of the manufacturer. i don't think any manufacturer of a pharmaceutical drug makes something that's used specifically to kill. i think that -- and the problem is that the standards that these compounds are used in the circumstance of treatment, that is to say when a drug is made under a certain degree of purity which is required, if it's given to a patient, that's not the same thing as making a compound that's going to be given for execution. i don't know what rules those are. i'm not sure how to measure that. i understand that there is some concern trying to compare these two together but there is a problem in trying to use the same language in this debate. >> let me ask megan mccracken about it because one of the

reasons why there are no medical personnel involved in these executions is because of the questions that dr. zivot was just raising, but as you look at this and as you assess whether or not this is an effective method to carry out the law, is it effective? >> well, actually, i would say first that there are medical professionals participating in executions to varying degrees all across the country. there are e.m.t.'s. there are nurses. participating as members of execution teams but again, in differing capacities across the country. in terms of the effectiveness, i think there are two questions at play there. one is, does death occur? do the drugs bring about death? and i think for the most part the answer is yes. the underlying question, however, is do the drugs bring about death in compliance with the constitution -- you know, with as minimal of pain and

suffering and risk of pain and suffering as possible, and there, there are a lot of questions. a lot of execution procedures still rely on a pair lytic drug, and once the prisoner has been -- rely on a paralytic drug and once the prisoner has been paralyzed, a lot of risks come in to play in procedures that paralyze prisoners. >> the argument seems to come down to whether the inmates know what kind of drugs of being used and that's what's being challenged. that's what's been going to the supreme court. >> right. that is a very big issue right now. a lot of states are trying to keep the sourcing of their drugs which in the end gets down to trying to keep the information secret. a lost states have turned to compounding pharmacies which mix up -- a lot of states have

turned to compounding pharmacies which mix up special batches and the states have refused to turn over where the drugs are coming from and it's crucial information because especially with a compounded product, the prisoner, the prisoner's lawyers and the courts need to know was this compounding pharmacy licensed to make a sterile injectable? are they able to make a sterile injectable? where are the raw ingredients coming from? are these raw ingredients that come from a factory known win the u.s. or coming off the gray or black market and that product is a complete unknown, so questions of the purity, the potency, the p.h. balance, whether or not a product is contaminated all comes in to play, and if the states are able to hide that information and refuse to turn it over, the courts are prevented from carrying out a constitutional analysis of the procedures and they are prevented from determining if the procedures comport with the law. >> the supreme court turned away

a case that was making that case this past week. dr. zivot, i want to ask you whether the secrecy issue, the transparency issue is an important one in this. >> well, again, i want to emphasize that lethal injection is not a medical act. now, it appears to be such and i think that's not unintentional. i am concerned by the appearance here because the reality is different from the appearance. because an inmate is not a patient and an executioner is not a doctor, i can't make a direct comparison. i will say that if i -- as a physician, am caring for a patient and i am taking a medication and injecting it in to them, there is an understanding and a guarantee, if you will, that the quality of the medication, the potency of the medication is specific for the intended purpose. i think to megan's point, these

compounds can be many things. it's hard not to seat irony here, i suppose, as to what would happen if the drug failed to be effective -- that is to say, it would fail to cause death. normally when drugs cause death we would say that would be the unintended consequence and not the intended one, and i would agree with megan that if an inmate ultimately dies, then i supposed to a certain degree the drug was effective. i think the problem is that what happens between the beginning of the injection of the drug and death is entirely uncertain. what happens when injections are conduct noud and the mixing of medication and the lack of observation and the lack of revealing of evidence it's difficult to look at this scientifically. >> we're running out of time.

dr. joel vizot of emory university hospital and megan mccracken of u.c. berkeley, thanks very much. >> woodruff: seventy-five years ago today, on the steps of the lincoln memorial, marian anderson set a milestone in civil rights history. tonight, we begin a series exploring iconic moments and legislation that continue to shape race relations in america. jeffrey brown kicks it off with a look back at anderson's groundbreaking performance. >> 75,000 are here at the lincoln memorial to hear marian anderson, a contralto, who is making her debut at the emancipation shrine. >> brown: april 8th, 1939. marian anderson made her statement against racism through the power and beauty of her voice. >> ♪ my country tis of thee sweet land of liberty

>> brown: three quarters of a century later, young people gathered at the same spot to honor marian anderson and commemorate her easter day concert. >> ♪ he's got the whole world in his hands ♪ >> brown: the washington performing arts society's "children of gospel choir" sang. anisse murillo, a junior at eleanor roosevelt high school in greenbelt, maryland, told us why she'd wanted to take part. >> this event today could show all these young people today to go home and find out who marian anderson is and the word will then spread. it taught me actions speak louder than words and you don't have to get all angry. you just have to keep going and kill people with kindness. >> the light in her beautiful voice overcame discrimination. and her voice was much larger than the hall that prevented her

from singing. >> brown: following words from u.s. interior secretary sally jewell about anderson's legacy. washington, d.c. fourth-grader sky jabali-rainey took on the role of marian anderson. >> i am marian anderson. i was refused the opportunity to sing at the daughters of the american revolution hall. you see when i sing, i don't want them to see my face is black or white. i want them to see my soul. >> she had the courage to sing in front of thousands of people. you have got to get up and fight the fear. made the message quite clear.

concerts by white artists only. an alternative performance at the lincoln memorial was arranged by supporters which included first lady eleanor roosevelt, and anderson sang of her country's original promise. ♪ from every mountainside let freedom ring ♪ ♪ >> anderson herself began singing with a baptist church choir in philadelphia. a children of modest means, she and two sisters were raised by their mother after their father died. at 15, she took her first formal music lessons and at 30 went to europe to establish herself in a more welcoming environment, as many black performers at the time did. she returned home in 1935 and was again confronted by a segregated america.

she spoke about the experience at the lincoln memorial, captured in a documentary produced by public station w.e.t.a. >> i wasn't a person, and am not to this day, a real great fighter for anything. there are people who will, if they want something, they fight, fight, fight. they don't mind, with their feet and their hands and everything. and those people are very, very necessary. but there are some who hope that, if they're doing something worthwhile, that it will speak for them. ♪ ♪ >> brown: underlining that point, national park service ranger monamma al-ghuiyy spoke of the impact anderson had on her personally in a chance meeting years ago. >> she came over and put her

hands on my cheeks and said, "you are a beautiful woman and will go far in life." to say that had a really big impact on me. >> brown: the sun was shining again on the lincoln memorial this morning, much as it did 75 years ago, as the young sky jabali-rainey honored marian anderson with this reprise: ♪ my country 'tis of thee ♪ sweet land of liberty ♪ for thee i sing >> ifill: this year also marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the civil rights act. the lyndon johnson presidential library is commemorating the bill's passage with a civil rights summit this week that will feature remarks from four living presidents. on thursday, when president obama speaks, we'll have our own conversation from austin about the civil rights act, five decades later. >> woodruff: again, the major

developments of the day. newly released medicare data showed a few hundred doctors are getting millions in payments every year. a 16-year-old boy allegedly stabbed and slashed 19 students and a guard at a high school in pennsylvania. several victims were in critical condition. >> ifill: on the newshour online right now, why animals kill their young, and why the laws of evolution say that's sometimes necessary. we have video of cheetah cubs rescued from their mother, and an orphaned two-month-old sloth bear cub. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> woodruff: tonight on pbs, a new three-part series, "your inner fish" explores our evolutionary history. paleo-biologist neil shubin traces how the human body reveals the story of life on earth. in this excerpt, we see what happens when a baby monkey is given the same challenge as a three-month-old girl.

>> tom burgdoff studied monkeys in order to answer questions about our own brains. he's going to show me an experiment that demonstrates an important difference between our brain and the brain of the monkey. the differences aren't what you might expect. especially when we're young. >> this experiment tests something called object permanence, in other words, whether this monkey knows the object still exists when she can't see it. it's a developmental milestone for both monkeys and humans. >> we're going to put a piece of fruit on the toy itself. then we're going to hide that toy. >> wow. wow. that is impressive.

>> three months old and already she understands object permanence. >> hi, gina, how are you? >> geneva is the same age as the baby monkey. i'm going to do the exact same test on her under the expert eye of child development specialist professor susan steiger. look at her look at you. you like those. i'm an expert at this. >> she wonders, what did you do? i don't know where they went. >> it is incredible. if it is not there, it doesn't

exist. that is amazing. >> ifill: "your inner fish" premiers later this evenings on most pbs stations. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you on-line. and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> this is "bbc world news america." >> funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation, newman's own foundation, giving all profits to charity and pursuing the common good for over 30 years, charles schwab, and union bank. >> at union bank, our relationship managers work hard to know your business, offering specialized solutions in capital to help meet your growth objectives. we offer expertise and tailored solutions for small businesses and major corporations. what can we do for you? >> and now, "bbc world news america."