dr. richard besser, thank you. >>> and coming up, the surprising story behind this photo.why these twins are celebrating a very special christmas. let's give thanks - for an idea. a grand idea called america. the idea that if you work hard, if you have a dream, if you work with your neighbors... you can do most anything. this led to other ideas like liberty and rock 'n' roll. to free markets, free enterprise, and free refills. it put a man on the moon and a phone in your pocket. our country's gone through a lot over the centuries and a half. but this idea isn't fragile. when times get tough, it rallies us as one. every day, more people believe in the american idea and when they do, the dream comes true. we're grateful to be a part of it. [ male announcer ] the rhythm of life. [ whistle blowing ] where do you hear that beat? campbell's healthy request soup lets you hear it... in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. great taste. mmm... [ male announcer ] sounds good. you [ male announcer ] this is sheldon, whose long dy setting up the news starts with arthritis

dr. richard besser, abc news, east greenville, pennsylvania. >> extraordinary.e wish them a merry christmas. >>> coming up here -- the new hit film being criticized by the head of cia. w why zero dark thirty is ruffling feathers at langley. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of all day pain relief. this season, discover aleve. all day pain relief with just two pills. this season, discover aleve. progressive direct and other car insurance companies? yes. but you're progressive, and they're them. yes. but they're here. yes. are you...? there? yes. no. are you them? i'm me. but those rates are for... them. so them are here. yes! you want to run through it again? no, i'm good. you got it? yes. rates for us and them -- now that's progressive. call or click today. it's part of what you slove about her.essing. but your erectile dysfunction - you know, that could be a question of blood flow. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only d

dr. richard besser to weigh in with the one thing that might help heal them, tonight. [ male announcer ] this is sheldon, whose long dy setting up the news starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news. but when i was in an accident... can keep pain away all day. i was worried the health care system spoke a language all its own with unitedhealthcare, i got help that fit my life. so i never missed a beat. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. anyone have occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating? yeah. one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. approved! [ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. ♪ >>> and tonight all across the country american families are seeing those images of tragedy. small children hearing what happened at an elementary school. so we asked abc's chief medical editor, dr. richard besser, for a guide on what you say to y

dr. richard besser, abc news, new york. >>> and now we move on to that tragedy in the headlines. violence by an nfl football player who killed his girlfriend and then himself. tonight, we are hearing from family members and a famous sportscaster has prompted a debate about gun control. abc's john schriffen. >> reporter: relatives of kansas city chiefs linebacker jovan belcher speaking out today trying to make sense of this tragedy. >> we are overwhelmed with both sadness and confusion. >> reporter: belcher shot and killed his girlfriend, kasandra perkins, saturday. tonight her family releasing this statement saying "please keep us in your hearts and prayers, as well as the belcher family, for two lives were lost." and here inside the chiefs' practice facility, you can see his locker is still filled with all of his gear. the team says they don't know when or if his locker will be cleared out this season. the incident reignited the gun control debate. sportscaster bob costas taking a stand on sunday night football. >> if jovan belcher didn't possess a gun, he and kasandra perkins w

dr. richard besser, abc news, washington. >> fantastic news. it's a light drug, called azd 6765. >> remember that. >> memorize it, everybody. >> sometimes these antidepressants take weeks to kick in. if you're depressed, you have to imagine the suicide potential is high. so the weeks it takes to kick in, you know, that's important. that's a lag time where bad stuff could happen. so this is encouraging news for a lot of people who suffer with this. >> a lot of people wait until it's too late. so this could be great. >> certainly good news. we will lighten the mood when we come back. keep it right here on "world news now." ♪ >>> it's no secret that we like to eat around here. particularly one of us. so this next story is one that we're a little perplexed by. >> you like to eat. i actually like to inhale my food because i eat it so quick. but it's a growing trend that lets people inhale their food in a good way. >> reporter: attention foodies. put down your forks. >> i know that taste. >> reporter: the latest culinary craze doesn't involve food at

dr. richard besser. >> reporter: what you're seeing is a miracle in motion.ust a few minutes old, you would never guess this baby had an operation on his heart months before. a patient while still in his mother's womb. 20 weeks pregnant, katrina had received devastating news. >> she was carrying a fetus that had an absence of development of the left side of the heart. >> reporter: doctors at the children's hospital of philadelphia wanted to perform an operation on his heart, just the size of the grape. they had tried before. but none of these little patients made it to their first birthday. >> we held on to the glimmer of hope that maybe it was going to be this experimental procedure that would maybe give him a little hope. >> reporter: on this ultrasound, you're seeing the needle pass through mom's belly into his heart where doctors inserted a tiny stent. doctors wouldn't know how successful they were until three month later when he was born. every cry, a welcome sound. and remember how we told you that no child had ever lived to 1? take a look at this. ♪ ha

dr. richard besser, abc news, new york. >> talk about the miracle of modern medicine. i can't think of no better example than that. it goes beyond blood cancers and used for prostate cancer and breast cancer, as well. >> and they're pledging $20 million for further research at the university -- penn university to bring the treatment to the market. but unbelievable. if you think of something as negative as hiv and they're using hiv to -- it's unbelievable that they would use that to -- >> you look at that little girl, $20 million, well spent. amazing. >>> still ahead, fans of the late singer jenni rivera are in mourning as her family shares their emotions for the first time with the media. >>> up next, we'll go to miami beach where rivera's death hit especially hard. you're watching "world news now." >>> latin >>> latin superstar jenni rivera had millions of fans, and they're all now mourning the loss after she died in a plane crash on sunday. but her family, they are suffering the most. >> later today, they'll set out to mexico where her plane went down, but they are h

dr. richard besser and father william hamilton for the first responders. let's start with dr. besser.w will be closed, but everybody coming back on tuesday. how do the parents and the teachers talk to the kids here and then more generally, parents at home? >> right, you know, talking to kid, it depends so much on their age, their level of development and knowing your own child. very young children who weren't in this community, you want to shield them from this, but in this community, when you talk about rebuilding and moving forward, schools play an absolutely critical role. it allows children to normalize their life. they're getting back into their routine. it also provides a very safe place for children to talk about what they're experiencing, what they're feeling, and teachers and administrators who are well trained, and they're getting training here will be able to identify kids right now, but also going forward, who are not coping well, so they can get this specialized service that will help prevent long-term problems. >> and, congresswoman, what more are you hearing from the pe

dr. richard besser, the children leaving the school, there were reports of cries and tears but no overdict screaming, they were very calm and it was the 17-year-old a moment ago who said that he had to be calmed down by people on the scene that his mother had to be calmed down, it's the adults in this situation, the older students who know the scope of this is going to be extraordinary to help them deal it with first to then help the younger members of their families who survived this ordeal. >> david, i think you're right on track. how people react to this will depend on a lot on their age, their level of development and how much they're exposed to this. very young children, may not be able to comprehend this, children under 7, to use a cutoff, don't let them hear the reports. try not let them see the coverage of this on tell vix. that repeated exposure can be quite traumatic. you have to look at the age of the child and deal with them. knowing your can clield is very, very important. >> knowing your child is very, very important. i'm not sure rich is still with us. >> when you look at th

dr. richard besser, also covering this. you said today, make no mistake, this is very serious. what exactly is it she's facing? >> this is much more serious than what we've been talking about. take a look at this picture. she had a blood clot in a very important vein that runs along her brain, right behind her ear. now, if they hadn't caught this, the clot in there could have gotten larger and that ultimately could have been fatal. >> because it's a vein next to the brain and could have applied pressure to the brain had it gotten much larger. you mentioned the mri. we heard it from martha there. what led to the mri? >> that's a very good question. normally you don't get a routine mri following a concussion. so, i expect that her symptoms led them to put her in the mri and detect this. >> and you told me about the blood thinners they are using to treat her. but this is very tricky, too. >> right. the goal is to use the blood thinners and hopefully the clot will resolve. but it's a balance between keeping her blood thin but making sure she doesn't have bleeding into her brain or

dr. richard besser tells us more. >> reporter: a lifetime of depression lifting in just a few minutes. dennis, suffering for years, had tried pretty much every antidepressant on the market. no response. >> they never helped me at all. >> reporter: but at the national institutes for health, they're trying out a whole new class of antidepressants. drugs that may offer a new path to fighting depression, fast. a couple hours? >> yes, that's all it takes, instead of a couple weeks, we can achieve the same thing in a few hours. >> reporter: typical antidepressants target the serotonin in your brain, a chemical that controls happiness. but you can't tell if the drug is working for four to six weeks. but this new drug is working in a completely different way, targeting the glutamate system, working on neurons that control mood. they seem to show results within hours. for dennis, it's meant a glimpse of a whole new life. >> i c get up in the morning, i can return calls, i can do the things that people do without impairment. it doesn't feel like i have to fight in order to do those routine tasks

dr. richard besser. >> reporter: emma whitehead's leukemia seemed undefeatable. no treatments left.nd she was only 6. then, in april, a last gamble. using hiv to cure, not kill. doctors took out millions of emma's disease-fighting white blood cells. then, used a genetically altered hiv virus, which is great at getting into human immune systems, to change those cells into targeted cancer fighters. emma's cells went back in and destroyed the cancer. dr. stephan grupp is a pioneer using hiv to infiltrate the immune system. >> all of the things that make the hiv virus able to cause disease have been removed from this particular virus, so, its only purpose is to put a gene into a cell. for me, it's incredibly exciting. >> reporter: here's emma, just eight months later. doctors can't find any remaining cancer cells. >> she is in a complete remission. she has no leukemia in her body by any test that we can do. even the most sensitive tests. >> she has a ton of energy. she's doing wonderful right now. >> this treatment was a miracle. >> reporter: emma is counting the days till christmas. he

dr. richard besser here to tell us about it. we know about this drug, but a chase change in the way you use it. >> reporter: that's right. this is really big news for hundreds of thousands of women who have breast cancer that is hormone receptor positive. the study looked at the drug, which is a hormone blocker. they gave some women this drug for five years and some women this drug for ten years and then followed them for a ten-year period. women on the drug for five years, 25% of them had a recurrence. ten years, it dropped down to 21%. very similar numbers, reduction, if you look at breast cancer deaths. 15%, for those on for five years. down to 12% for those who were on it for ten years. >> to the layperson, we say, oh, we want better numbers, that doesn't seem like a huge change. >> reporter: the numbers don't look big, but across the population, that's thousands of lives. what it sails to cancer researchers is, we might be onto something. this might be what we're looking for. >> side effects from the drug? >> reporter: you

dr. richard besser. we know she's been treated with anti-coagulant drugs. does that tell you that the blood clot is not in her lungs or in her brain? >> everyone agrees that the most likely scenario is that she has another clot in her leg. that type of clot is called a deep vein thrombosis. she had one before, so it puts her at risk. she probably had a period of prolonged time in bed with the headaches and dizziness. that is a risk factor. >> we know that this is the kind of clot that people who travel long distances on airplanes get, people who are immobile get. it can be deadly. it killed david bloom. >> you worry about the clot breaking off, traveling into your heart and into your lungs. if that happens, your blood pressure can drop suddenly. you put someone on an anti-coagulant, that can keep it from happening. >> how serious is a blood clot? >> we need to know more. in her leg, probably not serious. a few months on anti-coagulants. if she had a blood clot in her head is a different situation. if you fall and hit your head and you have bleeding in your

dr. richard besser. >> reporter: a surgical clamp left inside an abdomen.s one. an 18 inch retractor left behind. and surgical mistakes, like the one that happened to lonny, they operated on the wrong knee. >> i was under, i was helpless. >> reporter: it happens a lot more than you might think. >> what we found is that about 40 times per week in the u.s., patients have a sponge or a towel left. 20 times a week we operate on the wrong side of the body or the wrong part of the body. and 20 times we do the wrong operation. >> reporter: dr. jeffrey port of new york presbyterian hospital showed me what is supposed to happen before surgery even starts. >> make a mark with our initials on the side of the surgery. >> reporter: the surgeon initials the correct limb. once inside the o.r., everything stops and they hold up a checklist. nurses should count the instruments and gauze sponges before and after surgery. and some hospitals use a new technology that dr. port pioneered. a tiny tracking chip attached to each piece of gauze. are surgeons taking this seriously? >

dr. richard besser, abc news, new york. >> not bad advice. thank you, dr. also have an update now on the leukemia patient taken by her mother from a hospital in arizona. security video last week showed her mother leading her out of that hospital in phoenix, and now we've learned overnight the girl's father was questioned by border patrol agents on saturday, but they say he provided no information. he also denied being involved in taking the girl from her hospital bed. doctors say the 11-year-old girl could die if she's not returned to the hospital soon. >>> and now in london, a pregnant kate middleton, the duchess of cambridge, is hospitalized for a second day and treated for a rare and extreme form of morning sickness. lama hasan has the latest from london. >> reporter: the last time the world saw kate middleton was on friday, a picture of health, playing field hockey. now we learn the duchess of cambridge is pregnant and hospitalized for a condition called hyperemesis gravidarum. the palace saying as the pregnancy is in its very early stages, her royal hi

dr. richard besser for that.ds so directly impactive, the children in that school and this community. >> those children are going to need special care to make sure this event doesn't define them for the rest of their lives. unlike other young children, their parents are going to need to talk to them clear about what happened here. express their feelings. you want to make sure the children don't become tragedy celebrities. that this is all they're known for. as soon as you get them in normal routines, to pick them something fun to do. that's important. but professional grief counselors are going to be a big part of what these children experienced. >> i have a 7-year-old and a 10-year-old. my 7-year-old didn't know about it. didn't want to know about it. my 10-year-old had questions. how do you talk to them? >> it's great if you can shield your 7-year-old. for 10-year-olds, you want to listen to them. they need to see that you're sad but under control. it's okay to be angry and sad. but you're in control of those f