American Morning
Despite shortage, blood donors turned away
From CNN's Ben Tinker
NEW YORK – Montclair State University junior Dustin Weinstein recalls the excitement leading up to his first blood drive.
"I had never been to donate blood before," he says, "and I actually believe it was a friend of mine who told me they were going to be on campus."
But then came the lengthy screening questionnaire, and his hopes of helping others in need were dashed.
"The question said, 'Are you a male who's had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977?'" he recalls. "I said yes, and sure enough, they came back to me with a pink slip that said 'You're being chosen to be deferred.'"
Weinstein didn't realize that a more than two-decade old FDA policy bars him and millions of other men – who admit to same-sex contact – from giving blood.
AIDS activist Phil Wilson calls the policy outdated. "I think in 1985, there's a lot we didn't know about HIV. There's a lot we didn't know about prevention. There's a lot we didn't know about treatment. But now we know a lot more."
Wilson is not alone. The American Association of Blood Banks has tried to get the FDA to loosen the restriction. They're not only running low on blood; donations are steadily declining as the need for healthy blood continues to rise.
"Ghetto loans” allegedly target minorities
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/06/11/costello.baltimore.mayor.art.jpg caption="Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon alleges Wells Fargo violated the federal Fair Housing Act."]
From CNN's Bob Ruff and Carol Costello
Once upon a time, many banks didn't loan money to minorities seeking home mortgages.
The practice is called "redlining." The name comes from the notion that some banks and real estate agencies drew a red line around parts of the map where minorities lived so that they wouldn't do business with them.
The Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968 to stop redlining and prohibit all housing discrimination based on race, religion, gender, disability, or ethnic origin.
So, what's up with "reverse redlining"?
This variation on redlining describes banks who target parts of a city with significant minority populations in order to sell them costly sub-prime mortgages, even if they can afford cheaper prime mortgages.
Beth Jacobson knows all about it.
At one point she was the top salesperson selling sub-prime mortgages at Wells Fargo. One year she made $700,000 in salary and commissions by just selling the sub-primes. Now that she's left the bank she and another former Wells Fargo mortgage officer are spilling the beans by alleging reverse redlining on the part of their former employer.
"Wells Fargo," Jacobson told CNN's Carol Costello, "set up a whole platform called ‘emerging markets’ that was geared to the African American." She says the bank's goal was to sell them sub-prime mortgages, which are much more profitable to the banks than prime rate mortgages. But the problem, says Jacobson, was that Wells was so single-minded about this that "we had products where you didn't have to disclose income…and they would loan up to 95% (of the mortgage total)." When temporary low teaser rates were replaced with much higher rates after two years, she says, the defaults mounted.
The city of Baltimore has been closely watching the effects of this alleged reverse redlining.
In January 2008, Baltimore sued Wells Fargo for violating the Fair Housing Act with "discriminatory lending practices." The case is before Federal Judge Benson E. Legg, who is considering affidavits from Jacobson and Tony Paschal, another former Wells Fargo loan officer, which describe in detail what they say is reverse redlining by the bank.
Paschal, who is African American, claims black loan officers were hired to gain the trust of the black community in order to sell them on high interest loans. He also describes how he often heard employees – whose job it was to target African Americans for subprime loans – jokingly refer to doling out “ghetto loans” to people with “bad credit.”
Who's responsible for Tiller's killing?
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/06/02/art.tiller.kake.jpg caption="Dr. George Tiller was one of the few U.S. physicians who performed late-term abortions."]
From CNN's Carol Costello and Bob Ruff
Killing doctors who perform legal abortions is rare in this country—but it happened again over the weekend.
Dr. George Tiller, who performed late-term abortions at his Wichita, Kansas clinic, was shot and killed while serving as an usher at his church Sunday morning. Tiller was the fourth abortion doctor killed.
Dr. Barnett Slepian was killed by a sniper in his Buffalo Amherst, NY home in 1998.
In 1994 Dr. John Britton was murdered while sitting in a car in Pensacola, Florida.
The first killing of an abortion doctor happened in 1993, also in Pensacola. David Gunn was shot while abortion opponents protested outside his clinic.
You’ll notice that it has been more than a decade since the last such murder, and some speculate there’s a reason for that.
UC Berkeley professor Cynthia Gorney, author of “Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Wars”, says anti-abortion leaders realized years ago that such killings do not help their cause of eliminating all abortions in this country—and so they’ve discouraged it. The problem with high profile killings, Gorney told CNN’s Carol Costello, “is that you do stir up a great deal of conversation, and for them it’s almost all negative, because you’re going to get a huge backlash against right to life. You’re going to get a lot of people now saying, ‘see those people are all crazy.’”
Randall Terry, the outspoken founder of “Operation Rescue,” an anti-abortion pro-life group, agrees that such extreme violence puts pressure on their pro-life movement. He told reporters Monday that “President Obama, the pro-abortion groups, their friends on Capitol Hill are going to try to browbeat the pro-life movement into surrendering.”
But Terry has no qualms about verbally assaulting Dr. Tiller, even in the wake of his death. “George Tiller was a mass murderer,” says Terry, “he reaped what he sowed.”
Abortion providers face serious threats
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/06/01/intv.diane.derzis.jpg caption="Abortion provider Diane Derzis speaks to CNN's Kiran Chetry about the death of Dr. George Tiller."]
A 51-year-old man, identified by police as Scott Roeder, has been charged with the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. Tiller was gunned down in Wichita, Kansas at his church yesterday.
Diane Derzis owns the New Women Health Care Clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, a clinic that provides abortions and has for more than three decades. She spoke to Kiran Chetry on CNN’s “American Morning” Monday.
Kiran Chetry: You knew Dr. Tiller for years. What was your reaction when you heard about this shooting?
Diane Derzis: Absolutely stunned…also not surprised. We've all known that something like this was going to happen. The question was who was it going to happen to?
Chetry: Your clinic was the one that was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, by Eric Rudolph, the suspect now serving time because of that.
Derzis: Right.
Chetry: What is it like going to work knowing you have a target on your head?
Derzis: It's been like that for many years. You know, every abortion provider in this country knows what kind of atmosphere we work in. We have these people in front of the clinics…These antics would not be allowed in any other business, but it's part of what we do. I think you would have the hundreds of abortionists tell you the same thing that we are all proud of what we do, we love what we do, that we do serve women. And that we do so knowing what the risks are.
Chetry: When you say you love what you do, can you explain more about that for people who understand what a contentious situation it is. It's a choice that no one wants to have to make, people make it obviously. But when you say you love what you do, explain that.
Derzis: You know, you can't meet and talk with the women that we see on a daily basis and not know that what you're doing is right and moral…And Dr. Tiller, the women he saw…he was the last resort. These were women who had wanted to be pregnant, who valued their pregnancies and for whatever reason were forced to terminate. And I think that's the important thing is we know what kind of a role we place in the community…no one would choose to do this for a job. It's a calling.
Critics Blast “Tobacco Lollipops”
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/27/costello.camel.snus.art.jpg caption="CNN's Carol Costello reports on new smokeless tobacco products that critics say are geared toward children."]
From CNN's Bob Ruff
Cigarettes and Washington have never been a good mix.
For decades the federal government has battled with the tobacco industry. The government says cigarettes kill people and “Big Tobacco” says smoking is a matter of choice.
Today cigarette advertising remains banned from radio and television.
Those warning labels on the sides of cigarette packages have gotten stronger over the years. And the Surgeon General says that smoking “causes diseases in nearly every organ of the body.”
Even the tobacco industry has finally agreed that there can be health risks to smoking. R.J. Reynolds Vice President Tommy Payne told CNN’s Carol Costello Tuesday that “when you’re inhaling the smoke, that is the primary cause for the chronic diseases associated with the 400,000 premature deaths, whether it be lung cancer (or) emphysema...”
So has Big Tobacco thrown in the towel? Hardly.
A new product from R.J. Reynolds is being test marketed in Portland, Oregon; Indianapolis and Columbus. It’s called "Camel Strips," a small pellet of finely milled tobacco that dissolves in the mouth. It puts nicotine directly into the body, but there’s no smoke as in traditional cigarettes. Later in the year the company will test market in those same three cities two other dissolvable products: the "Camel Stick," which is about the size of a toothpick, and "Camel Strips," which resemble those breath strips that are so popular with consumers.
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