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North Korea Launches Missile; Obama Approves Syrian Opposition; Two Dead After Oregon Shooting; Leukemia Patient Cured with HIV Virus Treatment

Aired December 12, 2012 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Don Lemon, thank you so much. Hi everybody. It's nice to have you here in New York, my friend. Good to see you in person.

11:00 on the East Coast, 8:00 a.m. on the West Coast, and North Korea, you might say is officially thumbing its nose at the world by launching a long-range rocket this morning that appeared to put a satellite into orbit. The analysts say the launch moved North Korea one step closer to developing nuclear-armed missile-capable weapons that are possibly capable of hitting us here in the United States.

We have North Korean video that purports to show the actual launch. Take a look. Whether a satellite indeed is in orbit has not been completely confirmed. The North American Aerospace Defend Command, NORAD, says the rocket deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit.

The U.S., Japan, South Korea and the United Nations all denounce the launch with Washington calling it a highly provocative act that threatens regional security. And this hour the U.N. security council is meeting behind closed doors on today's rocket launch.

Now, that isn't likely to matter to North Korea's new, young "dear" leader -- as I call him -- Kim Jong-un, who appears to be following in his late father's footsteps in defying the international community. Kim even ignored calls from his strongest supporter, China, to cancel this launch.

Our Chris Lawrence is monitoring all of these developments at the Pentagon. First, Chris, if you could just tell us a little bit about the launch. It might have seemed surprising, but did it really seem surprising given the history that we have with these leaders?

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It was only a surprise, Ashleigh, that it happened last night.

The U.S. and allies knew this launch was going to take place, but when North Korea asked to extend its launch window all the way to the end of the year, most officials I spoke with thought that the launch was maybe going to come next week at the earliest.

I just spoke with a U.S. official who confirms that the object that North Korea launched is still in orbit right now and they're doing their final calculations to determine whether or not it was, indeed, a satellite as North Korea claimed.

But bottom line, their rocket did go through all three stages, which is a significant jump in technology for them.

BANFIELD: So does this, Chris, tell us much about how close North Korea is from being able to launch long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads?

LAWRENCE: It's a great question. The official I spoke with said he still believes that is some years away because they haven't mastered all the other things they would need to do that.

In other words, marrying their nuclear program with the missile, making a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on the end of a missile, solving the heat shield problems so the missile doesn't burn up when it reenters the earth's atmosphere and accuracy -- being able to hit exactly what you're aiming at.

The big worry, though, is proliferation. A U.S. official says, one of the working assumptions that they are going on is that Iran may have helped North Korea with this launch.

And I spoke with a former senior adviser here at the Department of Defense who says Iran has been kicking around for quite some time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES SCHOFF, FORMER DEFENSE DEPARTMENT SENIOR ADVISER: There are rumors and stories that Iran has placed some of its people in Pyongyang and that they're helping out at the test site.

There was this rumor or belief before, back in April, as a matter of fact, and it's certainly reasonable. There has been some detection of travel back and forth by engineers from Iran in the past and North Korean engineers to Iran, as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE: So, the worry isn't so much that it will just be contained with North Korea, but that these advances in technology could spread to other nations, as well.

BANFIELD: And what about the timing of all of this, Chris? I'm doing the math here.

We're five days before the one-year anniversary of the death of his father, we're four days before parliamentary elections in Japan and also before the December 19th presidential elections in South Korea.

Is there a coincidence here or was this strategic?

LAWRENCE: Probably not. It's always tough to guess the true intentions of the North Koreans, it being such an isolated regime, but certainly those three -- the elections in South Korea and Japan, a hard-liner -- a hard-line candidate in Japan has been making a lot of hay of that, touting North Korea as this real threat to Japan. So, all of that, and, of course, the symbolic nature of Kim Jong-Un's father's death, obviously, all playing into all of this.

BANFIELD: All right, Chris Lawrence live for us at the Pentagon. Thank you very much for that.

This rocket launch in North Korea certainly is raising a lot of questions on just what that country's leader, Kim Jong-Un, might be up to and how this launch apparently succeeded when, without question, a lot of his prior attempts have not gone so well.

It also again draws the focus to the troubling fact that the United States and its allies appear to have little or no influence on North Korea.

Joining us with his insight is Victor Cha, the senior adviser and Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He was also the deputy U.S. negotiator at the six- party talks on North Korea six years ago.

Victor, thanks for joining us.

VICTOR D. CHA, SR. ADVISER AND KOREAN CHAIR, CSIS: Sure, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: First of all, does this seem as though this is a hand- strengthening action by Kim Jong-un for his international relations, or was this something more for the consumption of his people back in North Korea?

CHA: Ashleigh, I think it's a combination of both of them. The failure of the test in April, the one that they really publicized, was an embarrassment for the young leader just as he was taking power, so he needed to do something to show he could succeed in terms of conquering this new horizon under his leadership.

Internationally, you know, you have these leadership changes in China, Japan, South Korea. next week. and it gives -- I think in their own minds it gives them a leg up in coming back to the negotiating table as a stronger country because they've demonstrated this long-range technology.

BANFIELD: So, obviously, looking back at April and the embarrassing failed launch, it had a lot of people wondering how this successful launch could come so quickly on the heels of the other and it also has people asking who may be helping North Korea at this time. Obviously, Iran enters into the picture when people do discuss this.

Is this something that is a game-change for us in terms of how to deal with North Korea and Iran at the same time?

CHA: I think it's a pretty big deal. The April launch was not successful, but if you track their launches going back to 2006, the 2006 and particularly the 2009 tests were fairly successful.

So, the fact that this one came about -- whatever happened in April was something, some mechanical problem was catastrophic, but this test was clearly a success.

Yes, there is cooperation between Iran and North Korea. Every North Korean missile that they have produced has gone to Iran. The Shahab- 1, -2, -3, -4 in Iran are all North Korean missiles, so there's definitely cooperation -- engine rocket testing, technological cooperation and I would imagine that this would be a new area of cooperation between Iran and North Korea now that they've demonstrated this long-range boost technology.

BANFIELD: And also, the issue with China, just one last quick question from you, the relationship that North Korea has with China, it's just about their only ally and, yet, China was trying to stop this from happening, too.

CHA: Yeah, it's truly sort of biting the hand that feeds you because the Chinese were actually just in North Korea the day before they announced that they were going to do this test and presumably the North Koreans were asking them for aid and food.

And yet they still go ahead and not only announce the test, but defy the Chinese and go ahead and do the test. So, it is a bizarre relationship, to say the least.

BANFIELD: Well, it's great to have your insight, Professor Cha. Thanks so much for being with us today. Do appreciate it.

CHA: Sure. My pleasure.

BANFIELD: I want to move on to the civil war in Syria now. President Obama is saying the United States will now recognize the leading coalition of Syrian opposition groups as that country's legitimate representative. That announcement, which was expected, came during an interview with ABC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Syrian opposition coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: The U.S. move is the latest attempt to pressure Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, to end his war against his own people and step down from power.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Two people are dead after a shooting near Portland, Oregon, last night. A masked gunman ran through a giant mall that was crowded with close to 10,000 holiday shoppers.

And if that's not a frightening thought, he was wearing a hockey mask and shooting indiscriminately as people were terrified and were running for cover. Some of the shoppers hid under store counters, some of them behind racks of clothes. Many of them screaming in fear.

And at the Santa Village where the kids were all lined up for photographs, gunfire forced the Santa to hit the floor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

"SANTA CLAUS," SHOOTING EYEWITNESS: I heard two shots and then after that I heard about 15, 16 more shots and decided that that was gunshots, so I hit the floor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Authorities arrived within minutes. This was the scene from one cell phone camera inside the mall as people were being escorted out with their hands in the air surrounded by all sorts of security agents and police officers who'd responded.

But by the end of the ordeal, two people, as we said, had been shot dead. A young woman is also fighting for her life in the hospital and the gunman had apparently killed himself.

Among those terrified shoppers at the mall was Holli Bautista. She was buying a dress for her daughter at Macy's when she heard the gunshots and Holli joins me live now from Portland, Oregon, to talk about what this was like.

It's incredible when you see the pictures, Holli, of a Santa, knowing that he was surrounded by kids when these gunshots started going off. What was it like at that moment when you started hearing the shots?

HOLLI BAUTISTA, SHOOTING EYEWITNESS (via telephone): You know, at first, it was obviously not something that you registered in your mind and then, when you saw the chaos of people, you know, running and yelling and having to exit, saying that someone is shooting, then you just go into the fight-or-flight mode and try and get to an exit and it was very chaotic.

BANFIELD: Were you a witness to these scenes of people being escorted out by all the police officers and being asked to have their hands in the air?

BAUTISTA (via telephone): I was, after the fact. I was in a location -- originally when I came out of a Macy's they were moving us to islands or to sidewalks, you know, but not too far.

When they had arrived, they did lock down the mall at a certain point where people were not allowed to leave until they were escorted out by different police.

But, you know, there were hundreds of people around. They had moved some across the street to another shopping center called the Clackamas Promenade, you know, where people were kind of watching on as different law enforcement was arriving and EMS. And it was very, very busy.

BANFIELD: Holli, you know, with over a million square feet at that mall and the statistic is there were somewhere around 10,000 shoppers, there had to be thousands of children. Did you see how the kids were reacting in this crisis?

BAUTISTA (via telephone): I know that there were children around me. You know, the parents were very quick to grab them, you know, and run with them.

There have been a bunch of stories in our local news about people helping each other out, you know, grabbing a little four-year-old boy and running with him with the mom because she couldn't carry him.

It was just -- a lot of people working together, but yes, there were multiple children there. You know, I've gone to this mall my whole life. My daughter goes there every year to see the Santa. His face is very familiar around here. You know, seeing him on the news and how he reacted, it hits home.

BANFIELD: Well, Holli, we're glad that you're OK and we're very appreciative of your help this morning in trying to figure out jus what this was like.

It's good you're all right. Thanks for being with us.

BAUTISTA (via telephone): Thank you. Bye-bye.

BANFIELD: Holli Bautista joining us from Portland.

And Piers Morgan is going to take on the hot-button issues of gun control and gun rights tonight, CNN, 9:00 Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: On the rare occasion that there is promising news in the field of cancer treatment, we sit up and we take notice. Sometimes it's just baby steps, but sometimes it is jaw-dropping news, like in the case of Emma Whitehead, a seven-year-old girl who last year was on the brink of death.

Battling leukemia, doctors tried over and over for two years to treat her with chemotherapy, but it didn't work. Then they decided to try something else -- HIV, the virus that causes aids.

This is why we sat up and took notice on this story -- a little girl being injected with HIV, a virus that attacks you from within, doctors hoping a disabled version of that virus would instead attack the cancer coursing through Emma's blood.

It's an amazing story, but one year later, here's Emma. How about that? A transformation no less than astonishing. Her immune system has effectively been reprogrammed and her leukemia is now gone.

Emma is at school today. That's great news. She's there with the rest of her friends in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania, but her mom and dad are with me right now live by Skype. How are you and how is Emma?

KARI WHITEHEAD, EMMA'S MOTHER: We're doing great and Emma is doing really incredible right now.

BANFIELD: That's just fantastic to hear. The pictures were amazing to see her a year later. But you guys had to have gone through sheer hell over this.

TOM WHITEHEAD, EMMA'S FATHER: Yes, we did. That was a very tough road to get through, and Emma was our inspiration through it all because she never complained through the treatment.

BANFIELD: You know, disabled or not, when anybody hears HIV, that strikes fear and the doctors were suggesting to you that's what they wanted to use on her.

How did you get over that hump? How did you get the explanation you needed to take this huge risk?

T. WHITEHEAD: Well, they actually took her cells out and put the HIV with the cells in the lab and grew them in the lab and they weren't sure of the results they could get from it. They said the science backed it up, that it should work.

But the one thing they could guarantee us from the beginning is that she could not pick up HIV from this treatment.

BANFIELD: You got the guarantee on that?

T. WHITEHEAD: Yes. They said that was the one thing they were sure of in this treatment, is the virus was deactivated before they used it with Emily's cells.

BANFIELD: Nonetheless, it had to be a really tough decision given the fact that, as I understand it, she is the first child in the world to attempt this treatment.

K. WHITEHEAD: It was, you know, a difficult decision, but we also knew that it was really the last option for Emily.

At that point, she had been out of options and, so, you know, we talked it over and just felt really comfortable after talking with Dr. Grupp and the rest of the team, you know.

And we were just really hopeful this was going to work and, you know, it really was her last option.

BANFIELD: And now there -- I mean, when doctors talk about curing cancer, they're always careful to couch it in the kinds of terms that are realistic.

How have they described Emma's -- her condition now? Is she truly cured? Is it gone? Is it one of those things you just have to wait and see?

T. WHITEHEAD: Well, you know, we were told from the beginning and you learn quick when a family member has cancer, that you don't use the word cure for quite a while afterward, but she's in remission right now and, just recently, they looked at 1 million cells from Emma and found not one cancer cell in her system.

We go again at the end of January here for a bone marrow check which would be nine months since her remission and the cells, the modified genetic T-cells still show up in her peripheral blood and no cancer cells.

BANFIELD: I want to make sure I'm getting her name right. I've been reading all of this material on Emma, but you're calling her Emily. I hope I'm not mistaken.

K. WHITEHEAD: Her real name is Emily, but she decided about a year ago she preferred to be called Emma, so she's been called Emma a lot recently, but we still call her Emily.

BANFIELD: It sounds like she can put her mind to something and she can get it, right?.

WHITEHEAD: Exactly.

WHITEHEAD: Yeah, when she first told me, I said, Emma sounds like a good nickname, and she said, I would like to know when I can legally change my name to Emma.

BANFIELD: That's awesome. By the way, I'd like to sort of -- I don't know -- follow that up with a very positive note. This is going to be the first Christmas at home for her in what, I think, two years? Is that right?

K. WHITEHEAD: Yes.

BANFIELD: That's got to be something pretty special for you guys. Do you guys have something very special planned?

WHITEHEAD: You know, we're just going to do our usual Christmas, really nothing special. We're just going to have a lot of family over and just do something simple. We just want to take that time to enjoy Emily and enjoy being with our family this year.

BANFIELD: You know what, just doing something normal in itself in this particular case is extraordinarily special.

Kari and Tom Whitehead, just great to talk to you and I'm so glad for your story. Thanks so much for being with us.

K. WHITEHEAD: Thank you.

T. WHITEHEAD: All right, thank you. Have a great day.

BANFIELD: You, too, and have a wonderful, wonderful holiday, as well.

And we're going to continue this story because coming up next we're going to speak with Emma -- Emily's oncologist, Dr. Steve (ph) Grupp about pioneering this cancer treatment and how it came up in the first place. Coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BANFIELD: The fact that Emma Whitehead or Emily Whitehead is going to be home for Christmas this year is nothing short of a miracle, because last spring she was actually dying of leukemia.

And before the break, we spoke with her parents about a revolutionary cancer treatment that brought her back from the brink of death. It had never been tested on a child before Emma.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMMA WHITEHEAD, CANCER PATIENT: It was scary, really scary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Really scary, from the mouths of babes, because the experimental treatment using HIV was Emma's only chance at surviving and the process itself nearly killed her.

Let's bring in Emma's oncologist, Dr. Steve Grupp, who helped pioneer this ground-breaking treatment, along with CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

OK, Dr. Grupp, I'm so glad to have you here because I think the first question -- where did the idea of using the HIV, even this deactivated version of HIV, where did it even come from in the first place?

DR. STEPHAN GRUPP, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, STEM CELL LABORATORY: So, thanks a lot for allowing me to answer your questions.

So, the treatment that Emma got was actually a cell-therapy treatment. I think Tom and Kari did a great job of describing that to folks.

What we did was take cells of the immune system called T-cells. We take those out of the body. We expose them to a virus so we can put a new gene into the T-cells -- that's called genetic engineering -- and then we put the T-cells back in the body. We don't put the virus into the body.

It is true it started out as an HIV-virus and what we do is we take out all the parts of the virus that can cause disease and only leave the part that actually can put that new gene into the cell for the genetic engineering.

This idea has been around for a while, but it's only recently that this sort of cell therapy has actually been helping patients.

BANFIELD: So, you know, as we understand, the process itself has a heck of a trajectory. I mean, it does a lot to the patient who has to go through the process.

What are some of those examples of how difficult this was for Emma to endure?

GRUPP: Well, Emma did get sick as a result of her T-cell therapy. Everybody who has gotten this therapy so far who has responded to it, and 9-out-of-12 people who have gotten it have responded, have gotten some degree of illness.

They've gotten high fevers. They've gotten muscle aches. They felt like they had a terrible case of the flu. A few of the people actually did get sicker and Emma definitely was one of those people.

For a few days after she got her T-cells, she was actually sick enough to need care in an intensive care unit, but we learned something very important from Emma. We learned how to block the immune activation that was making her sick.

She got better very rapidly after we treated her with a new medication and, since then, she's been doing great.

BANFIELD: So what she went through has helped you to deal with other patients. It's just -- it's incredible.