WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

This is. When. A sudden suicide of the youngest son. Once second in line. Drawn. Surprisingly that has a willing to believe on the pope's decision to keep seven parishes Close joins us. With a harbinger of things to come to the pharmaceutical industry. Paul tells us what he's hearing about. News of store closures and layoffs at 500 plus new jobs. And more. But first the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh. Well it's

a big day on the hill a very different political landscape on this first day of a new Congress. NPR's Paul Brown is at Statuary Hall at the Capitol which is needless to say abuzz with activity right Paul. Correct Laxmi media in place at Statuary Hall we're waiting for members of Congress to file through. And it is a big day all around started very quietly but a big crowd here at the Capitol and fairly heavy security now that wasn't the case at least outwardly early this morning but lots of police and some dogs and that sort of thing here. Let's talk about agenda Republicans control the House picked up more seats in the Senate shrinking the Democrats majority. What kind of a fight are we most immediately likely to see. Well of course Republicans have said that they will vote right out of the box here on the health care law they want to either repeal it or take it apart piece by piece even if there are votes to do those things in the House of Representatives. It's not as likely that that will happen in the Senate where Democrats will still hold a majority if not as large a majority.

We've heard a lot from Republicans in past weeks Laxmi But this morning we also caught up with Representative Judy Chu a Democrat of California here at the Capitol. Who says she is really going to push to maintain the health care law here she has. It is my great hope that we preserve it as it is because it will improve our health care system so that there is not so much waste and fraud. It's a major drain on our economy and I will fight like crazy to make sure that it's maintained as is. Show Paul what's happening later today. Congress convenes. I have said has been called into session and then we will have the election of the speaker of the house most likely John Boehner Republican of Ohio. Nancy Pelosi the current speaker will hand over the gavel and at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time about two and a half hours away the new Congress will be formally sworn in. OK thanks paul That's NPR's Paul Brown reporting for us from the Capitol. President Obama's main spokesman is officially resigning. NPR's Scott

Horsley reports press secretary Robert Gibbs will leave the White House early next month. A top White House aide says Robert Gibbs will give up his government post for the private sector. It's expected he'll continue to consult for Mr. Obama on a private basis as the president prepares for his 2012 re-election campaign. Gibbs also plans to give speeches. No replacement has been named yet. GIBBS departure is one of a number of changes expected in the president's inner circle. The White House is also in the market for a new chief of staff to replace Rahm Emanuel and a new economic adviser to take the place of Larry Summers. Scott Horsley NPR News Washington. U.S. stocks still making gains at last check the Dow is up nearly 30 points at eleven thousand seven hundred nineteen. This is NPR. The Labor Department and coal mining giant Massey Energy have agreed to settle a landmark lawsuit against a company mine in Kentucky considered too dangerous to operate without federal court supervision.

NPR's Howard Berkes reports that the agreement still puts the mine under a federal judge's jurisdiction and that judge could cite Massey Energy's mine managers for contempt of court if they fail to abide by a long list of safety conditions in the company's freedom mine number one in Pike County Kentucky. The case uses for the first time ever a three decade old enforcement tool considered the toughest under federal law. Massey is already in the process of closing the mine. The settlement seeks to protect about 60 mine workers during the several months it will take to dismantle and remove equipment. Massey does not admit to operating the mine and safely but agrees to the safety procedures and court supervision. The company also avoids a hearing that was expected to include testimony about production pressure. While the mine amassed hundreds of safety violations Howard Berkes NPR News. An Army general is in charge of flood recovery now in eastern Australia where high waters are covering an area the size of Texas and Queensland state more than three dozen towns and cities are under water. Resident Sonia Gilly tells Australian Broadcasting

she is worried about fuel shortages. I'll probably be a little bit worried about petrol but I don't think we're going to run out of food. The flood damage is estimated to be as much as five billion dollars so far. Another key gauge shows consumer demand in the U.S. getting stronger the Institute for Supply Management says its measure of service sector activity rose to fifty seven point one in December. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News. Support for NPR comes from the doors do charitable foundation supporting the performing arts environmental conservation better core research and the prevention of child abuse. It's live and it's local. Coming up next two hours of local talk the Emily Rooney show and the Cali Crossley Show. Only on WGBH. Good afternoon you're listening to the Emily Rooney show on the heels of what many analysts and

business owners called the best holiday shopping season in years. The retail outlook here in the Bay State appears to be a mixed bag. Retail giant Macy's is closing its store and the Chestnut Hill Shopping Center where about one hundred forty people work and Natick based Bee Jays wholesale will shutter five stores by the end of the month and cut about 500 jobs including 61 corporate level jobs at their native headquarters here in Massachusetts but it's not all gloom and doom. New York based supermarket Wegmans will hire five hundred fifty local employees to staff its first Massachusetts location. One hundred forty five thousand square foot store opening in Northborough this October. I don't think I've ever been to a Wegmans going to check that out. Joining us now to talk about what all this action in the retail sector means is Nancy Kane a historian at the Harvard Business School who studies retail. Welcome Nancy. Thank you. But you're the one that surprises me is Macy's. I don't know why it's who owns it now

Federated is it. You know they've only been in that Chestnut Hill location three years Bloomingdale's of course moved over to the chazzan hill mall so it's connected more to the mall but that's a stand alone operation but it's right near Legal Seafood and all that others that strip mall there. Yeah it's an interesting it's an interesting closure and it comes in in the wake of a very good holiday season for Macy's and a very good third quarter which is the most recent period for which we have data. Third quarter sales year to date were up well over 7 percent for Macy's. So I don't know but not necessarily at that store. Right now I know in general so it's interesting so that is about most likely what kind of turn they're getting conversion they're getting on that real estate and it must be lower than than what they're getting in other stores in the chain they own about 150 of those stores around the country. It's interesting because they're also closing a store in Atlanta so they must be at the end of the year beginning of a new Taking stock of you know where are viable assets and saying not in that store with the

240 employees. Yeah I do stop in there because I actually kind of convenient I have to say it's easy to park and all that I mean it's always like. You know a giant open football field there's nobody ever in it but I also feel like there's nobody working there yet. It's impossible to find anybody to help you take your money. Well you know this is one of the things that's happened in the last several years in lots of department stores but most particularly in Federated the the nation's biggest department store chain and that is that in in the long slow burn of the Cline that department stores have experienced well over you know five perhaps ten years one of the first things they've cut and it's a vicious cycle is sales help and training. And anything that has to do with the actual purchasing experience and so I experience the same thing you do Emilie as a student of retail and as a consumer you have to bake people a cash unwrap to take your money for you know it's great for your pantyhose or your just noise or your sweaters.

And there's something really over times frustrating that's frustrating and or in Taylor's the same way it is unlike looming deals where they're all over you. Well it's interesting because you know Federated owns Bloomingdale's so why you know one store doesn't work and why doesn't it work in another. But but clearly you know the folks in New York have decided this asset isn't performing as we like. And since retail at its basic you know bare bones is all about asset utilization on buildings and land. I think that's what's going on here. Chestnut Hill used to be one of the hottest. You know malls shopping areas around they had the atrium there the Chestnut Hill I mean people came from I mean it was sort of the I don't know the mystique of it sort of upscale it was when the first it did that whole inside thing it's old now but does it say anything to think about the demise of that era because I don't think the atrium is doing all that well either. Well you know it may say something about the demise of the area. I think it probably says something as well about the fact that America is massively over stored and in that sense the the last three or four years that you know that particular last two years of real

recession are like a you know kind of grand collage Nick Clegg for the American store system because we simply have too many store do. And the more people shop online and online sales are up 30 percent this holiday season the last where in brick and mortar and so I think this is about Chestnut Hill in that area and it's also about a larger you know trend or very important kind of driving force in the economy about being over stored. Speaking of over Stuart I mean this Wegmans I've never been in one I've just heard them described to me in their pj's is cutting back this is another one. It's enormous. Apparently it's got you know like upscale upscale takeout food areas it's got aisles and aisles of it's a combination of I guess be JS in Whole Foods and I have been in one but as I said it's this one's opening in Northborough hiring. Many people when I say a lot 550 people that's a lot that's a lot of people the big stores. One hundred thirty five thousand square foot that is. That's huge that's bigger than most Wal-Marts it's

bigger certainly bigger than anything like a Whole Foods and bigger than most supermarkets. Well it is an interesting company you know they've been around for a long time family owned since 1916 but 77 stores up and down the East Coast based in New York they have they have a cult like following in a way I'm really I've been in them a couple of times in Rochester New York and they had upstate New York all the time and I haven't run into one. Well they're not. They're like they're you know they're not they're a little bit like Ikea they I think they keep their themselves a little bit scarce geographically and. And they have these people like you know like Harley owners that would you know come fall on their swords to buy their. Really you know yes and Wakeman's and yes and it's interesting they are their big stores they have a lot of sampling and. Now you're talkin. Yeah experience all kind of cooking going on in those stores. They're beautiful they're clean. They have law is it all food or is it clothing you know. It's all food and again and all that kind of stuff. A little bit yeah wellness you know as we say in the

trade and wellness and you know and lots and lots of folks so you never feel like you're begging anybody take your money there and you don't wait in line a long time and they have over the last 10 years just migrated the shelf space from you know the inner aisles and produce into prepared foods. Where they're they they just be able to create huge amounts of traffic and they can they can they can command big margins. And so so I you know it's an interesting phenomena cars are not cheap This is not you know Trader Joe's or Costco. It's it's well prepared food in a very attractive setting or with lots of variety and real freshness. I guess the people who you know they're busy they don't want to make dinner that night they run in there and I guess you can get fresh pasta made right there or sushi whatever you want and then take it home so it's not like you go at a restaurant so it's probably by comparison to eating out for a family of four cheaper.

That's a that's a great insight into today's economy because one of as you know one of the real the real victims if you will of the last two years of this you know until recently very steeply declining consumer confidence has been to restaurants right where people just stopped buying. But you know Americans have kind of forgotten how to cook right 55 cents of every dollar that we spend on food is on food prepared away from home so. So maybe wage means an indirect way we don't have a lot of numbers on them because they're not they don't release them in the same way lots of supermarkets do. But there are about six billion dollar company five billion dollar company. What what what they may have benefited very much from were staying at home. We're not cooking from scratch but as you said this is a lot cheaper than going to you know than going to. Thank god it's Friday so what. What about the Bee Gees though. I mean is Wakeman similar to that or is there downfall that is sort of this quantity demand story gotta go in there and buy 18000 rolls of toilet paper in order that. Well is it is that the problem with it or Oh I don't know.

I mean it's interesting this is an interesting moment in the kind of the BJC journey. There's stuff going on behind the scenes I think in terms of the ownership structure of the company there. Leonard Green partners which is you know a buyout private equity company that likes retail and has been on an acquisition spree including buying a big hunk a J.Crew last month really is bidding they've lined up to get on the dance card for B.J. and they own almost 10 percent of the stock So is there something going on in corporate headquarters in Natick that's about preventing what analysts and some observers are calling a potentially hostile. Go for a play so I don't know I think there but I think there may be a financial and ownership piece to this story that we don't really know are they very much about equally competitive with Kostka. No no they're a distant third to Sam's Club and Costco so you know go in to buy £5 you know five gallons of mayonnaise at Costco. But but but not necessarily in the same way it B.J.. So Costco from the latest reports is doing just fine.

And and so I'm not sure what the retail real story is behind this curtain of layoffs and whether that has anything to do with them trying to you know put their bottom line together get their profit up in some kind of you know important way to brush themselves up for perhaps a sale to come. The company executives can control more more carefully and precisely when the takeover bid. I know that in the third quarter of 2010 their profit rose by almost 30 almost a third since 2009. So they're not bleeding in the way that many retailers are. I didn't tell you I was going to ask you about this but I think I might. Anyway it was announced yes last night this morning that the Back Bay Restaurant Group was selling its thirty three restaurants to this Taurus out in California I think the big concern for people is local control Tavistock sorry local control and quality will have an effect because it is a chain for the most part.

Most of those restaurants are chains. You know I think Boston is a particularly kind of locally focused set of consumers I mean you know there's it's just relative to the you know the other 30 largest cities in America. So it may indeed have some kind of noticeable impact. Restaurants are in a more precarious position than supermarkets right consumer confidence is up those numbers just came out. But but you know there's lots of things that are keeping consumers careful. Right. Oil prices are up. Unemployment is stuck you know at 10 percent or possibly as high as you know 16 if we count under employment people who stop looking for work. You know housing prices are very uncertain. There's just there's lots of you know the stock market is you know it's had a nice run but very few people can make their purchasing decisions based on that. It's it's just a very and still a very uncertain time. You know whoa whoa whoa about the retail season and season to be merry. But but I don't think I don't think that's our bellwether you know our kind of canary down the mine shaft for the next year of retail I think we're going to see a lot slow careful burn toward recovery on the consumer and finance

again of Harvard Business School studies retail there. What about this whole pop up phenomenon these pop up stores. I mean all over the place that what how does that work they come into storefronts that are empty and they stay there for short term. I don't even understand it it's so interesting this is such an interesting moment in the economy because we got all this stuff happening part of it is you know about the fallout from the recession so America's massively over stored a lot of those stores went belly up we now have lots and lots of empty space. I can't remember another time in my life Emily when you walk down the main street of Belmont for example where I live and you see storefront somewhere else than Boston. Tom Tom even even in midtown New York in Midtown so. So this is a moment when we have all these assets not being used in that. It's almost like these pop ups are like hermit crabs. Right. Go in don't do a lot of retrofitting climb into this shell see if it works right if it doesn't work quickly exit stage left. Oh about like the Christmas Tree Shop you know writ large which pops up for a couple of

months in the fall and in the early winter so I think what we're seeing is a large lot I think we're seeing a whole lot of of adaptive systemic adaptive behavior in retail that's a result of all kinds of creative destruction is this kind of thing just recession phenomenon or is it here to stay. Oh I think it's a MUP phenomenon. I think it may very well be here to stay partly based on the incredible suppleness and care and flexibility that consumers have shown in the last couple years I mean they adapted really quickly the recession much more quickly than a lot of established organizations and partly it's about these changing spending habits around the web and the relationship between bricks and mortar and web. And mobile phones and you know yeah the whole way that consumers are using technology and bricks and mortar to try and claim value for themselves both in terms of pricing and in terms of where to get what they want.

I mean you really wonder where this is all headed with the Internet and I still I bought a pair of shoes over the Internet because I'm too lazy to return but it doesn't work for me anyway to get it to do the shopping by the web I mean it's I just I had to be there I got to see it I got a few that I got to try it on. Well I I'm I'm more in your camp and kind of you know shopping online shopaholic. I'm a real shopper I got to study English game and I love the game. Right there's a reason I started a game because I was so sad if you did I would have the same sweater and different colors and I love to shop and part of the joy of shopping is the experience of touching and looking and being in the store itself but I think lots and lots of people time Prust at home more and more and how they have been for two years because of you know the recession and all kinds of constraints on their spending. I think people find shopping from busy moms to millennials to time pressed you know executives of both genders find it really convenient you know to buy even shoes even bathing suits online I find it

they are reputed to go to that location. How about you. Wealthier. Oh I've learned to I've learned to get my retail jollies online as well as say well you have to teach me. As he came from Harvard Business School thanks for coming here today I really appreciate always a pleasure Emily. Or I would like to hear from you. E-mail us at Emily Rooney show at WGBH dot org or visit us on the web at WGBH and org slash Emily Rooney where you can link to our Facebook and Twitter pages. We're going to take a short break. When we continue the local Iranian exile community reacts to the sudden suicide of the former Shah's son here Boston. You're listening to the. And later in the show Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you. And from Providence Country Day School in

East Providence. You can experience the school's dynamic learning environment firsthand on Open Class Day. Wednesday January 12th from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon. More at Providence country day dot org. And from Elsa Dorfman Cambridge portrait photographer still clicking with the jumbo format Polaroid 20 by 24 analog camera and original Polaroid film. Online at Elsa Dorfman dot com. That's Elsa Dorfman dot com. On the next FRESH AIR investigating how U.S. guns end up in Mexico's drug wars. We talk with James Grimaldi one of the reporters who has contributed to the Washington Post series The Hidden Life of Guns. Join us for the next FRESH AIR. This afternoon at two on eighty nine point seven. The hit British drama Downton Abbey is coming to America on January 9 only on

Masterpiece. And when you support eighty nine point seven with a gift of one hundred twenty dollars were just $10 a month. WGBH will unlock the doors of Downton Abbey to you a week before anyone else. You'll gain access to each episode online before it comes to television to watch whatever you want. Celebrate 40 years of Masterpiece on PBS. Sign up or give online. I'm Cali Crosley up next on the Cali Crossley Show. We're talking public health and politics. Massachusetts to the Ocean State they had one after the show. One eighty nine point seven. You're listening to the Emily Rooney show the youngest son of the late Shah of Iran once second in line to the throne took his own life this week leading many Iranian emigres here and beyond shocked and saddened. The gunshot death of 44 year old

lady at his home in Boston has brought home the personal tragedies of Iranians who were forced into exile by the Islamic revolution. WGBH his own government. His father was a diplomat for the Shah's government herself moved to the U.S. during the revolution and she joins us now. Welcome. Thank you. So you actually remember the Shah your father knew him. You were one of those little girls who greeted people coming off the off the airplanes visiting Iran. Yes I do if of course I do and I think anyone in my generation or older certainly did anyone who lived I mean when we were in school in Iran every school book would have a picture of the Shah the Shah's wife they were they were a family that everybody really looked up to and I think that's why this death resonated so much with so many people especially among my generation and people who've been exiled from the country because because they grew up we grew up watching this family and we grew up watching him grow and these children grow and. And it was very sad really when when I first heard about it yesterday I heard about it not through the news media but through

another friend from. From Toronto who send me immediately after the news got out there. There was just a wild storm of emails and Facebook messages and postings that were going on among just the local Iranians and Iranians all throughout the US. What I think what people think happened is 44 years old handsome is how you tell me his girlfriend had died suddenly last year I mean could write his state of depression. He could have been and the official family statement actually says that he was depressed and that he was living with sorrow or living with what happened to her relief. When I've heard different reports he apparently had this he had a girlfriend he used to go scuba diving quite frequently and one of the reports I heard was that she hit her head against a rock and she died. But then I've also heard another report that she may have overdosed so we don't really know. I'm not really certain about what the situation was around her rights around her death but it did affect him and he apparently he also had

difficult other he was engaged to another woman before that and he broke off that engagement and then he had another girlfriend so this is someone who seemed very alone in many ways I mean he lived a life. He lived a life with a lot of material wealth but it was also it seemed as a very lonely life without any kind of sustainable relationship. Well was he unwelcome in Iran could he have lived there and did you know he lived here. I did know that he lived here because I knew he lived in. He went to Harvard for a while and I knew that he had local ties. I didn't know exactly where he lived but but no he absolutely could not go back to Iran. The Iranian government still harbors a lot of hostility towards the the family the the Shah's family and they. They went through great measures to get rid of in a lot of the people in Iran still don't like the shawm even a lot of exiles don't necessarily embrace anything the Shah represented or went through. However however they still I think many of them still feel sad because of what it represents because the more the symbolic nature of

this. I mean many of us remember sort of the Although the overtures of the Carter administration and before too you know well before the ayatollah took over. But that as a rant had almost become become westernised. The Shah was a frequent visitor to the United States it was like this was going to a country on the verge of becoming a democracy. I mean what happened and what was revolution all about and are they happier now that they have the this form of government a back to a sort of a religious. I know I know it was despotism before but what's the difference right. Well it's true that the Shah did have a very close relationship with the US and and in a way that was his undoing because the revolution the seeds to the revolution happened many years before the actual revolution in 1079 really what happened was at one point there was a populist movement to get rid of the Shah. This was back in the middle of the century and the U.S. helped the CIA and the U.S. helped bring the Shah back into power. And at that point the government the Iranian government the Shah was working really situ Asli and

hardly did to Westernize the country and to modernize it in many ways and they worked for women's movement so they were. There were a great number of people who appreciated what was going on in the country and a lot of people benefited from it a bit became much more educated and. Even among the exile community you see here a lot of the people who have benefited from it's the educated people who left the country at like Europe and revolution and many other people and they end with your family forced out. They were well they weren't. My father eventually ended up moving back because he felt he had ties to the country he had difficulties when he was back in the country but he had come from a very large extended family so he really didn't want to give up his his ties and his family and he had a loyalty in Iran in Iran and he had a loyalty. He served his whole entire life serving his country there now. He passed away. But my mother is still there and she comes and visits us but. But there are many people there many people who have both feet in. In the West and in Iran I'm not I'm not alone in this I know many many other Iranians who have extended

family in Iran and they come and go as difficult as it is sometimes especially for Iranians to get a visa to leave the country and to come into any kind of Western country especially the United States. However a situation like the Shah's family or the people who are very very closely tied to the Shah cannot go back they really have a permanent exile and that's very common when you see a revolution I mean certainly it happened with the Russian Revolution. Back in the early 20th century there was a group of Russian exiles that that kind of mourned their old country and they never really managed to acclimate to the new environment that they lived in they might have lived in Paris or the U.S. or wherever. And I think it's a it's a common occurrence among the diaspora and I think and what really struck us for with this in this incident is because this is the second suicide in the family. His sister he had a younger sister who 10 years ago had also she had overdosed from drugs and they they say that it was suicide. And when you see a family that you've seen grow up with everything that they have imaginable and then you see

them all now isolated and two of the children having committed suicide it just it really hits home for a lot of people it brings about a certain level of latent despair that probably people feel as they come into a new country and try to rebuild an entire life based on I mean. You know he he was popular with a certain group there. But. Right and there are still loyalists to the Shah's family there are still some people in this in the U.S. who are loyalists and his older brother who lives in the D.C. area. Has he has political aspirations he's still trying to drum up a dissident movement within the U.S. and within Europe. However I don't think that he has as much influences as maybe he thinks or maybe because I because there's still a lot of negative feelings I mean truly the Shah in the shah's what he represented was ejected from the country they were really kicked out of the country so if there is hardly any financial greed that was his undoing. Yeah financial greed and and also he was a despot I be he had a secret

secret military force and I and six secret intelligence agency that would target people and they tortured people and. And he had a lot a lot of dissidents within the country when it happened so people still remember that. Certainly not the younger people and even in Iran right now two thirds of the population are under the age of 30. So you really you can see it's you see the big news there. It's not apparently they've really they've under plaited they haven't really talked about it much over there are they. This is much bigger news among the exile community in the dissident community than it is about and I don't even know who's here in Boston. Very interesting as it is. Thanks so much for coming. Thank you. All right we're going to take a short break. When we continue surprisingly the Council of parishes has a relatively rosy outlook on the pope's decision to reverse an order to shutter area churches. You're listening to stay with us. You're listening to the Emily Rooney show Pope Benedict the 16th has rejected an appeal

from a group of Boston area parishioners who asked him to reverse a seven year old decision to close their churches. The pope's decision comes in response to a last ditch appeal made bad that council of parishes in October. My next guest Peter borer who heads the council says he was heartened though by the sympathetic tone of the letter. Welcome Peter. Hi how are you Emily. Good. What I mean by that you were heartened. I mean they said we're not going to reverse this. How can that be heartening. Well this is not meant as a wisecrack I was frankly surprised to get an acknowledgement and a response be to get it from the second highest ranking official in the secretary of state. That is the equivalent of Joe Biden answering a letter that was sent to a White House staffer. And see the Vatican's statements have to be read pretty carefully it's a little bit like the Kremlin 15 or 20 years ago more actually. There is first of all the fact that we were successful in raising the issue of these mosques in

parishes at the highest levels. The Vatican the archbishop who wrote me is somebody who briefs the pope twice a week and when he says that the pope was apprised of the situation I take him at face value. But secondly the tone of the letter is conciliatory and it's not boilerplate at the end. The good archbishop concludes by saying that the Pope has asked him to assure me of a remembrance in his prayers. Now that may not strike you as much. No it doesn't but bear with me maybe you can think back a little bit when somebody puts a statement in the mouth of the pope. And this is a group that has been struggling and fighting for many years by the way tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of the global exposé on the Archdiocese of. The tone of the letter is much more conciliatory than what we've heard from the Archdiocese of Boston and its spokesman. So here's where we are. We're at a standoff. The archdiocese can invoke its

property rights and send in the cops or they can continue to wait for time. We ain't going nowhere. So I thought you're not going to concede that this is over it's final I mean why should I start paying the bills. Because the archdiocese by the way won't let us. But you know that you go to the record. They won't let you pay the bills. Correct. Why not because they are the owner of record and they don't want a bunch of squatters flouting their title. Now as to why we won't move on this is more than two or three people Amalie. And that's what I've been doing a month it's a building at some point it's like you know listen to the same arguments from the people who are being forced to move to different you know schools in the city of Boston. It's a building. What do you got to do with God. The difference is that these parishioners paid for these churches and these churches were vibrant communities and the archdiocese is sliding towards financial debacle. And these people would be ready to be part of the

solution while the tears take of this years and hold on. I don't know I think I'm really trying to grapple with why it's that I mean that argument doesn't really fly at all taxpayers pay and I'm glad the way you know your need to pay no property taxes there so it's not like you know there's some great big you know up well actually because there's a movement now but very well I know about it how do you file it to make the churches pay property taxes not monopoly buildings or no payment in lieu of taxes. No because they no longer are churches. Excuse me because they're no longer churches but they still are no longer Still church property. Yeah but it's not for religious purposes of the town of Scituate has sent a bill and collected under protest a payment from the Archdiocese of Boston. Will the archdiocese let you buy any of the buildings offers have been made no response. Because if they're going to close them what were they going to do. What are they going to do with them if you're not there. You might ask them. So you would like to buy them in

one specific case in situ it. Yes but they've hit a brick wall. So what's what's next you're just going to you're just going to stay there. No we have another avenue of appeals going on in Rome and I'm headed back there at the end of this month to pursue it and we're going to challenge the right of the archbishop not to close the parish which is clearly his right but his right to be consecrate the search and the church and to sell it off. Are you do you have any concern or fear that they might just think do you unlock the door. That's been a possibility for the last six years and three months. And what would you know would you break in if they did. You know so if they did that you would you would you would concede the fight we would find other avenues we would not be guilty of breaking and entering right now we're guilty of trespassing 24 hours a day. And do you have any you know compunctions about that about trespassing.

Yeah absolutely not. And by the way it's not just me. What about a few hundred I know. Yeah I know. Yeah yeah you know I'm aware that what you do in there all day long what goes on. Well you can as a people and while they sit they pray they read the newspaper they surf online if they have a life. All right I suspect trying to get my head around it but I can't. All right you know I know it's been going on for seven years and I I guess I don't understand what it has to do with your faith. All right. That's an intensely personal question you have one for you we have a mother. OK. All right Peter more like. Thank you. All right. That's it for that segment I guess it was to please in my line of questioning there but what do you think about the pope's decision and are you one of the vigil or do you think that you have the right to be there in the church and what does it have to do with the building. All right give me an e-mail at Emily Rooney show at WGBH dot org or visit us on the web at WGBH dot

org slash Emily Rooney. We're going to take a short break when we continue what are you hearing about Boston biotech Kristoff Westfall is here you're listening to the Emily Rooney show. Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you and from Newberry court. A full service residential community for persons over the age of 62. Newberry court invites you to try the sleep on it program. You can experience the community and sleep on it in one of the guest suites. Newberry court work. And from the cottages at new bridge on the Charles homes for independent seniors in Hebrew senior life's newest community. A maintenance free lifestyle in a setting that encourages growth and exploration. The cottages at Newbridge dot work. Next time on the world a problem with aid organizations in Haiti in Haiti and

bring in their own outside labor rather than hire locally qualified Haitians are not being employed so a crew of MIT students set up a kind of Craigslist Haitian workers advertise their skills by calling up this voice mail system. A labor database for Haiti. Next time on the world is coming up at 3 o'clock here at eighty nine point seven WGBH in that old car you sure have been through a lot. I will bet that every now and then you car like to listen to eighty nine point seven. WGBH together. So when the time comes for you and your trusty roadster to part ways consider donating it to WGBH. It's completely tax deductible and all the proceeds from the sale go towards the programs that you and your car depend on. There's a WGBH dot org to find out more. I'm Kalee Crossley up next on the Cali Crossley Show. We're talking public health and politics.

It's Massachusetts to the Ocean State. They had one FEMA when he shot one eighty nine point seven. WGBH. You're listening to the Emily Rooney show what are you hearing about Boston biotech Boston based biotech entrepreneur Kristoff Westfall joins us with some insight on where things stand in the life sciences. And I just wrote this fascinating op ed for The Boston Globe comparing the downward spiral of the newspaper industry to what's happening to the pharmaceutical industry and I never thought about it this way but it all has to do with this idea of shared or free content. Same thing is happening the newspaper you see suddenly all these great patented drugs have been neutralized and generic sized and the pharmaceutical companies are making the kind of money they used to. Yeah I think a lot of folks don't think a lot about how much it costs to develop a drug and how long it takes and at the end of the day when a new drug gets approved it ends up being

reasonably expensive. And I think a lot of us are focused on the cost. I think what happens however is as time lines get longer it gets harder to get these drugs approved and as many of the old drugs go off patent and become generic. The prices go much lower and what that means ultimately is less revenues to pharma and biotech companies and ultimately that works its way back to less money to do research for new drugs. Yes and I think to me that the FDA ever did that in the first place. They put a limit on a patent. I mean does that work for everything in the world. That's a pretty. The question I'm not going to say I'm supportive of the following view but I've read really interesting points of you so if you're an artist and you come up with I'm assuming you also have a copyright on your private eye yeah. And it lasts I think 50 60 70 years or it's to your death. Yeah it with patents on drugs it's 17 or 20 years there's you know some specifics I won't get into but it's you know roughly 17 to 20 years from the time you've invented that

drug. Once you get to the end of that 17 years it's gone. Anyone can make it and anyone can sell it. And what that helps to of course ultimately is it drives innovation it has prices going down ultimately but one of the costs especially an environment where new drugs aren't getting approved. Is that the revenues to the industry goes down and ultimately the amount of money that you can invest in drug discovery go right down. Why aren't new drugs being approved I just read that heartbreaking story and that it was today's Globe that the woman with breast cancer. Great story. Yeah I think what's happened is the FDA is more conservative than it used to be I think one important thing to remember is anything we ever do. You know flying a plane driving a car has a risk. The same thing is true for any drug you take aspirin has risks. Tylenol has risks so any drug that you're going to try and get approved and give to patients to treat a disease not only has a benefit but a risk. The FDA and other authorities have become much more conservative in terms of the risks that they're willing to tolerate for drugs that they might approve so that

ultimately has worked its way back to fewer drugs getting approved. And it does work its way back to patients like this breast cancer patient you know I thought was a great article today is on line. She was in queue to receive this new experimental drug which she said she's the perfect candidate for the right type of breast cancer. There is a right there to get breast cancer but she was the model patient for this. And in fact what happened is because it is not under a priority review even though it looks like it's working it'll probably be two three four years until that drug gets approved. Patients who are suffering from that disease now but of the drugs not approved you know they are not you know it's a tough situation for them I mean let me give you another example vertex which is a great local company and I hope very much I have no link to them but I hope very much their hepatitis C drug gets approved sometime this year that drug has been development for 13 years probably for the last three years. People have known very clearly that it saves the lives of many patients. But the process to get final approval takes years and years and clearly there are people who are dying dying because they don't have access even to staff does it make it

to the black market. Well that's of course you know that's none of it none of that happens I think there's you know good reasons that there's you know good regulatory and other enforcement but I think one thing that's hard to do it's always hard easy to write the article about the patient who took a drug and had a side effect and it hurt them very hard for folks to get their head around the idea that delays in getting drugs approved actually cost lives as well it's really hard to think you know what about the Alzheimer's drugs that haven't been approved that many of our parents or you know relatives could benefit from today. So the FDA really reduced the accelerated approvals I mean and it really slowed things down. It's just that the threshold and the requirement for new drugs to get approved today versus 30 years are dramatically different the number of patients that need to be treated the length of time they need to be studied. The cost of all of that is hugely increased now. Many people believe it costs about two billion dollars to get a drug approved. That number was probably about one hundred million dollars in constant dollars maybe 30 years ago. So it's just a totally different ball game

and we're going back to Boston and to biotech in Boston I think you know we're the best place in the world to do biotech and to discover drugs. But one thing that has happened in the last couple of years around the financial crisis is just fewer people want to invest in that. But if you're a public market investor you don't want to invest in it if you're a hedge fund if you're a pension fund you don't want to invest in that you're gone do not get your return to long and they are in is too uncertain. Talk to Christopher buy take entrepreneur. I was fascinated this story about Novartis this week. Now they basically put aside development of these you know so-called vanity or market oriented drugs and went strictly for research and development. And it is paid off but don't don't. Aren't they under the same constraints if they research to develop a drug presumably for something like this. Don't they have a vested interest in seeing it go to market. Yeah no so I mean that was a great article it was great to see the globe covering drug discovery development and I think a thoughtful balanced way in a broad perspective and one positive

effect you know increased standards are not purely bad one of the positive affects of what's happening is people are not interested in doing me too drugs or you know many of these vanity drugs anymore. People are more interested in the industry Novartis is a great example of targeted drugs for very important untreatable diseases I think locally Genzyme would have been a great example of that vertex with appetite a C drug I think. Novartis has done a good job and I think one thing that's changed is folks are really focused on diseases where you understand the mechanism the specific gene or protein that's defective and trying to specifically address that in an area that's already changed enormously as cancer therapy. So today you go to the doctor for many cancers and they will genotype your cancer they'll figure out what your mutation is and they will actually have a very specific targeted therapy. The frustration we all have is many of those targeted therapies you know there's new ones for melanoma for example are going to take five or 10 years to get to the market. But there is a shift happening there's still great things going on and certainly Boston is the best place to get it.

There was that announcement this week with Johnson Johnson with the blood test. Yeah they can. Well originally it's going to be to trace Mehta static cancer but eventually it's going to tell whether you've got cancer. Yeah I mean I think it's really neat. Read the media reports of this of Professor Dan Haber one of the there we had a meeting earlier he's a great guy and I think when you read that you have to be excited about the future. And then you have to check yourself and remember it's going to take 20 years he said that he said 20 years. Yes so it's extraordinary that I think in the future we're going to have a tumor maybe even a solid tumor that we can just take a blood sample versus having to have an invasive test and get a biopsy. And I think those kind of futures of being able to test noninvasive lead being able to tailor therapy you know to have a set of drugs that are specifically targeted to the mutation they're happening around us right now the frustration is it's very hard to get people to invest in that is amazing to me that there hasn't been something developed in the actual treatment of cancer it

just seems so Byzantine. You know chemo therapy there isn't something in the works it's more sophisticated Well there are multiple examples of you know cancer is really a thousand 5000 different times. So of those 1000 or 5000 different diseases there are several specific examples for example in melanoma. They understand 60 percent of the cause is a specific communication in something called B-raf. A small company in California plexi Khan has developed a drug to specifically target in melanoma and they describe the Lazarus effect in that it's not an approved drug yet but many patients who are about to die because they specifically target it are now alive and you know subsequent therapies will hopefully keep them alive for a long time but in certain cancers there has been very specific targeted therapies that work. Unfortunately not enough of them and it's taking longer than we all hoped. What's going on in the Bay area have they that you say we're still on the cutting edge of this that that Boston area is still

what are they like right in there with us. I mean tech industry. Yeah I mean I think many people so my point of view I think it's shared by many folks is that Boston is very much a secondary center in the I.T. world. I mean today Facebook all those big companies everything is outside of Boston that they're related. Yeah. But interestingly the biotech guy seems to seem to be OK when cold weather gets in the woodwork. Yeah well most everyone seems to think that most of the important exciting new you know the breakthrough potential type things like Vertex for hepatitis C or you know searchers and aging related diseases or Al Mylan with RNA interference. Many people believe that Boston is the best place in the world to try and take a cutting edge world class research at a Harvard mph Brigham etc. move it into a little biotech. You have a strong pharma presence here with Novartis and a number of other companies and you really have that ecosystem that even the Bay Area actually frankly many people just don't believe has.

Is it financially is viable though is this facebook i t kind of well. Well Facebook if you had started Facebook four years ago you'd be worth I don't know five or ten billion dollars. So that's not going to happen. I can have information no I'm sorry. Maybe for you. No not for me I'm a biotech guy. No biotech just takes a huge amount of capital and a long time. But if you say which have been the successful companies with breakthrough important new science moving into clinical trials and proving that many people believe that Boston for the last 10 years has by far been the best place to do it. My fear is just in general it's a shrinking industry and as an example of that you know we raised a small fund Longwood Founders Fund. It was the only new health care fund raised in the United States last year. So that's pretty and what is it what was it for for biotech. We're doing it here in Boston but you know many people don't understand that this is the world of investments is shrinking dramatically around biotech and what that does is fewer companies are getting started. The companies that get started aren't hiring 50 or 100 people they're hiring 5 or 10 going back to the newspaper example. A lot of it's turning into outsourcing to India and

China for early stage discovery in the newspaper industry that outsourcing in my mind is the blogosphere. But you know everything's changing now. That's not all bad. Change isn't always a great opportunity and Boston is well suited I think to try to address those opportunities because we have all these amazing people and they're all very close together. But it's a tough time in the industry trying to Kristoff Westfall biotech entrepreneur and as you just said founding partner at the Longwood Founders Fund. What about Obama health care reform is that going to be good for the biotech business. Boston I think many folks in pharma and biotech think that having clarity is always good. Clarity means who's running the FDA. What are the rules in terms of health care. I mean all of us I think looking at what's happening in Washington expect that the bill will not be repealed they'll just be a lot of back and forth but there's clarity in that. Furthermore increasing the number of folks who are covered for drugs as a general rule should be a good thing for the pharmaceutical industry I think the

counter side to that is there will be very very strong pressure on prices as it is in Europe. But many pharma people actually look at Europe as a more favorable place in terms of pharmaceuticals in the U.S. because the rules are clear and you know who you're negotiating with. Even if the negotiations are tough and you know if that's where we're headed than us that's probably a good thing. What about this. Tax on medical devices. We've debated that here both ways some people say it's going to be actually good for the medical device business. Other people say it's going to be devastating for the medical advice business overall devices I think have gotten even more difficult on a relative scale over the last 10 years than drugs so drugs have always been very hard to get approved. They've gotten incrementally significantly harder devices used to have very minimal requirements for approval by the FDA. And the biggest change for the device industry is probably not the tax regimen it's it's become much much more difficult to get devices approved and

reimbursed and generate revenues so and in general and Boston is really not you know one of the world centers of devices that's really much more in Southern California and Boston Scientific as Boston Scientific does and it's a great company. But there's you know there's no startup there's no strong start up environment for devices unfortunately in Boston it's really a biotech city. So your take that the tax on individual devices is not to be a problem. And I think you know generally I'm going to guess you are and my politics are quite similar but I think in general despite our similar politics I'd say taxes usually don't send people to invest in an area. I would I would think that that would probably be true. So what is what is to more of the good news you've got in the pipeline. I think one of the one of the important things you know just following on this idea of cancer changing is look 30 years ago people didn't know what what the genes were that caused most diseases. Today almost any biotech that gets started or almost any report you see in science or nature coming out of Harvard or MDH describes the specific gene or just regulation or

change of a gene that is the key causative agent of a specific disease. And that then leads ultimately to a very clear almost engineering approach to how to develop a drug against that and you know we went through the vertex example. You and I to have talked previously about we understand now what genes cause aging and how to address diseases of aging specifically like we did a search for us with molecules that are now in phase two. Other examples are cancer. Not only understand the genic lesions but that there are different kinds of cells in the cancer not only the cancer cells that get treated by these general therapies but also cancer stem cells that are a small population the cancer but all felt really what are killing you and you know Bob Weinberg at MIT and Eric Lander and I started a company called Vera which raised a fair amount of money focused on cancer stem cells the New York Times Wall Street Journal wrote about it many other things that are going on as there's these little companies still getting drugs approved. A little biotech in Boston is up at the FDA I was there for like cystic fibrosis anyway. That's a very important growing our recombinant protein for cystic fibrosis and it's on

the verge of getting that approved. Well the date is next week I mean so we'll see what the vote is. But you know so these little company is amazingly even though this environment is incredibly tough are still able to get through that final stage and hoping you know ultimately to get these drugs approved. Usually they you know up up a little E. usually they end up then being purchased by a pharma company. All right lot sounds encouraging at least. You're encouraged. Yeah I think you know the world is changing but change means opportunity as well and there's less money and that's more discerning money. But ultimately you know Boston I think the biotech scene is going to continue to be the leading one in the world. All right. Kristoff Westfall we will have you back to talk about that more as the year goes on. Always fascinating. Great. Thanks very. The take on it. OK. Kristoff Westfall biotech engineer founding partner at Longwood Founders Fund. I'm sure he's taking some donations too if you want to donate to some of those drug development because the things are that is going to do it for us this afternoon we will be back tomorrow at noon we'll have a special full live coverage of the gubernatorial inauguration will take

the governor's oath his inaugural address live live reports from the field from WGBH is Adam Riley in right here in the studio all be here with The Boston Phoenix is David Bernstein and others in the meantime tune into Greater Boston tonight at 7:00 the Back Bay Restaurant Group set to sell 33 restaurants. Will they lose the local touch. We'll have that story and more. The Emily Rooney show is a production of eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston NPR station for news and culture on the web at WGBH dot org slash Emily Rooney and Kelly Crossley Show is coming up next. I'm Emily Rooney have a great after us us. Thank. You.