The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Ray Suarez looks at the new scientific findings on global warming; Senator Lott talks about his new role as Senate Minority Leader; Susan Dentzer updates the turmoil over genetic testing; and Elizabeth Farnsworth explores a different way to a healing heart. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush today welcomed a new global warming report. A spokesman said he agreed with two broad conclusions by the National Academy of Sciences that the Earth is getting warmer and that humans are helping cause it. But the spokesman said it's still unclear how much humans are to blame and how much natural forces are involved. Last March, Mr. Bush rejected a global treaty imposing tight limits on greenhouse gases. Next week in Europe he's expected to outline a set of mostly voluntary steps. The President signed a tax cut bill into law today. It totals more than $1.3 trillion over 11 years and includes refunds this year of up to $600. Congressional Republicans and some Democrats joined Mr. Bush for a signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House. He said tax cuts went from being a political impossibility a year ago to reality today.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We cut taxes for every income taxpayer. We target nobody in; we target nobody out; and tax relief is now on the way. Today is a great day for America. It is the first major achievement of a new era, an era of steady cooperation.

JIM LEHRER: Democratic leaders said again today the bill will benefit mainly the rich and cause a return to deficit spending. We'll have more on global warming and the signing of the tax cut bill right after this News Summary. The United States is ready for new security talks with North Korea. The President announced the initiative last night in a written statement. Today, Secretary of State Powell said the talks would focus on curbing North Korea's missile program and reducing its conventional forces along the border with South Korea. Negotiations with the Communist North began during the Clinton Administration. There was no word on when the new talks might begin. Ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia offered a truce today. They issued a written statement saying they would cease firing at midnight, as long as government forces do not attack. They also said they are not fighting to break up Macedonia, only to improve the lot of the country's ethnic Albanian minority. On Wednesday, Macedonia's prime minister called for a declaration of war after the rebels ambushed and killed five government soldiers. A survivor of the palace massacre in Nepal came forward today. He confirmed that Crown Prince Dipendra killed nine members of the royal family Friday night, and then fatally shot himself. We have a report from Julian Manyon of Independent Television News.

JULIAN MANYON, ITN: This account comes from Rajiv Shahi, an army doctor who was married to a niece of the late King Birenda who died in the massacre along with his queen. Shaven-headed as a sign of mourning, Shahi told journalists what happened in front of a diagram showing the drawing room of the palace. He described how earlier this evening he and two princes had carried Dipendra, who appeared to be very drunk, to his room. Later the crown prince reappeared dressed in an army uniform and began gunning down members of his family with at least two automatic rifles.

RAJIV RAI SHAHI: What motivated him to do this, I'm not sure. It was Crown Prince Dipendra who committed this murder. Anybody who touches the king is no more what he used to be. He was just a murderer. Thank you.

JULIAN MANYON: Reporter: Shahi says he didn't see King Birenda shot, but rushed to help the dying monarch. He used his coat to staunch the bleeding from a wound in the king's neck, but was unable to save him.

JIM LEHRER: There have been reports from Nepal that the crown prince was angry at his parents for opposing his plans to marry. Britain held national elections today. Prime Minister Tony Blair cast his ballot amid predictions the Labour Party would win another landslide victory. Labour came to power in 1997, after 18 years of conservative rule. There were predictions of a record low turnout for today's voting. The human heart has the ability to repair itself after a heart attack. That discovery was reported today in the "New England Journal of Medicine." Medical experts had long believed the heart, unlike skin and bones, cannot regenerate after being damaged. But researchers at New York Medical College found evidence of new heart muscle in 13 patients. The discovery could lead to treatments that stimulate such growth. We'll have more on this story at the end of the program tonight. And between now and then: New scientific findings on global warming, Senate Minority Leader Lott, and genetic testing.

FOCUS - GLOBAL WARMING

JIM LEHRER: Ray Suarez has the global warming story.

RAY SUAREZ: Three months ago...President Bush reversed a campaign pledge to cap U.S. emissions of the greenhouse gas -- carbon dioxide. Two weeks later, the White House abandoned the Kyoto global warming pact, which limits pollutants like CO2. In fact, on the broader science of global warming, the President has raised questions.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Global warming needs to be taken very seriously, and I take it seriously. But science -- there's a lot of -- there's differing opinions. And before we react, I think it's best to have the full accounting, full understanding of what's taking place.

RAY SUAREZ: One answer came yesterday, when a panel of U.S. scientists issued a White House- requested report. They concluded: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities ... the greenhouse gas of most concern is carbon dioxide .....there is general agreement that the observed warming is real and particularly strong within the past twenty years." The report also endorsed the findings of a UN climate change panel, which stated in January that "there is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." The UN group predicts increased summer monsoons and floods... continued melting of polar caps and glaciers... and greater extremes of droughts and heavy rainfall in the 21st century. Yesterday's report came 5 days before the President heads to Europe....for a trip that includes a global warming meeting in Sweden. In March, European leaders reacted harshly when the President rejected the Kyoto protocols.

MICHAEL MEACHER, UK Environment Minister: What we are seeing are increasing floods, hurricanes, extreme weather conditions, both in the UK and in the United States and elsewhere and of course its going to get worst until we deal with the cause of it, which is rising greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. And, of course, Kyoto is the only show in town.

RAY SUAREZ: But the President is working on an alternative solution to global warming and his spokesman said today the new report gives him a basis of sound science to move ahead. And that new report was put out by the National Academy of Sciences. The chairman of the committee that produced it. was Ralph Cicerone; he is an atmospheric scientist and chancellor of the University of California at Irvine...

RAY SUAREZ: Mr. Cicerone, what was the assignment that was given you by the White House?

RALPH CICERONE: Well, the request went from the White House to a national research council -- and that's the Academy of Sciences in Washington four or five weeks ago -- in the form of a number of specific questions. There were about a dozen of them, so, in fact, what we tried to do was to answer the questions.

RAY SUAREZ: Using already available signs, rather than new research?

RALPH CICERONE: Right. There was no way that we could do any meaningful new research in a three or four week period; it just doesn't happen that way, so we had to stick with what's known, what we're aware - what we were already aware of, and what is recorded in fact in this new inter-governmental panel on climate change report, which is about 800 pages.

RAY SUAREZ: And what would you call the main conclusions?

RALPH CICERONE: Well, we tried very hard to address the questions that the White House had given us, and I hope we were responsive. We added our voice to the view that the observed warming, i.e., the fact that the planet is warming up and that it has been warming up for the past few decades, but with particularly rapid warming in the last 20 years, we agreed with the previous findings that the weight of the evidence, the weight of the scientific opinion is that most of that warming of the past 20 years is caused by human activities.

RAY SUAREZ: And how were you able to come to that conclusion? Some of the skeptics in the past have noted that Earth is a very complex system and it's hard to tell what humans bring to the world ecosystem. What did you say about the variable?

RALPH CICERONE: Well, climate is wondrously complex and very tricky to research. I think the key here is that as the climate record, the real data, get longer, long periods of time, and the fact that this temperature increase of the past 20 years or so has persisted at such a high rate is convincing people that natural variability, which has always occurred, climate is always changing on the Earth, and it has done so over geologic history and even the past couple of centuries, but the rate of this increase and the size of it seems to be larger than natural variability can explain, at least everything we know so far about natural ability - natural variability. So we do have some caveats and some qualifications here, but the weight of the evidence is that this increase has broken beyond the size of natural variability.

RAY SUAREZ: Are there people who assisted in the preparation of this report, who once were skeptics and this recent evidence that we talked about has sort of brought them over to the other side?

RALPH CICERONE: Well, there are 11 of us on this committee, and I think probably all 11 of us were skeptical at some point in the past. It's just a question of how long ago. It's only been a couple of decades that all of us as humans and as scientists, as scientists have come to the view that human activities are really capable of affecting the physical environment of the entire planet, so all of us started out skeptical about all of these issues, and we don't have a uniform opinion right now amongst the 11 of us of the degree of certainty because there are uncertainties. We have a couple of ideas about natural variability that could be causing some of this, even most recent year temperature increase but I think the weight of evidence has really shifted, and that's what our committee said.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, for those people in your field who still are skeptical, who still are wondering about modeling, about whether the known temperature of the Earth is broad enough for you take conclusions over centuries, what are some of the sticking points that are keeping skeptics from supporting data like that, that you observed?

RALPH CICERONE: Well, a couple of ideas. For example, just focusing on the last two, three or four decades is that there are thoughts that the Sun, itself, may be putting out more energy that comes to the Earth, and there is some good physical reasoning that says that that's possible and that it could have explained some of the warming over the past century. But, once again, if we point to the last 20-year period, there's something else distinctive here. Not only are the temperatures going up fast around the entire planet at the surface, but this is the only 20-year period where we've had instruments in space measuring the Sun's output carefully. The measurements are just beautiful, and they show hardly any change in the Sun's output, except for the 11-year cyclic behavior which people were already aware of, so we say that that seems to show that at least recently the Sun hasn't had the kind of impact that some people were hoping or thought that it might. The other idea is that maybe there's some kind of natural variability out there that we simply don't understand yet, and we certainly admit the possibility of that, but we don't know what it is.

RAY SUAREZ: What are some of the effects that we may be able to see here on the Earth in the coming years?

RALPH CICERONE: Well, of course, temperature is what we watch for -- the daily maximum temperatures going up - they're actually going up slower than the nighttime minimum temperatures are, which, again, is compatible with this greenhouse effect due to the greenhouse gases, but climate is much broader than just temperatures. We have to be watching for the kinds of severe storms and whether they change, whether our precipitation patterns, rain and snow alike, and snow accumulation change in a way that's not compatible with previous data, whether the frequency of droughts increases, the frequency of floods, because climate change is going to play out differently in different regions of the world, and that's really the rub of it in knowing what to anticipate in the future and how we might adapt to it.

RAY SUAREZ: So even with the most voluminous data in the history of record keeping, it's hard for you to make a model that looks ten, twenty years down the road?

RALPH CICERONE: It is, and when you think of ten, twenty, one hundred years down the road, and the ITCC expert scientific establishment was trying to look down the road a hundred years, you see that even human activities themselves are part of the uncertainties in the future. What kind of energy usage patterns are we going to have, how many people will there be on the planet, what is the trajectory and the numbers of human population, what kind of standard of living are we going to have, so we have to try to make estimates and predictions. When you do that and you assume a kind of business as usual approach, continued growth in our usage of fossil fuels, continued growth in population, continued ascent up to a higher standard of living, which often takes more energy, that's where the projections have come from that there are going to be significant climate changes in the next one or two human generations.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, what if we manage to stop the growth of greenhouse gases entering into the atmosphere now, if we capped it at 2001 levels, would the climate continue to warm anyway?

RALPH CICERONE: Yes, the climate would continue to warm because there's already some extra heating built into the system in the exchange of energy between atmosphere and oceans. In other words, temperatures will continue to rise perhaps for the next 50 years or so even if the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stay constant and don't increase any further. And, by the way, for carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, if we hold emissions constant right now, that is our rate of fossil fuel release of CO2 constant around the world, concentrations will continue to rise, so that we have a double problem there. If we hold the amount in the air constant, temperatures will rise, but if we hold the emissions constant, which heat the atmosphere and will increase the concentrations, then temperatures and climate change will continue in an accelerated way, let alone if we accelerate the emissions of carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases, which would add on top of the first two plateaus that I just described.

RAY SUAREZ: Ralph Cicerone, thank you very much for being with us.

RALPH CICERONE: Thank you. Good night.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Senator Lott, genetic testing, and healing hearts.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Trent Lott of Mississippi., now the Minority Leader of the United States Senate. He

he attended the tax bill signing ceremony at the white house today in his new capacity. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: Trent Lott mixed with the crowd of mostly Republicans this morning, as the overflow East Room audience awaited President Bush. (Cheers and applause) And the President arrived smiling broadly. He was about to make good on his promise to deliver major relief to American taxpayers, one of the top priorities of his Presidential campaign. Congress eventually reduced the size of the tax cuts from what the President originally proposed. But today, Mr. Bush wasn'tgoing to quibble over a few hundred billion dollars.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: A year ago, tax relief was said to be a political impossibility. Six months ago, it was supposed to be a political liability. Today, it becomes reality. It becomes reality because of the bipartisan leadership of the members of the United States Congress-- some Democrats, many Republicans-- who worked tirelessly and effectively to produce this important result. (Applause)

KWAME HOLMAN: As is the custom, the President handed out the many pens he used to sign the legislation to those members of congress who were instrumental in getting it approved. That included the Senator Lott. (Applause) On Tuesday, his last day to serve as Senate Majority Leader, Lott talked about the patience it took to move the record tax- cut package through a legislative minefield and on to final passage.

SEN. TRENT LOTT: You remember on the tax- relief package we had filibuster by amendment. 54 amendments were offered, and we voted on them every 15 minutes for basically two days, I guess. But we got to a final result, and that's the way, you know, things are done around here. But we get to a conclusion after a reasonable period of time.

KWAME HOLMAN: As it turned out, the tax cuts that became law today, the largest in two decades, was the final piece of Senate legislation approved under Trent Lott's leadership.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: And now joining us from the capitol is Senator Lott.

Senator, welcome.

SEN. TRENT LOTT: Thank you, Jim. Glad to be back with you.

JIM LEHRER: Signing the tax bill today, the signing of the tax bill, does that ease the pain of no longer being Majority Leader a bit?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: Well, it certainly does. That's a highlight really of a career. I was thinking about it today as I brought back my pen the President used to sign the bill and I'm going to have it put in a framed shadow box; it will be one of the three pens that I value the most over my 29 years of service in the Congress. This is a major achievement. I'm delighted we've got it done for working Americans, for married couples, for people that want to help their children with education, it was a big plus, and it did make everything seem rosier today.

JIM LEHRER: Just for the record, what are the other two pens?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: Well, the other one was the pen that President Reagan used to sign the Gramm-Lata budget restraint bill back in 1980, and the one he used to sign Conable-Hance, which was the last time we had a major tax cut. That one - those two - with this one - are the ones I value the most.

JIM LEHRER: On your switch from being Majority Leader now to being Minority Leader, columnist Michael Kinsley suggested the other day that you appeared to be in a state of denial about your new status. How would you describe your state over this?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: Well, it's, you know, one of realism. We've got a job to do, and frankly I have been in the minority before, where we were able to achieve a lot of things; in fact, those two bills that I mentioned during the Reagan years, where we were in the minority. I was the Republican Whip in the House during those years. In the Senate, the agenda is the same. And the people are the same and we're going to have a lot of bills that we can pass in a bipartisan way. Right now we're working on education. It's very slow. There are some fundamental disagreements about how the federal government can be involved and helpful with education, but President Bush has made that a high priority. The American people consider it a high priority, andI predict that within the next week or so we're going to pass a major education bill, so as we go forward, even in the minority you have the opportunity to offer amendments, to offer alternative bills, and we're going to do that, so while obviously I would prefer to be in the majority and where it really does make a difference is in the chairmanships. I mean, you've got John Warner of Virginia has been replaced by Carl Levin of Michigan. You've got Ted Kennedy as chairman of the Health & Education Committee instead of Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, and Pat Leahy instead of Orrin Hatch at Judiciary. Those are fundamental shifts in the philosophy and the approach of those Senators at the committee level, and that is important. But my own attitude is not one of denial; it's one of this is a different kind of opportunity. I have a job to do. I'm still the leader of 49 out of 100 and frankly, in the case of the tax bill we held the vote of 48 of 50 Republicans and we also got 12 Democrats. I predict there will be a vote as bipartisan on education; I hope we can do something on the energy bill that's good for America, that provides more energy, that takes into consideration environmental concerns and conservation. Maybe what it does is it forces us even more to work together to try to do the right thing for the American people. So I'm not in denial, and I'm not in a state of depression. I'm now in a mode of trying to plan a strategy while we continue to work on the people's agenda.

JIM LEHRER: Speaking of agenda, you said the agenda would remain the same. Senator Daschle was on this program last night, and he said, no, that in fact is the major change in the leadership because, for instance, after the education bill is over, he plans to bring up Patients Bill of Rights. Now, under a Trent Lott majority leadership that wouldn't have come up next, would it?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: No. It wouldn't have been next. Energy would have probably been next, because I think there's a certain amount of energy about that to make sure that we don't have continuing rolling brownouts and raising - rising prices for gasoline and diesel fuel that affects farmers and businessmen and fishermen and all of that. But I had indicated publicly and to the Democrats that the Patients Bill of Rights issue was one that was going to be brought up this summer. I had hoped actually we could get to it in late May or early June. But clearly we too would have called up the Patients Bill of Rights issue; it would have been a different bill. It wouldn't have been the so-called - I guess it's the Kennedy-Edwards-McCain bill; there would have been the Breaux-Frist bill. We would have had a full debate and a vote on it. Another issue that they say they're going to bring up earlier is minimum wage. Actually, I tried to get an agreement to bring up minimum wage back in May. And it was objected to by the committee of jurisdiction, saying, no, we want to take it through the regular committee process. Now one of the differences is we're going to try to mitigate the impact of minimum wage by some small business tax relief that will help small business men and women stay in business and will make sure that entry level workers are not knocked out of their jobs.

JIM LEHRER: But isn't that a huge difference between your approach and the Democratic approach, when it does happen?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: Well, the approach will be different, but the issues are the same. I think they're going to try to do an energy bill probably in June or July. We would have done Patients Bill of Rights and minimum wage. We're going to have to do the regular appropriations bills. Hopefully, we will be able to work on trade promotion, which is also important. Hopefully, we can even address the question of Medicare reform and the needs of prescription drugs. Again, our approach is different. We think that prescription drugs should be made available as a part of the services people are entitled to with some choice in the private sector for elderly poor. They want a broader, more subsidized program for everybody. But the point is we - the big issues that we need to deal with - budget, taxes, energy, health, trade, defense, and appropriations - they're the same. The order may be different. The approach will be different. But the big issues are the same.

JIM LEHRER: What about the end result, will they be different because the Democrats are in charge?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: They may be some because I think clearly they will push for more government solutions, where we believe in incentives in the private sector; they will push for more spending from the federal level; we will push for more, you know, private sector solutions, more decisions at the local level, for instance, in education we think that the local people, parents and administrators, and teachers, should have more flexibility and choice, along with accountability, and some additional money, where it's really needed. Democrats still want to run education decisions more from Washington, and they want a lot more money, more than we could probably do in one gulp.

JIM LEHRER: But the fact that the Democrats are in charge of the agenda and the order and the committee you think will also have an effect on the outcome. In other words, they're going to win more than they would have had you been in charge?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: The bills will probably be different than they would have been, although let me just say, having been the Majority Leader, the minority in the Senate has extraordinary rights, and the majority cannot really dictate the results. The result will depend on where the votes are.

JIM LEHRER: Sure. You don't think they're going to change that much?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: I don't think, no, I don't think they will change a lot. I still believe that in the Senate we have a center right coalition, not a center left coalition.

JIM LEHRER: Let me ask you. I asked Senator Daschle last night if he thought he would have more - I don't think I used the power over - but the power to influence his own Democrats as Majority Leader than he had when he was Minority Leader, and without a blush, he said, you bet because the power to set the agenda and all that sort of thing gives him a little bit of extra persuasion. Do you agree with him?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: He kept his troops together pretty well in the minority, quite frankly, but, yeah, being Majority Leader does give you extra powers and extra persuasion, I think, on a lot of issues within your own conference. Part of it depends on - on how you use it, and he'll have to be careful about that.

JIM LEHRER: Are you worried about losing control of some of your Republicans because you'll be in the minority?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: I don't really think so. We will have a couple of Republicans, obviously, on different issues that may be more inclined to vote the Democratic side, but there are some Democrats like Zell Miller of Georgia and John Breaux of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska and perhaps others that will be inclined to come our way. This is a very evenly divided Senate, and it will go back and forth, depending on what the issue is, and what amendments are offered.

JIM LEHRER: Now you mentioned energy. I also spoke to Senator Daschle last night about another thing that comes out of the switch in majority/minority, and that is the ability to have hearings, the ability to have investigations, and he said, yes, there's now going to be a Senate investigation of high energy prices, and he said that would not have happened under Trent Lott. Is he right?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: Yes, I think that the Democrats are going to try to use the power of the chairmanships to investigate and harass the Bush Administration, instead of trying to legislate and deal with the issues legislatively. And energy is a classic example. There are those that want to assess blame and then have a very small temporary sort of solution instead of trying to quit looking back and to try to decide what we can do short term and long term. We don't have a national energy policy. Yes, conservation is important and alternative fuels and environmental impact, but we need more production, how can we do that in a long-term plan?

JIM LEHRER: But you would agree that's a major change?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: That is, that is a change.

JIM LEHRER: He also mentioned electoral reform. I asked him if what else, besides energy, might there be a full bells and whistles investigation by the Senate or the Democrats, he said electoral reform.

SEN. TRENT LOTT: Well, as a matter of fact, Senator McConnell and the Republican former chairman of the Rules Committee, ranking member, and Senator Schumer of New York have a bill, a bipartisan bill on election reform that has close to 70 co-sponsors. I think we do need to do something in the election reform area, and we were going to make an effort to do that this year.

JIM LEHRER: So it would have happened anyhow?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: It would have, but I think the Democrats have a different bill, one sponsored I think maybe by Senator Chris Dodd, and I'm sure others, that will have more of a federalization of elections and more mandates, and a lot more money, so the approach, once again, will be different, but we - this is an issue we're going to address and we're going to have a pretty good discussion about that.

JIM LEHRER: You said before that you wanted assurances from Senator Daschle that nominees of the President, particularly in the Judiciary, would get a fair hearing and a fair vote. Have you gotten those assurances?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: We're working on that. Senator Daschle has been open to having discussions and meetings. He has met twice already with a little task force that I have working on that. We've got some language that we're working on, on both sides. I think we're going to make some progress on that with some understanding of how that's going to proceed. Obviously -

JIM LEHRER: What's your fear? What are you worried about?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: Well, right after it looked like that the Democrats would get a majority, at least three Senators came out, Democrats, and were very aggressive in saying this is the end of the Bush nominations and we're going to have a litmus test and we're not going to have conservative judges, and really I thought went a little over the edge. We just hope that there will be a process for nominations to be considered and voted on. I'm sure they're going to say, well, we're going to help you in the same way that you helped the Clinton nominations, but there are some people on both sides of the aisle who are saying, look, both parties and both administrations of the past have allowed this to get out of hand. Fred Thompson, for instance, from Tennessee is looking into the fact that it takes so long now to get a nominee through the process. You've got duplication, different forms are required, and the process now has just gone where it's longer and longer and longer. It used to you could get all the President's administration in place by March; then it slipped to June; then it was October; President Bush will be lucky to have his administration filled out by the end of the year, and --

JIM LEHRER: Is that the fault of the Democrats?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: No, no, it's not all their fault; it's the process that's gotten to be cumbersome and messy, and we're saying, look, it's time to stop and fix - I talked to President Clinton about that at least twice, and he and I actually talked about trying to do something about it before he left last year, and events overcame that.

JIM LEHRER: Senator, you drew some heat with a letter you wrote to your colleagues about this change and that we need - we, meaning the Republicans - need to go to war with the - you used the term go to war with the Democrats. Do you regret saying that? What did you mean?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: Well, the media - this was, I think, about a two-page memorandum to try to give some inspiration and some direction and frankly to cheer our people up that we were still going to be very much involved in the legislative process promoting the American people's agenda, and we were going to work very hard to take back the majority and win those critical Senate seats in 2002. Somebody in the media - probably the Washington Post and New York Times - seized on that one phrase and now every media person has asked me about that one phrase. All that was trying to do was to say to our people in the Senate and around the country that while there will be a change in the personalities that the issues and the agenda will still be there, and we're going to be very aggressive in offering amendments and making sure that the American people's agenda, the things the President wants to have considered, whether it's education or trade, will be considered, and that we are going to do our job. So there were some people that were saying, oh, woe is me, you know, what will happen, will we have any hope now, and this was, you know, an aggressive effort to assure people that we have a job to do and we're going to do it.

JIM LEHRER: But no war?

SEN. TRENT LOTT: (laughing) Well, that is a term of art. You know, we quite often unfortunately speak in parlance like that; we're going to fight for an issue; that doesn't mean we're going to go out here and shake it out; it means we're going to speak with passion and conviction. When it comes to education and how it got done, as a son of a schoolteacher, I care a lot about that, so I'm fighting for it, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to condemn or attack physically anybody.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Got you. Thank you, Senator Lott, very much.

SEN. TRENT LOTT: Okay. Great.

FOCUS - GENETIC TESTING

JIM LEHRER: Now the first of two medical reports. It's on the use and abuse of genetic testing. The reporter is Susan Dentzer of our health unit, a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SUSAN DENTZER: The fruits of the genetic revolution are on display here at Genzyme, a leading global biotechnology company. At a Genzyme facility here in Massachusetts, workers screen blood samples of patients who want to find out if they're carriers for genetic diseases. In this lab tests are under way for genetic mutations that could lead to cystic fibrosis, a devastating and frequently fatal disease. Elliott Hillback is a Genzyme official.

ELLIOTT HILLBACK, Genzyme Executive: Recently the recommendation has been made that any couple planning to start a family ought be screened to see if they' carriers for cystic fibrosis so that they're knowledgeable and aware and can make informed choices, because that's really what everything's about, is better information for doctors and their patients so that they can make better health care choices, better choices for their own health.

SUSAN DENTZER: That's the upside of genetic testing: The ability to find out what glitches in your DNA might mean for your health or your family's. Then there's the downside.

TERRY NELSON: I feel kind of violated. They did stuff to me they probably should have never have done.

SUSAN DENTZER: Terry Nelson is a maintenance worker for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad; he was one of 35 BNSF railroad workers who the railroad has admitted were quietly given genetic tests, tests that were ordered up a railroad official without telling the workers or asking their permission first. Steve Keil was another railroad worker who was tested.

STEVE KEIL: It was wrong. They should have told me. I didn't know they were doing DNA test stuff.

SUSAN DENTZER: The case began last year, after Nelson, Keil, and number of other BNSF workers were diagnosed with work-related carpal tunnel syndrome. That's a condition that results when there's too much pressure on a nerve that runs from wrist to hand through an opening called the carpal tunnel. Often the result of years of repetitive activity such as wielding a wrench or operating a jackhammer, it can cause substantial discomfort to people like Nelson who are diagnosed with it.

TERRY NELSON: Numbness and tingling that a person gets in the middle of the night and stuff. They made an incision here.

SUSAN DENTZER: Nelson had surgery last December to cut a ligament in the wrist and relieve pressure on the nerve. He took several weeks off, and went back to work in February. Although Nelson reported the condition to BNSF as a work- related injury, the railroad didn't pass along the report to the government, as required by law. In fact, of roughly 125 such reports of work-related carpal tunnel syndrome that the company says it received since March, 2000, none were reported to the government. Burlington Northern officials declined our request to be interviewed on camera, but they told us in a letter that the company was first obligated by federal law to determine whether the injuries were work-related. To do that, the company explains, Burlington Northern's chief medical officer, Dr. Michael Jarrard, developed a comprehensive medical examination and sent letters to 35 workers, asking them to undergo it. The workers were to be screened by company-paid doctors for any of about 20 medical conditions ranging from diabetes to alcoholism. Russell Ingebritson is a Minneapolis attorney who's representing many of the Burlington Northern workers in a planned private lawsuit against the company.

RUSSELL INGEBRITSON, Workers' Attorney: What this examination does here is to cast a wide medical drift net looking for any condition that could conceivably produce symptoms that would be similar to those of work-related carpal tunnel syndrome.

SPOKESPERSON: Put the samples in.

SUSAN DENTZER: In addition to the medical exams, the workers' blood was drawn for a genetic test. The blood samples were placed in a test kit much like this one that we were shown at Genzyme. The blood was sent to Athena Diagnostics, a Massachusetts company that even advertises its genetic tests on the web.There, a test was performed to determine if the workers had a rare genetic condition called hereditary peripheral neuropathy. One of the many symptoms of the condition is carpal tunnel syndrome.

TERRY NELSON: They took seven vials of blood.

SUSAN DENTZER: Did they tell you why?

TERRY NELSON: No.

SUSAN DENTZER: Did you ask ?

TERRY NELSON: No. It was part of the physical - well, I thought it was kind of bizarre that they had taken much blood, but that's... I didn't... Didn't know.

SUSAN DENTZER: Another railroad worker, Gary Avery, found in advance about the test and declined to be examined. He then got a threatening letter from the company, says Attorney Ingebritson.

RUSSELL INGEBRITSON: We anticipated, and he had been told, that he would be fired as a result of his refusal. To refuse to go along with the test is deemed by the railroad to be insubordination and grounds for termination.

SUSAN DENTZER: Burlington Northern's actions are now at the heart of a groundbreaking lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC alleges that the railroad violated provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Paul Miller is one of three sitting EEOC commissioners.

PAUL MILLER: In order for a company to engage in medical testing or inquiries, the tests need to be job-related and consistent with business necessity. That's the standard set out in the Americans with Disabilities Act. And to have some sort of future marker for a disabling condition is not really related to one's ability to do the job.

SUSAN DENTZER: The commission won a first-round victory in April, when Burlington Northern admitted that it had tested the workers. The company also agreed under court seal to stop all further genetic testing. But the EEOC is still investigating separate charges that Burlington Northern discriminated against one of the workers in threatening to fire him.

PAUL MILLER: This case against Burlington Northern is the first case, the first employment discrimination case alleging genetic discrimination. This case is an important case to lay out the government's position as to what are the appropriate standards for conduct in this emerging area of human genomics and genetic testing.

SUSAN DENTZER: Beyond the EEOC's case, the Burlington Northern episode highlights a number of areas in which people aren't protected against the misuse of genetic information.

DR. FRANCIS COLLINS: I think this is junk science. I hate to say it.

SUSAN DENTZER: Dr. Francis Collins heads human genome research at the National Institutes of Health. He also serves on a government genetic testing advisory committee. He says the test BNF ordered to determine whether workers had the rare genetic condition was based on little more than tenuous speculation about the links between genes and the workers' carpal tunnel syndrome.

DR. FRANCIS COLLINS: HNPP, Or Hereditary Neuropathy with liability to Pressure Palsy-- boy, is that a mouthful?-- Is a very rare neurologic condition affecting maybe one in 20,000 people. You can get carpal tunnel syndrome, but usually with a host of other neurologic symptoms as well.

SUSAN DENTZER: The railroad workers who were tested reported none of those other symptoms, including drop foot or even paralysis. What's more, the symptoms of HNPP generally begin in adolescence or young adulthood, rather than at the ages of most of the Burlington Northern workers, who were in their 40s and 50s.

DR. FRANCIS COLLINS: From what we do know, it would seem very unusual indeed to have somebody with this genetic disorder presenting for the first time in sort of middle life with carpal tunnel syndrome as their only manifestation. Clearly this is a test that should never have been applied in this circumstance.

SUSAN DENTZER: Just how appropriate it is to use genetic tests in a kind of scavenger hunt for causes of disease is one issue. Another is how genetic testing labs like Athena Diagnostics distribute and process genetic tests. Athena officials declined our request for an interview, but according to Burlington Northern, the railroad's office staff simply ordered the tests by phone and, "requested they be sent to our office." Athena apparently didn't try to determine whether the tests were appropriate, or whether the Burlington Northern workers had given their consent toe test. "That's not the way things should operate," says Elliott Hillback of Genzyme. His company actually requires the testing physician to sign a form stating that the patient has consented a genetic test.

ELLIOTT HILLBACK: Well, we actually get them to say, "yes, I've... I've informed the patient of the risks and of the upside; you know, what are the good and bad, and I've gotten their informed consent to proceed." And we think that's very important that they do that.

SUSAN DENTZER: The Government advisory committee, of which Collins is a member, is now considering whether there should be more federal oversight of genetic testing labs, in part to make sure that all of them are as cautious as Genzyme. In the meantime, there's growing concern about the Americans with Disabilities Act and whether it's enough to protect individuals against misuse of their genetic information by their employers. Representative Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, is a leading sponsor of the proposed Genetic Nondiscrimination in Health Insurance and Employment Act. She says her bill would put new protections in place.

REP. LOUISE SLAUGHTER: It protects the privacy of ..of your information, and says that on the predictive nature of those tests, that you may not be discriminated against in employment. An important thing in our bill is it doesn't just say, "we wish you wouldn't do this." There's a penalty for doing this, a civil penalty. So we think that it has a little teeth to it.

SUSAN DENTZER: That proposal got a boost today at a news conference at the Capitol. The new Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle, who's now sponsoring the bill, said backers would now try to move it swiftly through Congress.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: We're here to say we are through waiting. It's time for our laws to catch up with our science. We can't take one step forward in science, but two steps backwards in civil rights. Discrimination based on genetic factors is just as unacceptable as discrimination based on race, gender, nation original or disability, and it must stop.

SUSAN DENTZER: Francis Collins says the proposed legislation is particularly important in light of the fact that everyone has at least some genetic defects, and theoretically is just as vulnerable as the workers at Burlington Northern.

DR. FRANCIS COLLINS: We can see this train coming down the track, if you'll pardon the analogy, under current circumstance; it's aimed at all of us. If we don't get out of the way, we're all going to get injured by this kind of discrimination.

SUSAN DENTZER: The EEOC says it's continuing its investigation into the discrimination charges against the railroad. Meanwhile, as part of a separate settlement reached in a lawsuit brought by the railroad workers union, Burlington Northern has agreed to lobby for passage of the Daschle-Slaughter bill.

FOCUS - MENDING BROKEN HEARTS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, how can you mend a broken heart? Elizabeth Farnsworth gets an answer.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: A report today in the "New England Journal of Medicine" concludes that a heart broken in a medical sense might indeed mend-- that heart muscle cells do regenerate to some extent after a heart attack. Previously it was thought the damage suffered was irreversible. For more on the study we turn to David Finkelstein, Director of Basic Cardiovascular Research at the National Institute on Aging, one of the funders of the study.

Summarize the findings of the study.

DAVID FINKELSTEIN: Well, the study today, basically as you've put it, changes paradigms. Before this the model was "heart cells cannot divide." And the evidence today was pretty clear that heart cells can divide. They basically looked in what is called the confocal microscope to take layers of the heart and look layer by layer, and cell by cell, starting with a marker to be sure that we had a heart cell, a heart muscle cell. Then we had another marker to show that that cell was dividing, to show that the chromosomes were undergoing mitosis -- the way everyone knows from their basic Biology text. Then we had another color to show the spindles. Then we had - and we put all of these colors together and we can see, yes, this cell is certainly dividing. What was intriguing is that the division occurred right at the site of a heart attack. This was elevated relative to what you would see in the normal body. So it's a whole new area for us right now.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what changed? This assumption has been around for a long time that cells didn't regenerate. What changed that made somebody look at this?

DAVID FINKELSTEIN: Well, you know, if you think the world is flat, you don't look beyond it. And I think Dr. Ann Bertha has been looking at this for a number of years, and each time the nature of science is ea time someone says "how me more, show me more. I'm not convinced." Scientists are very, very skeptical. And I think today's evidence is really quite compelling that the cells are dividing.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: This is a very big deal potentially, isn't it? A lot of people out there have had heart attacks; they have damaged heart muscles. And this means that there is a chance that that muscle could actually be repaired and they could be normal again, is that right?

DAVID FINKELSTEIN: It's possible that that could happen at some point in the future. I think what we have to be aware of is the heart has many different cell types. In order for the heart to regenerate all the cell types need to be repaired in the same order. The blood vessels to the heart need to be repaired. We need to coordinate everything. When a normal heart attack occurs, we get a scar built up, so even though we see that a heart can do a certain amount of repair, the normal process is not enough. If we can find a way to turn these cells on, that would be very important. And it might be - let me just add one thing - it might be very important when we look at normal aging, where the normal heart decline - can we control how the heart divides?

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How might those cells that are regenerating be turned on?

DAVID FINKELSTEIN: That's a very, very good question. And we certainly will be - hopefully more people will be looking at that. There could be cytokines or cell factors that are involved; there could be signals about which we know nothing. It really is a whole new area and since people haven't looked before, since people haven't asked the question, we don't know the answers to these things.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Did the research show the source of the cells that replicate, is that known?

DAVID FINKELSTEIN: No, that's also a very good point that you asked. We - it could be from the cells within the heart - it could be coming from the circulation. In regular skeletal muscles there are cells called satellite cells, which can repair the skeletal muscle. In the heart no cells of that sort have been identified yet. So certainly where the cells come from is an open question right now.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I asked that question because I read that there was some prior research by the same people who did this study that showed cells in a mouse from wasn't it a bone marrow or something?

DAVID FINKELSTEIN: Yes, that's correct.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: -- could be injected into a heart and be made to regenerate that way. That would be very hopeful if it could happen in people, right?

DAVID FINKELSTEIN: Oh, absolutely, but once again, you know, we may be talking - it may be that multiple things are going on. It may be that stem cells from the marrow are normally circulating in your body; that could be one mechanism. It could be that the cells, which are in your heart already are being repaired. It could be cells from different spots in the heart are replicating and mobilizing to remodel the heart; all of these are possibilities. When people have been thinking about possible therapies, the stem cell came to mind. Now we know trying to get the cells to divide. Other people have even thought of putting in skeletal muscle cells, thinking, well, maybe we could get them to become more like heart cells. Once again, it's really a whole new world for us right now in terms of what the possibilities are.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You've answered this to a certain extent, but I want to ask this right out, because this is the part I don't understand. If there is the potential for regeneration, why are so many people out there who have had heart attacks who still have injured hearts? And you said it's partly because everything has to come together, but expand on that, please.

DAVID FINKELSTEIN: Well, in a way it's more than that. What Dr. Ann Bertha showed was that if - first of all we don't know for how long the replication continues after the infarct, after the heart attack. So there could be a brief period of time, and then the body stops. There's other damage going on at the same time. But even at the level of cell division which is occurring, Dr. Ann Bertha calculated that it would take 18 days replace it. That's a very long time. It may be that we need something to occur under a more rapid time frame. Remember, when you have a heart attack, your heart doesn't stop beating. You need your heart twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is it possible that the cells that regenerate don't become functioning heart cells that work in the way they're supposed to?

DAVID FINKELSTEIN: Yes, that's certainly another possibility. Once again, everything has to be coordinated. What we know now is that cells divide. It's sort of, if you will, a proof of principle. What we need to do next is to follow up and say, are these cells really functional? Are they coming into the right place? Where are they coming from? How can all of this be coordinated, because, remember, if we get cells growing out of just without stopping, they call that cancer, so that's not a bargain either.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So how would you characterize, just briefly, is this really good news, but we still have to be skeptical about what might come of it?

DAVID FINKELSTEIN: Oh, I think it's very important. Anytime we learn something new, it's important. You know, 40 years ago a scientist would go in the lab and say I want to cure cancer. But, in order to cure cancer, you have to do something; you have to do an experiment. And here, you know, lots of people say I want to cure heart disease, but you have to start. You have to know what to do. So here at least people can say maybe we can deal with cell division, so I'm sure that there's going to be a whole generation of people coming along now who are not taught heart cells don't divide and they'll be able to ask these questions, and I think that's going to be a very, very important point.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: David Finkelstein, thanks so much for being with us.

DAVID FINKELSTEIN: My pleasure. Thanks very much.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the other major stories of this Thursday: Late today a federal appeals court refused to delay Timothy McVeigh's execution next Monday for the Oklahoma City bombing. President Bush welcomed renewed global warming report that concluded the Earth is getting warmer and humans are helping cause it, and on the NewsHour tonight the Senate's new Minority Leader, Republican Trent Lott, reported progress in talks with Democrats to ensure fair treatment of President Bush's nominees. Democrats took over the Senate yesterday. We'll see you on line and again here tomorrow evening with Shields and Gigot, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.