Transcripts

Bill of Health: Surgeon General Richard Carmona On Health & The Economy

SUSIE GHARIB: The U.S. more than tripled its stockpiles of flu medication to 20 million courses of treatment after a bird flu scare in the Bahamas earlier this week. The reaction is part of the government`s efforts to track the spread of the virus. In his latest "Bill of Health," Jeff Yastine talks with the U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona about health threats to the U.S. economy.

JEFF YASTINE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: U.S. Surgeon General Carmona is finishing up his four-year term in that office. He said health authorities remain vigilant for an outbreak of bird flu in this country.

VICE ADMIRAL RICHARD CARMONA, MD, U. S. SURGEON GENERAL: The threat is really very real and we are very concerned, which is why we have U.S. Public Health Service officers working around the world to work with those countries that are now being affected. Many of those countries don`t have a public health infrastructure to assist them. So in assisting them, we assist ourselves in an attempt to contain any further outbreak.

YASTINE: How prepared are U.S. authorities to contain an outbreak, if it, the low likelihood that it should happen in the United States? How prepared are we to handle that sort of a situation? CARMONA: Well, as far as an outbreak, if it really came at us and it was still only transmission from animal it animal, I think we`re very prepared. Agriculture, our cells at HHS, Department of Homeland Security are working very, very diligently to make sure we have processes in place to keep the outbreaks where they emerge in those other countries, assist them in containing it and preventing it from coming to our shores. The risk to all of us is if mutation occurs and that virus then is easily transmitted from person to person. That`s where we get into a problem. That`s where we worry about a pandemic and that they could be spread globally.

YASTINE: All right. Let me switch topics here. I wanted to talk about obesity is one of the topics. You spent a lot of time discussing in various groups. We hear a lot about it and sort of a crisis mode regarding obesity. In a January speech you called it a threat to our preparedness as a nation.

CARMONA: That`s absolutely so. Right now, two out of three Americans are overweight or obese. We have nine million children who are overweight or obese. And when we look at our child population nationally, what we`re seeing is type two diabetes. When I was a young doc in training, it was hard to find a youngster with type two diabetes. Now almost every pediatric practice has them.

YASTINE: We see a lot of reports regarding lawsuits that have been filed either to ban soft drinks from school systems or lawsuits against various fast food restaurant chains. What`s your opinion of those, regarding the situation for obesity?

CARMONA: Well, I think there`s certainly another path to take. Litigation sometimes is necessary, but in this case, the president, the secretary and I think there are other ways to address this issue, and that is through increasing health literacy, making sure the American public understands the issues before them so that they can make healthy choices. We`ve gone out and spoken to corporate America. We`ve gone to fast food chains. We`ve gone to soda manufacturers. We`ve gone to any and everybody who has any impact on food distribution and have asked them to partner with us. Litigation, we feel, is going to create more adversity at this point and we haven`t exhausted all of the other remedies and we`re quite happy at the response we`ve gotten from corporate America thus far.

YASTINE: Carmona says the economic cost of obesity has been estimated at roughly $120 billion annually, a cost which Carmona says is not sustainable to the U.S. economy. Jeff Yastine, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Miami.