Moving Forward, A Year After The Financial Crisis.
It was a year ago today that Lehman Brothers went down the drain ... and the national and world economic crisis began to snowball.
President Obama goes to the scene of the crime today ... if indeed there was a crime... to speak at midday on Wall Street about what happened and what his administration has done and wants to do to prevent it from happening again.
There have been practically no new laws or regulations put in or criminal prosecutions. CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen.
"Greed is not a crime and poor judgment is not a crime. And prosecutors have to be able to point to strong evidence which establishes that people knew what they were doing was illegal," said Andrew Cohen.
Jill Schlesinger, editor at large for CBS Moneywatch.Com, says the financial world is anxious to hear what President Obama has to say today on Wall Street.
"What'll be interesting is if there's some major renewed push for financial regulatory reform. But I think most people on Wall Street believe that any regulatory reform in any substantive way is dead ... And that that's not going to happen while health care is dominating the national debate," said Jill Schlesinger.
He's got to talk about it, though.
"He's going to talk about financial reform. He's gonna talk about kick starting or rejuvenating the idea of financial reform,' said Hugh Johnson.
Economist Hugh Johnson.
"I think he's gonna talk some about winding down the Federal Government's involvement with the private sector generally. But most importantly, financial institutions," said Hugh Johnson.
As for "change," the theme Candidate Obama ran on, there hasn't been enough of that in the opinion of economist Peter Morici of the University of Maryland.
"So I would suggest he get a C- on the stimulus program and an incomplete on bank reform, because he hasn't really begun the process. Changes have to be made. They haven't been made, and the Obama Administration hasn't articulated a clear, sensible framework for straightening out the banks," said Peter Morici.
Digitizing Medical Records, a Work-in-Progress.
One of the important ways in which President Obama wants to reform health care in this country is to replace the old-fashioned paper records with computerized records.
And that Congress has already approved and funded to the tune of 46 billion dollars.
One crusader on this issue has been actor Dennis Quaid, who almost lost his newborn twin daughters in 2007 because of a hospital medical error.
"Up to 100,000 patients in the United States alone die in hospitals every year, because of medical errors. That's the equivalent of one major airline crash a day, every single day of every year," said Dennis Quaid.
Most doctors and hospitals keep medical records the old-fashioned way, on paper.
"Few other industries still rely on paper records. There's no backup, no way to search them all at once, no way to harness them en masse for research. But that's going to change," said David Pogue.
Says David Pogue of The New York Times.
Kaiser Permanente's offices and hospitals are all electronic now. They spent four billion dollars over five years making them so. Their charts there now show everything.
"Medications, allergies, immunizations, any special comments by the providers. And this is a look at all of the laboratory results and also the X-Ray results," said Dr. Todd Dray.
Dr. Todd Dray of the hospital in Santa Clara, California.
"In a traditional hospital, if you want to look up a patient's history or details, you've got to run to the records office and pull the chart. But in Kaiser's hospital here, there are 5,000 terminals, including these "WOW Carts" - stands for "Wireless On Wheels," said David Pogue.
But some doctors are resisting the change because of cost. There are problems, but we'll get there.
Flu Medication With a One-Two Punch
It's now estimated that more than a million people in this country have been infected with the swine flu virus H1N1, and nearly 600 of them have died.
"After about a week of school being back open ..." says Dr. Jonathan McCullers, an infectious disease specialist at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, "we've seen a tremendous rise in cases in children and young adults."
The good news is that in test anti-viral drugs, including a new one, are proving effective against those who do come down with it, says Dr. McCullers.
"What they're basically saying is if you're hospitalized with the flu and you're sick, it's going to get you better a day or two quicker than you would have otherwise, and perhaps it'll prevent more serious complications including death," said Dr. Jonathan McCullers.
Tamiflu is one of the anti-viral drugs that studies show is working against swine flu - another is a new experimental drug called Peramivir.
"Peramivir was kind of resurrected as a drug as an intravenous formulation. And now, I guess in these clinical studies that are being reported here has been shown to be highly efficacious in hospitalized patients, particularly those with severe illness," said Dr. Jonathan McCullers.
Tests in Asia show that a shot of the experimental drug Peramvir had the same benefit as five Tamiflu pills taken one a day for five days.
Dr. Jonathan McCullers of St. Jude's Hospital.
"This would kind of be a complement to the drugs your doctor can give you. It's the same class as Tamiflu and other drugs by mouth, but it would kind of be the hospital version, intravenous version," said Dr. Jonathan McCullers.
Peramivir isn't commercially available as yet.
"It's likely when it's available commercially that it's only going to be used in hospitals because it is an IV drug," said Dr. Jonathan McCullers.
But is it effective?
"Theoretically, Peramivir should work against any type of influenza, including the novel H1N1 that's currently causing the pandemic," said Dr. Jonathan McCullers.
Father of the Green Revolution
Norman Borlaug is not a household name. Many people never heard of him. But Borlaug, who died at his home in Dallas over the weekend at age of 95, may have saved a billion people from starving to death.
"I have devoted my life to the global challenge of providing adequate food production for a growing world population..." said Norman Borlaug.
Forty four years ago, a Green Revolution was started using improved seed and fertilizer to dramatically increase the harvest while sparing forests and natural areas from the plow. For this, Norman Borlaug was the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. What does food production have to do with peace?
"What he said was that people would never be able to understand peace if they were hungry - so first, we had to teach them how to have enough food for themselves - and not to just give it to them, but actually show them and teach them ways they could grow their own food," said Kathleen Phillips .
Kathleen Phillips of Texas A&M University where Borlaug was a distinguished professor.
"He wanted people to be able to plant crops to grow and be self-sufficient in areas that had become deserts," said Kathleen Phillips.
He was criticized by some in recent years for encouraging the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Monsanto Corporation made a video featuring Borlaug in 2005 about the Green Revolution.
"The Green Revolution - and now, plant biotechnology - are helping the growing demand for food production - while preserving our environment for future generations," said Norman Borlaug.
So, he never thought of himself as an environmentalist. Says Josette Sheeran of the UN Food Program, Norman E. Borlag saved more lives than any man in human history."
"The Green Revolution was really a revolution of food, if you would, for people who are hungry,' said Kathleen Phillips.
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