Transcripts For KPIX 60 Minutes 20240712

Will tell us with some infected and ideally can we go back into society and be safe. The truth is we dont yet have that information. The test cannot provide that assurance. I think a lot of people think if they get this Antibody Test and they test positive that they are going to have a shield that allows them to go to the Grocery Store without their mask on. Is that what a positive Antibody Test means . I think we cannot safely say that to people yet. ticking this is a snapshot of the microbiome. And this is the trillions of bacteria represented by the different colors. The microbiome, the they help process the food that we consume, but they do a lot more than that. They make vitamins. Theyre able to produce essential amino acids. Theyre able to talk to ticking im lesley stahl. Im bill whitaker. Im anderson cooper. Im sharyn alfonsi. Im scott pelley. Those stories, tonight, on 60 minutes. ticking ticking ticking because there are options. Like an unjection™. Xeljanz. The first and only pill of its kind that treats moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, or moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis when other medicines have not helped enough. Xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections. Before and during treatment, your doctor should check for infections, like tb and do blood tests. Tell your doctor if youve had hepatitis b or c, have flulike symptoms, or are prone to infections. Serious, sometimes fatal infections, cancers including lymphoma, and blood clots have happened. Taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra may increase risk of death. Tears in the stomach or intestines and serious allergic reactions have happened. May provide symptom relief. A pt ask your doctor about the pill first prescribed for ra more than seven years ago. Xeljanz. An unjection™. Come on in, were open. All we do is hand you the bag. Simple. Done. We adapt and we change. You know, you just figure it out. Weve just been finding a way to keep on pushing. Weve just been finding a way to keep on pushing. We do things differently and aother money managers, dont understand why. Because our way works great for us but not for your clients. Thats why were a fiduciary, obligated to put clients first. So, what do you provide . Cookie cutter portfolios . Nope. We tailor portfolios to our clients needs. But you do sell investments that earn you high commissions, right . We dont have those. So, whats in it for you . Our fees are structured so we do better when our clients do better. At Fisher Investments were clearly different. For people with Heart Failure taking entresto, it may lead to a world of possibilities. Dontaker. Or if youve had angioedema with an ace or arb. The most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high blood potassium. Ask your doctor about entresto. Whitaker on tuesday, voters will cast ballots in three state primary elections. So far this election year, voting during the pandemic has been an exercise in chaos, long with no end to the scourge and no vaccine in sight, a recent Pew Research Survey found 70 of americans want to stay safe and mail in their ballots for the november general election. Voting absentee or by mail has been growing for decades. In 2016, almost a quarter of all votes was sent through the mail. But this year, high demand has strained the resources of red states and blue, and the practice has become embroiled in political controversy. Democrats want to expand access to mail in voting. President trump says its prone to fraud and threatens his reelection. The controversy ignited this spring in wisconsin, a critical battleground state President Trump won in 2016, by less than 1 . Wiscoas a syder,se oroviruutoe in milwaukee, residents stood in lines for hours waiting to cast ballots for judges and the president ial primaries. Many wore masks. Some bore signs of frustration. The lines of frustration were preceded by weeks of intense political wrangling over how, or whether, to hold an election in a worsening pandemic. Governor tony evers, a democrat, originally called for the election to proceed, but in late march, as the number of covid19 cases climbed, he first proposed sending absentee ballots to all registered voters; then, the day before the election, issued an executive order postponing it. Governor tony evers theres not a sufficiently safe way to administer in person voting at the last minute move. The political brawl ended up before the wisconsin and the u. S. Supreme courts. Just hours before the polls were to open, the courts handed each side a victory. The republicans got the election reinstated; democrats won approval to count latearriving absentee ballots postmarked by election day. Justin clark, senior counsel for president Donald Trumps campaign, advised wisconsin republicans. He blames democratic Governor Tony Evers for the chaos, and told us the democrats are cynically using the pandemic to expand their voter base with mail in absentee ballots. Justin clark we have tons and tons of different ways for people to vote if they have a fear of covid19. We have early vote that goes on for weeks ahead of an election in in most places. But make no mistake, voting in person is far more secure and safer than voting by by mail. Whitaker even in the time of pandemic . Clark by safer, what i mean is that its going to be a much more secure outcome. Neil albrecht inperson voting should not have happened in the state of wisconsin on april 7. It was dangerous. It was reckless. Whitaker Neil Albrecht is head of milwaukees election commission. He tus scared so many poll workers, half of them over age 60, he could man only five polling places. He usually has 180. Americans take great pride in our democratic system; did that system suffer on april 7 . Albrecht it suffered greatly. A lot of people in the state of wisconsin had to choose between their health or casting a ballot. I dont believe that is a good representation of democracy. Whitaker the Wisconsin Health department reported 71 people tested positive for covid19 after voting or working at the polls, but cant say definitively that was the cause. To avoid the virus, more wisconsin voters cast absentee ballots in the primary than ever before. Albrecht it was about an 800 request in absentee ballots. Whitaker did i hear you correctly . You had requests for eight times more absentee ballots than normal . Albrecht absolutely. Absolutely. And i can tell you, and i dont think this is unique to wisconsin, states are not equipped for that type of surge. Whitaker earlier this month in georgia, in addition to having brandnew Voting Machines malfunction, so many voters never received their absentee ballots, they ended up snaking around polling places on election day. In wisconsin and georgia, the long lines were mostly in urban areas, with large populations of black and latino voters. Sherrilyn ifill is president of the n. A. A. C. P. Legal defense fund. She says ballot regulations have accelerated since the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights act in 2013. Sherrilyn ifill when we talk about voters being targeted, everyone knows that the low hanging fruit is going to be black voters, black and latino voters. We are the ones who stood in the peour stood on tund lives toab to fuy paicipate in the political process. And sometimes, when we talk about Voter Suppression now, we cover it with this veneer of partisan conversation, which allows people to turn away from what is fundamentally a very, very ugly racial issue in our country. Whitaker the Legal Defense fund has gone to court in texas, louisiana and South Carolina to challenge voting restrictions. Late friday, the Supreme Court rejected an emergency request by Texas Democrats to allow mailin voting for all registered voters. The l. D. F. Had supported that case in lower court. Earlier in the week, the l. D. F. Won a ruling allowing alabama voters to bypass photo i. D. And other requirements for absentee ballots in july runoff elections. What needs to be done to stop other wisconsins from happening this fall . Ifill theres a whole regime of measures, some of which involve inperson voting, and some of which involve absentee voting, that need to be in place in time for the november 2020 election. Whitaker marc elias, the democratic partys lead attorney on Voting Rights, has gone to court in georgia and 17 other states to make sure they have sufficient inperson polling sites, to remove or moderate restrictions to absentee voting and to make sure ballots arent rejected without giving voters a chance to appeal. The g. O. P. Says elias is trying to strip away election safeguards and has amassed a 20 million war chest to fight the democrats in court. Marc elias they spend all of their time and energy and money opposing Voting Rights. Whitaker opposing Voting Rights . Elias oh, i dont think theres any question. Whatever may have been going on under the surface in republican circles and conservative circles in past election cycles, they are now not just whispering the quiet part out loud. Donald trump is screaming the quiet part out loud. Trump the democrats are also trying to rig the election by sending out tens of millions of mail in ballots, using the china virus as the excuse for allowing people not to go to the polls. This will be, in my opinion, the most corrupt election in the history of our country, and we cannot let this happen. Elias if youre donald trump and your Approval Ratings are where they are and your ceiling for for how many people will support you is as low as it is, you really only have one choice, which is to decrease the number of people who vote. And i think that that explains what donald trump is tweeting about, about voting. Why he is demonizing voteby mail. Whitaker why is President Trump so concerned about vote bymail . Clark votebymail is less secure than voting in person. We have countless instances this year of ballots that were mailed to different places. I mean, how many times have you had a birthday card or a Christmas Card that didnt make it to somebody . Add on top of that trying to layer this in four months before an election, and you have a recipe for disaster. Whitaker the president votes by mail. Clark the president votes absentee. Thats different. If you are absent, you are ill, youre out of state, you name it, there needs to be a mechanism whereby people can get their vote cast. And by the way, president obama did it, president bush did it. Its its not uncommon. Whitaker exactly. Its not uncommon. Clark absentee voting. Universal votebymail is very different. Its a very different thing. Whitaker sounds like a distinction without much of a difference. Clark the difference is the volume. The volume of live ballots being mailed out to people without the signature check, without the signature match, without the signing of the outer envelope. Whitaker but the federal Election Assistance Commission provided states with a roadmap for expanding votebymail during the pandemic, everything from ballot design to signature verification software. But to be ready by november, the states have to ramp up now. Congress appropriated 400 million to help the states. The nonpartisan Brennan Center at n. Y. U. Calculated theyll need almost 4 billion. Oregons votebymail process already is up and running. The state pioneered the practice in 1998. Lifelong republican Beverly Clarno is oregons secretary of state, and a proponent of vote bymail. President trump has attacked votebymail. Hes called it dangerous. He says its subject to massive fraud. What do you think when you hear that . Beverly clarno well, i think that, try it, you might like it. Whitaker like it . Clarno yeah. Try it, you might like it. Whitaker clarno says the oregon system she oversees is backed up with barcodes unique to each voter. She says its more secure, with drop boxes everywhere, and produces some of the highest voter turnout rates in the country. Colorado, hawaii, utah and washington also have moved to votebymail elections. Clarno a lot of people fear there could be fraud. In the 2016 election, we had about 20 cases of people voting in two different states. So, were just very certain that our systems very secure. Whitaker do you have any idea what percentage of the vote was fraudulent in that way . Clarno well, in 2016, if we had 2. 8 million voters and only 22 people tried to vote in two states, thats not too bad. Im not ematicia thatnds li pretty good. Whitaker shy ink votebymail has become so controversial . Clarno well, its not controversial in oregon. I think that if youd ask most oregonians, theyd say, quite frankly, i like voting at my kitchen table. Whitaker most of the votes cast in this springs elections were by mail or absentee. But republicans in iowa and georgia are trying to prohibit Election Officials from sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters. The Legal Defense funds Sherrilyn Ifill says the country should be united in ensuring everyone has the right to vote. So, do you see this becoming a battle in the fall over just whose vote counts . Ifill if a lot of people vote absentee, absentee ballots are not all counted on election night, and so were going to have to wait for those votes to be counted. This is we we we need to become grownup citizens. And we need to let the process play itself out. I think its a shame that its going to be a battle. But it is going to be a battle. Whitaker with the pandemic still bedeviling the country, Election Officials in most states expect the surge of absentee ballots to crest in november. Lawyers for both parties expect the lawsuits will intensify too. Does the result of the election hinge on these legal battles . Clark the president views votebymail as a threat to his election, and i think i think hes right. I think hes dead right. If we inject chaos and confusion into the election, and and we dont have faith in the result, i think thats a political threat to the president. Elias the american Voting System is quite fragile, and it is not a system that is built to handle a lot of stresses. A pandemic puts a unique stress on the system. And then on top of all of that, you have the president of the United States, every day, virtually, telling people that the Voting System is not fair, the Voting System is rigged, the Voting System is not to be trusted. And that is an external stress that makes everything about the voting process harder. ticking cbs money watch, sponsored by lincoln financial, helping you create a secure financial future. Good evening. Surging covid infections test economic recovery plans in more than 30 states. Star bucs joins a a ad ban. And American Airlines resumes full flights this week, no social distancing. Im jamie jamie yuccas, cbs news. Its the 6 10 wokeuplikethis migraine medicine. The 3 40 midshift migraine medicine. For more go to cbs money watch. Com. Dawn is a goto greasecleaner throughout the kitchen, too. Keep a bottle in the laundry room to pretreat greasy stains. And keep dawn in the garage to lift grease off car rims. Its even gentle enough to clean wildlife affected by oil. Dawns grease cleaning power takes care of tough grease wherever it shows up. Scrub less and save more. With dawn. And im an area manager here at amazon. When you walk into an amazon fulfillment center, its like walking into the Chocolate Factory and you won a golden ticket. Its an amazing feeling. My threeyearold, when we get a box delivered, he gets excited. He screams, mommys work when the pandemic started, we started shipping out all the safety stuff that would keep the associates safe to all the other amazons. All of these are face masks, weve sent well over 10 million gloves. And this may look like a bottle of vodka. When we first got these, we were like whoa [laughing] with this pandemic, safety is even more important because theyre going home to babies, theyre going home to grandparents. So, our responsibility is to make sure that they go home safe every single day. Alfonsi wyatt earp, the gunslinger who helped tame the american west, once said, fast is fine, but accuracy is final. The same thing could be said about testing for covid19. Back in march, the food and Drug Administration took the unprecedented step of allowing covid Antibody Tests to flood the market without review. The tests were billed as a critical tool to assess where the virus had spread and who might have immunity. But in the governments rush to get more people tested quickly, it may have missed the mark. Over the course of a threemonth investigation, 60 minutes has learned that federal officials knew many of the Antibody Tests were seriously flawed but continued to allow them to be sold anyway. Now, as coronavirus surges in parts of the country, that government failure is complicating efforts to know the ofheavirusredo, texas a rigrde river, population 270,000. It was founded in the 1700s as its own country. This spring, as it prepared to fight covid, laredo found itself alone on the frontier, again. Robert castaneda everybody was looking for supplies. Everybody was having challenges. Alfonsi Robert Castaneda, a laredo resident, owns two emergency clinics in town. He was desperately trying to find kits to test his patients for covid19. Castaneda it was maddening, to be honest with you. You go through your normal chain of distributors, then you start hitting a wall with them, and they tell you that, you know, were out. We talked to the local health department, and i spoke to the state health department. I even reached out to fema, talked to the f. D. A. All your avenues of trying to get testing supplies were exhausted. Alfonsi he says he went to his congressmans office for guidance, and remarkably, in the waiting room, met a stranger who offered to connect him to a broker with access to Antibody Tests. You must have thought, sitting in that office, and the guy says to you, hey, i might be able to help you out this is terrific luck. Castaneda yes, there was a Silver Lining to that meeting. Exactly right. Alfonsi and so tell me about the deal that was placed in front of you about buying this. Castaneda there was a minimum buy, and that minimum buy was 20,000 kits. So that, off the bat, was half a Million Dollars to bring them into the city. Alfonsi was there a lot of guidance at that point, at the state level or the federal level, for procuring . Castaneda no. Actually, there was none. Alfonsi in march, many communities were competing against each other, and the federal government, to find covid tests. The Trump Administration was under fire. Trump anybody that needs a test, gets a test. Theyre there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful. Alfonsi but that was not true. Because of missteps a month earlier at both the centers for Disease Control and the food and Drug Administration, diagnostic tests, which can tell if a person is currently infected with the coronavirus, were in short supply. The promise of a new serology, or antibody blood test, that could determine if a person had been exposed to covid19 and developed protective antibodies, was being heralded as the next best thing a game changer that could get americans back to work. On march 16, in an attempt to get those tests to the public, the f. D. A. Took an unusual step. It announced it would allow Antibody Tests into the u. S. Market without f. D. A. Review or formal clearance. Almost immediately, more than 100 Companies Offering Antibody Tests flooded the market. They came from every corner of the world, and none of them were f. D. A. Tested. Back in laredo, Robert Castaneda agreed to the brokers deal and bought 20,000 Antibody Tests from a chinese manufacturer, hu he agreed to share them with the city of laredo where coronavirus cases were spiking. The number of people testing positive for the virus continues going up. Alfonsi drivethrough testing sites were readied around laredo. The chinese test kits arrived on march 30, with the fanfare usually reserved for a Winning High School Football Team in texas. Dr. Hector gonzalez we were elated, very happy, because now we were going to be able to test. Alfonsi dr. Hector gonzalez was the director of health in laredo for nearly two decades. The city wanted to Start Testing front line responders as soon as possible. But first, dr. Gonzalez, weeks away from his retirement, decided to test the accuracy of the Antibody Tests. Gonzalez it was supposed to be 95 . All the tests, especially serologies, have to be 95 or better. Alfonsi but dr. Gonzalez found the tests results varied wildly. The tests didnt work well if the person had been recently exposed to the virus. The small sample he tested was only 20 accurate. At any point, youre doing these tests, and youre getting back these lousy numbers that the tests dont work. Do you look at each other and go, are we crazy . Surely this thing had to work better than this . Gonzalez yes, we said, are we did we do this right . And went back through our steps and we were confident that we did things correctly. Alfonsi what strikes me about this is that, here you are in laredo, texas, and you figure it out, but there was no kind of test happening at a federal level. Shouldnt there have been . Gonzalez absolutely. But the f. D. A. Had never checked them. Alfonsi anhui deepblue did not respond to our request for comment. But laredo officials had reported the bad tests to the feds, who came to town to start an investigation and seize all 20,000 tests. And youre out a half Million Dollars . Castaneda we are. Alfonsi that hurts. Castaneda it does. It does. The one thing that makes it a little bit easier to swallow is the fact that we tried to do something good for our community. Alfonsi did you feel duped . Gonzalez yes, but more disappointed, because we had such high hopes to test. We were ready to do public drivethrough testing. And now we couldnt. We were on hold. Alfonsi meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of other Antibody Tests that the f. D. A. Also never reviewed continued to be mailed to businesses, clinics and hospitals, where they were used to test patients, first line responders, and healthcare workers. Dr. Alex marson is an immunology researcher at the university of california, San Francisco. We spoke with him remotely. Dr. Alex marson i got a text message from a good friend of mine here in the bay area, and she showed me pictures of her testing herself on a Antibody Test that had showed up at her own house. That made me realize that the availability of tests was actually preceding the availability of reliable information on the performance characteristics of these tests. Alfonsi so in early march, dr. Marson and dr. Patrick hsu, an assistant professor of bioengineering at u. C. Berkeley, assembled a team of 50 scientists to do what the f. D. A. Had not test the Antibody Tests. Marson we had to gather tests from around the world. We had to set up a lab with rigorous Safety Standards and ethical standards. Dr. Patrick hsu we carefully curated a set of blood from positive people, who had tested viral positive, and had been seen in San Francisco hospitals, and negative blood samples that were taken from well before the covid19 outbreak. Marson so all of this was unfolding extremely rapidly. Alfonsi a month later, the team published preliminary results on Antibody Tests from a dozen different companies. Did you feel the tests delivered as advertised . Marson we saw a range, saw that some were closer to what we hoped for and others were farther off. Alfonsi some were way off. The tests are much less accurate when used on a person who was recently exposed to the virus. 20 days after exposure, the tests get better, but none are perfect. All but one test delivered socalled false positives, meaning they mistakenly signaled antibodies in people who did not have them. Marson we want to have a test that will tell have we been infected . And ideally, can we go back into society and be safe . The truth is, we dont yet have that information. The test cannot provide that assurance. Alfonsi dr. Marson says anyone with a positive Antibody Test should have a second or third test to confirm it. And even then, the results should be viewed cautiously, because scientists still dont know what antibody levels are required to give immunity or how long it lasts. I think a lot of people think if they get this Antibody Test and they test positive, that they are going to have a shield that allows them to enter into the workforce, to go to the Grocery Store without their mask on. Is that what a positive Antibody Test means . Marson i think we cannot safely say that to people yet. We need more Scientific Data to tell people exactly the characteristics of what protection will look like, if at all. Alfonsi others were also raising red flags about Antibody Tests. Onarch 26, problems with the tests in spain were made public. A week later, britain tossed out 20 millionworth of Antibody Tests because of false results. And days later, the World Health Organization issued more warnings about the test. But the white house continued to sell the idea of Antibody Tests. Trump and support our efforts to get americans back to work by showing us who might have developed the wonderful, beautiful immunity. Alfonsi it still did not change its open door policy. We asked the f. D. A. Why, and they said the decisions were made with a careful balancing of risks and benefits. Dr. Margaret hamburg was the f. D. A. Commissioner for six years during the obama administration. We know that a lot of the European Countries were having problems with these Antibody Tests before we opened up the market. Should we have known that . Dr. Margaret hamburg i dont think that we took advantage of that to the degree that we could have and should have. Alfonsi we know on march 16, the f. D. A. Kind of opened up the market for Antibody Testing without review. Was that a misake . Hamburg i do think that was a mistake, because it led to a marketplace that was full of Antibody Tests of very variable quality, and certainly could not be trusted, in terms of their accuracy. Alfonsi it took 50 days for the f. D. A. To reverse its course on Antibody Tests. In may, the Agency Required developers to apply for emergency authorization and submit data to show their tests worked. But by then, it was too late. Raja krishnamoorthi fraudulent tests flooded the market. Hundreds and hundreds of tests taken by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. Alfonsi democratic congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of illinois is investigating who directed the f. D. A. s handsoff approach. Krishnamoorthi the f. D. A. Was not policing this market. They adopted whats called a selfvalidation and voluntary compliance system. Alfonsi what does that mean, selfvalidation . Krishnamoorthi well, basically, they were asking companies to validate that their tests worked. And, guess what . Every company said they did. Alfonsi then in late may, nearly three months after the wave of unregulated Antibody Tests came to the u. S. , the f. D. A. Started pulling tests off the market. 50 so far, including the anhui deepblue test that was sold to laredo. Customs agents and Homeland Security investigators now have the difficult task of trying to stop all the banned tests from entering the country. But the flawed Antibody Tests are still being used, and the bad Data Collected from them is guiding critical decisions about when to reopen communities. Krishnamoorthi weve never seen anything like this, in terms of a policy which is basically an anything goes, wild westtype of approach to regulating a healthcare market. We just havent seen that. Alfonsi im sure they would say, we cut through the red tape, we had to get anything to the market as fast as we could, these are unprecedented times. Whats wrong with that argument . Krishnamoorthi when you open the floodgates to virtually any product being sold by anybody, well, guess what . Shysters, scam artists, and people who are preying on unsuspecting consumers enter the fray. Alfonsi the burden of keeping all those outlaws at bay fell to communities like laredo, and dr. Hector gonzalez. If you had not taken that step, if you had not tested these, what could the impact have been to this community . Gonzalez oh, devastating. We wouldnt have a true indicator of the level of infection. The public deserves for us to give them something thats valid. ticking what the know before getting a covid19 Antibody Test at what the know before getting 60minutesovertime. Com. Ars. At novartis, we promise to do our part. As always, were doing everything we can to help keep cosentyx accessible and affordable. If you have any questions at all, call us, email us, visit us online. Were here to help support you when you need us. Take care, and be well. To learn more, call one eight four four cosentyx or v but theyre also being found. Even now 500,000 new jobs from 50,000 companies are added every week on indeed. If theres a job out there, youll find it here. For as little as 5, now anyone can own companies in the s p 500, even if their shares cost more. 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Common side effects include headache and tiredness. Ask your doctor today, if epclusa is your kind of cure. When we closed our wynn committed instantly to keeping all 15,000 team members onboard. We then focused our fivestar level of service to all who needed it. We made improvements to peoples lives. We strove to be better and we made people happy. This closure may have temporarily taken us out of wynn and encore, but it couldnt take the wynn and encore out of us. And now, we are proud to welcome you back. Heres what we want everyone to do. Count all the hugs you havent given. All the hands you havent held. All the dinners you didnt share with friends. The trips you havent taken. Keep track of them. Each one means one less person vulnerable, one less person exposed, and one step closer to a healthier community. So for now, keep your distance. But dont lose count. Well have some catching up to do. ticking lapook there is an invisible universe hidden inside your body. Its called the gut microbiome, a vast array of trillions of intestinal bacteria, hundreds of different species. They help digest your food in exchange for a warm, safe place to live, and we are only now starting to discover the gut microbiome plays a much larger role in our lives than we ever imagined. Some of those bacteria found inside us are replicated in commerciallymanufactured mixtures called probiotics. You see them on grocery and pharmacy shelves, and theyre recommended by your friends and, often, by doctors like me. But, do probiotics actually do anything . To find out, first you need to know about the gut microbiome. Dr. Jeff gordon this is a snapshot of the microbiome. Lapook and then this is the trillions of bacteria there. Theyre represented by the different colors. Dr. Jeff gordon at Washington University in saint louis is recognized as the father of the microbiome. He has spent decades exploring the mysteries of the Bacterial Community in our gut. Gordon its a collection of microbes that are able to coexist with us in ways that still are unclear. Lapook why are they there in the first place . Gordon they help process the food that we consume, but they do a lot more than that. They make vitamins. We think about vitamins as only being in food. Theyre able to produce essential amino acids, theyre able to talk to our immune system and help educate the immune system. Lapook thats different than i think the way a lot of people think about the intestinal track. Its sort of like a tube, and the food comes in and it goes out, and thats it. But youre saying theres much more of an interaction . Gordon were coming to understand that much more clearly. And this capacity to process the food that we consume is linked to our health as well as our disease states. Lapook Research Suggests a healthy microbiome may reduce the risk of diseases like cancer and diabetes. And, in a landmark experiment, dr. Gordon and his team made a lean mouse fatter by giving it the bacteria of a fat mouse. Are you saying that part of the cause of obesity might be the types of bacteria that are in the gut, in the microbiome . Gordon i am saying that. And we see that viwhoar a ldivee Microbial Community compared to individuals who are lean. Lapook is there evidence that you could take the microbiome thats associated with a lean person, transfer it to somebody whos overweight, and it might somehow help them to become thinner . Gordon theres a lot of work going on right now, trying to test that hypothesis. Lapook right now, the microbiome is an area of hot research. Doctors are already treating illness by manipulating gut bacteria. A potentially lifethreatening infection of the colon called c. Diff has been successfully treated by moving bacteria from the gut of a healthy person to the gut of somebody whos sick. And, millions of people are trying to improve their microbiomes themselves ung probiotics, socalled good bacteria. But heres the problem theres a lot of conflict among scientists about whether probiotics provide any benefit at all. Dr. Patricia hibberd over the years, there have been so many studies of various probiotics saying its good for this. The next study says, its not good for this. Dr. Patricia hibberd is an the. Infectious disease specialist and a professor of medicine at boston university. Dr. Hibberd has reviewed hundreds of studies in the medical literature about probiotics. She has also done her own studies, and told us theres not enough highquality research to recommend offtheshelf probiotics for the medical problems for which theyre commonly used. Hibberd the whole idea that maybe throwing in good bacteria that we would take by mouth that hopefully would land in the right places in the g. I. Tract and work with the immune system, we just dont know how to do any of that. Lapook but right now, there is a multibillion dollar industry thats growing. Hibberd yes. Lapook and people are out there buying this stuff. Hibberd right. Lapook so, is there convincing evidence that commercially available probiotics have been found to be beneficial for reducing diarrhea from antibiotics . Hibberd no. Lapook treating Irritable Bowel Syndrome . Hibberd no. Lapook decreasing allergies . Hibberd no. Lapook but probiotics are suggested as your digestive system has billions of bacteria. But life can throw them off balance. Lapook restoring that balance of bacteria in the gut microbiome is just one goal touted by makers of probiotics a 50 billion Global Industry sold to us in capsules, popsicles, cereal, tea and some yogurt. And were told probiotics can even help your dog. What if you could give your pet the advantage of probiotics . Lapook many physicians and patients believe probiotics are worth trying, and many believe they work. Lapook dr. Merenstein is doing a Clinical Trial backed by cke National Institutes of hes trying to see if it can prevent diarrhea in children taking antibiotics, a remedy hes on the board of a nonprofit Industry Finance Group that promotes science. Other researchers have tried with mixed results. Merenstein i think the data is there. I recommend probiotics mainly for people who are on antibiotics, and for people with irritable bowel disease. Lapook i wonder what our viewers are thinking right now, right . Theyre hearing you saying, it definitely helps, probiotics, and others are saying, theres no good evidence that it helps. Are they throwing a brick through the Television Screen just about now . Merenstein they are, but they have been throwing a brick, you know, for the last 20 years, when we tell them Everyone Needs vitamin d, and Everyone Needs, you know, echinacea for colds, or zinc for colds. I think its difficult to be a consumer, because things change so quickly. But i think we need more probiotic research. Lapook one cause of confusion may be the placebo effect. Some people using probiotics may feel better because they expect to feel better. And figuring out what probiotics do inside the gut isd. One reason is that each persons microbiome is unique, so the same probiotic may have different effects on different people. Thats exactly what professors eran elinav and eran segal found at israels Weizmann Institute of science. Eran elinov we wanted to directly assess what the probiotics were doing and how they interact with whats already inside in our gut. Lapook the researchers collected thousands of samples from a small group of Adult Volunteers who were given probiotics. Eran segal weve actually looked across the entire gastrointestinal tract at places where nobody has looked before. I think the results of yesterday. Lapook the volunteers all underwent multiple endoscopies and colonoscopies. So youre going down the swallowing tube, into the stomach, and into the first part of the small intestine. And then, colonoscopy, youre coming from below. Elinav exactly. And then we gave some of these volunteers a very large combination of probiotics that are out there in your supermarket. And half of the individuals were given what we call placebo, which is an empty pill. Segal so the results were actually very striking. So what were seeing is that half the people take the probiotics, and the probiotics, as they go in, they just go out and they dont populate the gut. Lapook was that surprising to you . Elinav that was highly surprising to us. Most of us, or all of us, are under the assumption these probiotics would settle in at least temporarily in our gut, and would do the good things that we expect them to do. Lapook the researchers also studied a treatment commonly recommended by doctors, giving probiotics to help restore the balance of gut bacteria wiped out by antibiotics. Segal we found that the probiotics actually delayed the restoration of the bacteria of those individuals to what they had before, as compared to individuals who took antibiotics and then did nothing. Lapook so here a lot of us have been taking probiotics with antibiotics because we think maybe thatll help us get back to normal more quickly, and this is showing the opposite. Segal exactly. Elinav exactly. Lapook elinav and segals findings contradict much of the conventional wisdom about probiotics. Other scientists are now building on their work. Segal to be clear, were not against the concept of probiotics in general. We actually think that probiotics may have huge benefits. Elinav but we need to be very cautious in generally prescribing these microbes without knowing enough of what they do. Lapook but we were surprised to learn that probiotics are added to some baby food, and even infant formula. About a fifth of the topselling infant formula in the United States contains probiotics, and the market is growing. Dr. Frank greer most parents dont realize how little work there is to support the use of probiotic in infants. Lapook and yet, its being used. Greer its being used. Lapook dr. Frank greer is Professor Emeritus of pediatrics iuthor merican academy of pediatrics clical report on ioti. So when you add probiotics to infant formula at this early stage, what could happen . Greer i wish i could answer that question, but i think part of the answer to that is, we dont really know how probiotics work. Lapook so if we dont know how they work and were not sure what they do, why are we adding them to infant formula . Greer thats a great question why are we giving them to infants . Lapook is there any convincing evidence that adding probiotics to infant formula is good for the baby . Greer my answer to that would be no. Lapook that answer was unexpected, coming from dr. Greer. You see, a baby formula trade group, the infant Nutrition Council of america, recommended him to explain their point of view. So then why are we seeing it in so many different products . Beity tightly regulated. Lapook the food and Drug Administration, the f. D. A. , does not classify probiotic capsules as drugs. That means they do not have to be proven safe and effective. When added to anything, including infant formula, probiotics only need to meet a lower standard generally recognized as safe. In rare cases, probiotics have been linked to severe infections in critically ill patients and those with weakened immune systems. Otherwise, they appear to be safe. If you could give probiotics early in life and potentially help, couldnt those same probiotics down the line have unintended consequences and hurt . Greer its possible, but i cant attest that theres any harm whatsoever down the line. Theres theres no evidence that says theyre harmful. Lapook but are there longterm studies . Greer no, there are no longterm studies. Without those studies, theres no way of knowing if giving probiotics to infants has unintended longterm consequences. Lapook the infant formula trade group, which recommended we interview dr. Greer, sent us this statement in formulafed babies, probiotics promote a balance of bacteria in a babys gut and simulate the benefits provided by breast milk. Greer well, i think that ultimately formula industrys goal. Lapook its their goal, but is greer thats their goal. Lapook is that whats happening greer this doesnt do it. You know . Putting a single probiotic organism in an infant formula doesnt promote the balance theyre talking about. Lapook despite disagreement about how or whether todays probiotics work, every scientist we spoke with was hopeful about the possibility of improving health by manipulating the microbiome. Last year, dr. Gordons team reported that a special supplemental mixture of nutrients containing chick peas, soy, bananas and peanuts can repair the damaged microbiome of malnourished infants. Gordon think about this. The idea that a defective development of a microbiome could impair the development of bones, of the immune system, perhaps even the Central Nervous system. How incredibly extraordinary that our collection of microbes is so impactful . Thats inspirational, but the task ahead is complex. We want to be able to develop interventions that are safe in the short term and in the long term, and we want to make sure that we have it right. ticking welcome to the cbs sports hq presented by progressive insurance. Just outside of hartford, connecticut, american Dustin Johnson shot a final round 67 to take the title at the travelers championship. For johnson, its career victory number 21. He defeats Kevin Streelman by one. For 24 7news and highlight, visit cbssportshq. Com. 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As we do each summer, we have prepared updates of some of our favorite stories to broadcast these next few weeks. Im bill whitaker. Well be back next week with another edition of 60 minutes. ticking ticking captioning funded by cbs and ford. We go further, so you can. Captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org ladies and gentlemen, introduceing mr. Bryant. Im a young black man doing all that i can to stay i look around and i see whats being con done to my kind every day im being haunted my people dont want no trouble weve been through the struggle i just want to live god dont take me i just want to live