PBS NewsHour full episode August 10, 2017

JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.
I'm Judy Woodruff.
On the "NewsHour" tonight:
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: North Korea better get their act together,
or they're going to be in trouble like few nations ever been in trouble in this world.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Ratcheting up a war of words with North Korea, President Trump says his
threat of fire and fury wasn't tough enough, while North Korea's military threatens to
target the U.S. territory of Guam.
And coming home to roost.
Our Stopping Superbugs series concludes with a look at why giving antibiotics to chickens
might harm human health.
PHIL STAYER, Chief Veterinarian, Sanderson Farms: Using antibiotics will induce resistance
in any organism.
The question is, what does food animal medicine in particular have to do with contributing
to that?
JUDY WOODRUFF: Then: where past meets present -- what learning about the slaves on the plantation
of a founding father can teach us about issues of race before the United States today.
KAT IMHOFF, President and CEO, The Montpelier Foundation: It's really easy to talk about
things 200 years ago.
It's a lot more difficult when you bring it all the way up today, and you go, no, the
legacy of slavery is still with us.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: President Trump continued the war of words between North Korea and the U.S.
today, as Guam, the small U.S. territory island in the Pacific, became the center of global
attention.
Special correspondent Nick Schifrin begins our coverage.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Things will happen to them like they never
thought possible.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Today, President Trump doubled down on his threats against North Korea.
DONALD TRUMP: North Korea better get their act together, or they're going to be in trouble
like few nations ever have been in trouble in this world.
NICK SCHIFRIN: He met with his national security team in New Jersey and disparaged a quarter-century
of what he called failed North Korea negotiations.
DONALD TRUMP: Look at Clinton.
He folded on the negotiations.
He was weak and ineffective.
You look what happened with Bush, you look what happened with Obama.
Obama, he didn't even want to talk about it.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Meanwhile, on the streets of Pyongyang, this is the season of steadfast
support.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans, scripted and staged, pledge allegiance to leader Kim
Jong-un as he faces off against what they call imperialist America.
And the regime's mouthpiece, state TV, declared the president of the United States reckless.
MAN (through translator): Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy, bereft of reason,
who is going senile.
NICK SCHIFRIN: The TV announcer said Kim was considering an unusually specific plan, to
launch four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missiles over three districts of Japan, flying
for 17 minutes and exactly 2,086 miles, landing 19 to 25 miles off the coast of U.S. territory
Guam.
Guam is about the size of Chicago, and, today, the 160,000 residents wavered between fear
and faith.
WOMAN: It's actually been scary since yesterday.
MAN: With the military presence here, I am pretty sure we are safe.
NICK SCHIFRIN: The U.S. military has been here for 120 years and takes up a third of
the island; 7,000 U.S. service members are stationed on an Air Force base with the U.S.'
most modern bombers, and a Naval base that's home to fast-attack nuclear submarines.
The island is protected by a high-altitude missile defense system, and it has been threatened
by North Korea many times before.
DAVID COHEN, Former Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency: It is destabilizing,
it is threatening, but it is not anything new.
NICK SCHIFRIN: David Cohen was the deputy director of the CIA until last year.
He says President Trump's rhetoric:
DONALD TRUMP: They will be met with fire and fury.
NICK SCHIFRIN: ... is music to Kim Jong-un's ears.
DAVID COHEN: The more that the president of the United States engages directly in a war
of words with Kim Jong-un, and with the North Korean regime, the more that they are able
to use that to solidify and to justify their totalitarian regime.
NICK SCHIFRIN: U.S. officials defend their strategy, saying Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
is committed to diplomacy, allowing the president to be more aggressive as an attempt to finally
convince North Korea, as well as China, to change policy.
But that only works if everyone is on the same page.
DAVID COHEN: The difficulty in not having coherent strategy is that the object of that
strategy, whether it's North Korea or China, for that matter, doesn't really understand
what it is you're trying to accomplish.
NICK SCHIFRIN: And that means the rhetorical and the real tension continue to rise.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Nick Schifrin.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In a few moments, we will talk to the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, Ben Cardin of Maryland, about the growing North Korean crisis.
President Trump came back to cameras at his New Jersey golf club today for a series of
newsworthy exchanges.
And I'm joined now by our own John Yang to take us through some of it.
John, he came back and he just kept on talking.
JOHN YANG: He kept on talking.
His press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, tried to cut it off.
He ignored her, went on for 20 minutes.
At one point, he was asked about Vladimir Putin, Russian President Vladimir Putin's
decision to expel U.S. diplomats from Russia.
He says the United States should be grateful.
DONALD TRUMP: I want to thank him, because we're trying to cut down on payroll.
And as far as I'm concerned, I'm very thankful that he let go of a large number of people,
because now we have a smaller payroll.
There's no real reason for them to go back.
So, I greatly appreciate the fact that they have been able to cut our payroll for the
United States.
We will save a lot of money.
JOHN YANG: It was remarkable.
Foreign policy experts say it was really remarkable to hear a president go on like that, even
if he was making -- trying to make a joke.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We have been hearing Republicans in Congress say this is a bad thing, to lose
these diplomats stationed in Moscow.
John, the president went on.
It was interesting that he had nicer things to say about Vladimir Putin than he did about
the Senate majority leader, who in his own party?
JOHN YANG: Mitch McConnell has become the whipping boy for the failure of the Obamacare
repeal and replace.
And he was asked at one point whether he had asked his Cabinet secretary, Elaine Chao,
to help him.
Elaine Chao, of course, is married to Mitch McConnell.
DONALD TRUMP: Elaine is doing a very good job.
We're very proud of Elaine as secretary of transportation, as you know, as you said,
Mitch's wife.
She's doing a very, very good job.
I'm very disappointed in Mitch.
But if he gets these bills passed, I will be happy with him.
I will be the first to admit it.
But, honestly, repeal and replace of Obamacare should have taken place and it should have
been on my desk virtually the first week that I was there or the first day that I was there.
I have been hearing about it for seven years.
JOHN YANG: Some are saying that the president's saying that he should have had that bill on
his desk on the first day underscores Mitch McConnell's point that he has unreasonable
expectations.
JUDY WOODRUFF: John, another thing the president was asked about is the Russia investigation
and the -- I guess the leaks that he and others in the administration have been saying they're
so concerned about.
JOHN YANG: He said he's given no thought at all to firing special counsel Robert Mueller.
He said the White House is cooperating and that Mueller is looking into something that
never happened.
And he also said that there are two kinds of leaks in Washington.
One, he doesn't mind.
DONALD TRUMP: You have the leaks where people want to love me, and they're all fighting
for love.
Those are not very important, but, certainly, we don't like them.
Those are little inter-White House leaks.
They're not very important, but, actually, I'm somewhat honored by them.
But the important leaks to me, and the leaks that the attorney general's looking at very
strongly, are the leaks coming out of intelligence.
And we have to stop them for the security and the national security of our country.
JOHN YANG: So, this ends a long period, Judy, where the president has been isolated, not
seen in the public eye, but, clearly, he had a lot he wanted to get off his chest.
JUDY WOODRUFF: I noticed, just quickly, that he was also asked about Paul Manafort, former
chairman of his campaign, whose home was raided by the FBI a few weeks ago.
JOHN YANG: He said that he thought that raid was to send a strong signal, that it was sort
of going into his house before dawn.
He also said that he really hadn't talked to Paul Manafort in a long time, and repeated
that he had been with the campaign only a brief time, even though he was the campaign
chairman.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And he made a reference to Manafort being a consultant and earning fees
here and there, so a lot of interesting material here.
Remarkable.
John Yang, thank you very much.
JOHN YANG: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And in the day's other news: The dispute over Kenya's presidential election
is intensifying.
Supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga declared victory over incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta,
a claim rejected by the election commission.
Still, Odinga backers celebrated today.
Some clashed with police in Nairobi, as electoral officials called for calm from all sides as
the votes are counted.
WAFULA CHEBUKATI, Chairman, Voting Authority: I commend all Kenyans for the patience they
have shown so far as we finalize the process of tallying and collection of results.
We urge all parties to continue to exercise restraint, especially at this critical moment.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Election officials have disputed Odinga's claim that hackers infiltrated a
database and manipulated results.
Their preliminary tallies showed Kenyatta with a strong lead.
There's been yet another migrant disaster off the coast of Yemen.
The U.N. says five people are dead and more than 50 are missing after smugglers forced
them off a boat.
It comes less than a day after 50 Ethiopian and Somalian migrants were deliberately drowned
in the same area.
The U.N.'s migration agency says about 55,000 migrants have left the Horn of Africa for
Yemen this year.
CHISSEY MUELLER, International Organization for Migration: Migrant smuggling to Yemen
is not new.
It happens every day.
A few hundred migrants, primarily from Ethiopia, as well as Somalia, come into Yemen.
And they often are intent on passing through Yemen to go to other locations in the Arabian
Peninsula.
Some people stay in Yemen.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The U.N. agency said that migrants continue to arrive because there's no central
authority to prevent their travel.
Hurricane Franklin soaked Central Mexico today.
It made landfall on the country's Gulf Coast overnight, as the first hurricane of the Atlantic
season.
Franklin brought heavy rains and winds of up to 85 miles per hour.
The storm weakened as it went over Mexico's mountains, but forecasters said that it could
drop up to eight inches of rain in parts.
Back in this country, the mayor of New Orleans has declared a state of emergency over flooding
concerns.
The city is scrambling to repair damaged equipment as the threat of more rain looms in the area.
Heavy downpours last weekend overwhelmed pumping systems and inundated neighborhoods.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu took aim at city officials.
MITCH LANDRIEU (D), Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana: But I can't even begin to tell
you how extremely frustrated and angry I am at the inability of the Sewage and Water Board
to communicate clearly and to give accurate information to the public.
I'm not sure even at this moment that we have the complete and accurate information.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The federal government had earmarked billions of dollars for repairs
in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, but problems have persisted.
2016 was the hottest year on record, the third straight year of record global warmth.
That's according to a new report led by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Among the findings, the global temperature increase was helped by a strong El ®MDNM¯Nino
effect, and concentrations of major greenhouse gases also reached a new high.
On Wall Street, brewing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea dragged stocks down again
today.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 204 points to close at 21844.
The Nasdaq fell 135.
The S&P 500 dropped 35.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee weighs in on the North Korea threat; a new exhibit gives voice to those enslaved
at the estate of one of our earliest presidents; Making Sense of how the livestock industry
uses antibiotics; and much more.
President Trump's latest warnings to North Korea come as Congress is away on recess,
but it hasn't stopped lawmakers from weighing in.
We turn to one of them now, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Ben Cardin of Maryland.
I spoke to him just a short time ago and began by asking if President Trump's latest threats
are helpful.
SEN.
BEN CARDIN (D), Maryland: Judy, I think not.
I think it's going to be very counterproductive.
The international community looks to the United States for leadership to find a way that we
can avoid a military conflict with North Korea that could involve nuclear weapons.
And the president's statement gives little hope that could be accomplished.
It questions whether the United States really has a strategy to bring North Korea to change
their way.
So, it is, I think, extremely unhelpful, the comments the president made and continues
to make in regards to the use of force.
What we need to do is work with China changing the equation, so that China enforces the sanctions
that were just recently reinforced by the U.N. Security Council against North Korea,
so that we can get North Korea to come to the bargaining table and give up their nuclear
weapons.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, Senator, I'm sure you heard the president makes the argument that
the United States has let North Korea get away with its tough rhetoric for years, let
it get away with this nuclear buildup.
We see what the result is.
And the president saying it's time for someone to stand up for the American people, in his
words.
SEN.
BEN CARDIN: Well, it is time to enforce sanctions.
And that means for China -- China doesn't want North Korea to become a nuclear weapons
state.
What China wants to do is protect the communist regime on its border, so the United States
needs to work with China to indicate this is not about regime change for North Korea.
It's about changing their course on nuclear warfare.
And that's an area where China would agree with the United States.
China can guarantee North Korea, its regime, that it must change its course on its nuclear
policies.
That's what we need to negotiate.
And there's a way forward.
If we rely on military, the risk factors are so great, the casualties could be so high,
and the outcome uncertain.
So we should give diplomacy the best chance possible.
And the president's comments yesterday and today have made that more difficult.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What do you think about the idea of the United States accepting North
Korea's current posture as a nuclear power and then negotiating?
SEN.
BEN CARDIN: No, I don't think we accept North Korea having a nuclear weapon capacity that
violates international protocols.
That's not an acceptable option.
It's not acceptable for the United States.
It's not acceptable for South Korea.
It's not acceptable for Japan.
All that's going to do is accelerate more countries in the region wanting to have nuclear
weapons.
That's not a way in which we want to move forward with stability in that region.
So, what we need to do is turn the pressure up on North Korea.
That means really enforcing sanctions.
If you do that, North Korea's going to have to come and negotiate.
What North Korea is mostly concerned about is the regime's security.
That's an area that we can talk about, and that's an area in which diplomacy can work
in bringing about an acceptable solution for their nuclear weapons program.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, do you have an understanding that this administration is working on enforcing
those sanctions, whether it's the secretary of state or the president's national security
advisers or others in the administration?
SEN.
BEN CARDIN: Judy, I don't think we have confidence that the president has a well-thought-out
policy for North Korea.
If he did, I don't think he would have made the statements he did, which I understand
were not thought out, were not after consultation with his advisers.
He made these comments because he thought it was the right thing to say at the moment.
That's not having a policy.
A policy is a well-thought-out game plan that gives us the very best chance to let diplomacy
work and get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program, in exchange for which there
will be rewards for North Korea, that their economy will be able to grow, that their people
will be more prosperous, and, yes, their security can be guaranteed, particularly by China.
So,there's a way of a path forward, but it involves the president showing leadership
in the international community.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But are you and others on the Foreign Relations Committee, the chairman,
Republican Bob Corker, trying to talk to the administration about this to get your point
of view across?
What's Senator Corker saying to you about this?
SEN.
BEN CARDIN: Well, we have talked with the administration on several occasions.
We have received briefings on several occasions.
But I have not yet seen a coordinated strategy from this administration in North Korea or,
by the way, in some of the other hot spots in the same areas of the world.
We have not seen that.
I think the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is very concerned about the president working
with Congress, so we have a coordinated strategy.
We all agree nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in North Korea must end.
That's not an acceptable course.
They cannot threaten the United States, cannot threaten South Korea or Japan or other countries
in that region, that there's a path forward.
We all agree on that.
We also agree that we are going to have to be very tough on sanctions and that China
is a key player.
And we're prepared to work this administration to make it easier for China to be tougher
on North Korea.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But, in the meantime, until this happens, how worried are you?
How worried should the American people be about, oh, something happening, whether it's
an attack by the North Koreans or some other step that would result in something catastrophic?
SEN.
BEN CARDIN: Well, I must tell you, I think this is a very dangerous situation.
I think this is probably -- it is the worst we have seen between the North Korea and the
rest of the world as far as their weapons program is concerned.
So, this is a very, very serious matter.
I have a lot of confidence in our ability to maintain the safety of our people.
The Department of Defense does their mission best of any country in the world.
We will take care of ourselves.
But I think we have let this situation get too dangerous.
And now is the time for the international community, through U.S. leadership, to find
a way so that we can have diplomacy work in North Korea.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Senator Ben Cardin, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, we thank you
very much.
SEN.
BEN CARDIN: Thank you, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Next: the final installment of our special series Stopping Superbugs,
which this week focused on the potential dangers of antibiotic use in industrial-scale farming.
Last night, science correspondent Miles O'Brien paid a visit to a pig farm.
Tonight, economics correspondent Paul Solman picks up our reporting by checking on how
things are done on a commercial chicken farm.
It's part of our weekly economics feature, Making Sense.
PAUL SOLMAN: Why are you knocking?
BRUCE STEWART-BROWN, Veterinarian, Perdue Farms: I'm letting the chickens know we're
coming.
PAUL SOLMAN: A chicken house in Salisbury, Maryland.
Holy smokes.
How many chickens are in here?
BRUCE STEWART-BROWN: So, there's about 49,000.
PAUL SOLMAN: Forty-nine thousand?
BRUCE STEWART-BROWN: But you can see there's plenty of space for them to move to open areas
if they'd like to.
PAUL SOLMAN: Veterinarian Bruce Stewart-Brown oversees poultry production for a brand some
of you may have grown up with.
FRANK PERDUE, CEO, Perdue Farms: Every Perdue chicken has one of these tags on it.
PAUL SOLMAN: Frank Perdue became famous as the tough man to make a tender chicken.
MAN: You might wonder what drives a man like this.
PAUL SOLMAN: But an even tougher man raised him.
MAN: Me.
PAUL SOLMAN: Back in the 1920s, Arthur Perdue founded not just a hugely successful business,
but some would say an entire industry.
ELLEN SILBERGELD, Johns Hopkins University: And this is ground zero to the chicken industry
and in fact to all of intensive agriculture.
It all began here.
PAUL SOLMAN: Johns Hopkins University environmental scientist Ellen Silbergeld is author of "Chickenizing
Farms and Food," which chronicles the rise of factory farming.
We need it to feed the world, she says, but not by feeding low doses of antibiotics to
livestock, supposedly to promote growth or prevent disease before it happens.
ELLEN SILBERGELD: Between 70 and 80 percent of total antibiotic production is used in
agriculture.
PAUL SOLMAN: And is the use in agriculture creating as much resistance in the bacteria
as the use with humans?
ELLEN SILBERGELD: I think it's arguably creating more.
When bacteria are exposed to low doses of antibiotics, bacteria are stressed, but not
killed.
And the community sends out signals whereby they share resistance genes.
PAUL SOLMAN: Really?
ELLEN SILBERGELD: Yes.
So, actually low-dose antibiotics over a long period of time are much worse than high-dose.
PAUL SOLMAN: Much worse, says Silbergeld, in that they expose workers and consumers
to rapidly evolving antibiotic-resistant microbes, perhaps in the very air we were breathing
near this chicken house in Sussex County, Delaware.
ELLEN SILBERGELD: We and others have done studies where we have tracked the outflow
from these ventilation fans, and we can find antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are genetically
identical to the bacteria inside the house as far away as essentially three football
fields.
And, furthermore, there are flies and other things that come in and out of the house,
and they can move as far as three miles away.
PAUL SOLMAN: Flies and fans spreading microbes that, under the right conditions, can cause
serious illness, even death.
ELLEN SILBERGELD: We are coming up against the end of the age of antibiotics, exhausting
what many have called the crown jewels of medicine.
And, if I may say, we're throwing them like pearls before swine.
PAUL SOLMAN: And you mean that...
ELLEN SILBERGELD: Literally.
PAUL SOLMAN: As my colleague Miles O'Brien reported last night, antibiotics are routinely
fed to pigs and cattle, which live a lot longer than chickens, a practice microbiologist Lance
Price understands, even if he doesn't condone it.
LANCE PRICE, Molecular Microbiologist: Pigs spend their entire lives in these concentrated
animal feeding operations, crowded, stressed, standing around on their own feces.
They're just more likely to get sick.
PAUL SOLMAN: For chickens, it all started in the 1940s, with some pharmaceutical industry
studies purporting to show that antibiotics promoted growth.
ELLEN SILBERGELD: These are studies that were all conducted within laboratories.
They were not in the real world situation of a chicken houses.
They were for very short periods of time, two to seven weeks.
PAUL SOLMAN: How many in a study?
ELLEN SILBERGELD: Thirty would be a big study.
PAUL SOLMAN: Thirty chickens?
ELLEN SILBERGELD: Most of them were four or five.
PAUL SOLMAN: On this flimsy foundation, argues Silbergeld, was a match formed between big
pharma and big farm.
JIM PERDUE, Chairman, Perdue Farms: I think the industry used antibiotics because they
just always did.
PAUL SOLMAN: Jim Perdue is the third generation to run the family business.
For decades, Perdue's poultry, like almost all chickens, were raised on antibiotics.
JIM PERDUE: There was a perception that they would grow better if you gave them antibiotics,
because it would, for lack of a better word, clean up the gut and absorb nutrients more
efficiently.
PAUL SOLMAN: But the evidence really wasn't there.
JIM PERDUE: But you do a lot of things that you have been doing forever, and you just
assume that's the way you do it, until you actually look at it and test it.
PAUL SOLMAN: In 2002, Perdue farms did just that, publishing the results of a three-year
experiment involving millions of birds.
Half were raised on antibiotics, the other half not.
ELLEN SILBERGELD: The data basically showed there was little or no difference.
PAUL SOLMAN: Silbergeld then asked economists to calculate how much bang Perdue was getting
for its antibiotics buck, the standard cost-benefit analysis at the heart of economics.
ELLEN SILBERGELD: A return on investment, yes.
And the results showed that they were actually losing money by purchasing antibiotics.
PAUL SOLMAN: But their own study wasn't what turned Perdue against maintenance antibiotics,
the latest scion says.
JIM PERDUE: We did it because the consumer was asking for it.
PAUL SOLMAN: Fifteen years later, all chicken sold under the Perdue brand has been raised
with no antibiotics ever.
JIM PERDUE: If you say no antibiotics that are important to humans, there is a but, or
no antibiotics except subtherapeutic.
That's a but.
PAUL SOLMAN: But it wasn't easy, nor was it, as they say in chicken, cheep.
Step one, says Perdue's chief vet, Bruce Stewart-Brown, was to ramp up their hatchery hygiene.
BRUCE STEWART-BROWN: If there's a piece of organic material, just wipe it off, and use
a different spot and, then turn it over, use another spot, and then get rid of it, and
get a new one.
PAUL SOLMAN: A new baby wipe, that is.
They use a lot of baby wipes.
DAVID BAILEY, Hatchery Manager: We process four days a week.
PAUL SOLMAN: David Bailey is hatchery manager.
DAVID BAILEY: For one week, I need 1,451,520 eggs.
PAUL SOLMAN: Step two, make sure the vaccine that goes into every egg is uncontaminated.
Previously, a vaccine to prevent a chicken viral disease was mixed in the middle of the
hatchery, with antibiotics added to kill common bacteria.
BRUCE STEWART-BROWN: And so this is the vaccine mixing room, and we actually put laminar flow
hoods, special air flow.
That keeps the vaccine from getting any contamination even in this controlled environment.
PAUL SOLMAN: Step three, a vegetarian diet, to replace the antibiotic-laced feed.
JIM PERDUE: We got rid of meat and bone meal, because that introduced salmonella and other
things into the diet.
PAUL SOLMAN: And now they're experimenting with lifestyle changes, including increased
playtime in a handful of hen houses, on the theory that it takes a happier home to grow
a healthier chicken.
BRUCE STEWART-BROWN: Play is a little bit down right now.
They're resting quite a bit.
PAUL SOLMAN: Can't we just go, hey, chickens, be active?
Turns out, to my embarrassment, that this isn't how chickens like to kid around.
BRUCE STEWART-BROWN: That's scaring them.
PAUL SOLMAN: OK, guys, sorry.
I apologize.
I thought I was playing.
Perdue is succeeding antibiotic-free.
But with all the concern and dire warnings, how is it that an estimated 70 percent of
the industry is still raising birds on antibiotics?
ACTOR: Some chicken brands use labels to trick people and charge higher prices.
ACTOR: Raised without antibiotics.
ACTOR: That's just marketing-speak.
PAUL SOLMAN: Mississippi-based Sanderson is the nation's third largest chicken producer,
just ahead of number four Perdue.
They say most of their customers don't much care if they eat chicken raised on antibiotics.
MIKE COCKRELL, CFO, Sanderson Farms: Across the Southeast, where most of our brand -- branded
product is sold, it's simply not that big of an issue.
PAUL SOLMAN: And, says chief financial officer Mike Cockrell, while it's nice to sell antibiotics-raised
chicken at a lower price, that's not why they use the drugs.
They want to be fair to the fowl.
MIKE COCKRELL: If I can prevent illness in the flock, we're going to do that.
LAMPKIN BUTTS, President, Sanderson Farms: We sat down with our vets and asked our vets
to do their homework.
PAUL SOLMAN: Company president Lampkin Butts.
LAMPKIN BUTTS: And tell us whether anything we're doing with antibiotics in our flocks
causes antibiotic resistance in humans.
And they did the research, and they came back and said, absolutely not.
PAUL SOLMAN: So, we asked chief veterinarian Phil Stayer, doesn't the use of antibacterial
drugs in animals raise the possibility that there will be resistance in bacteria and other
organisms that will come back to haunt human beings?
PHIL STAYER, Chief Veterinarian, Sanderson Farms: Using antibiotics will induce resistance
in any organism.
The question is, what does food animal medicine in particular have to do with contributing
to that?
And I think that risk is so small, we can't measure it.
PAUL SOLMAN: The scientists we have talked to say there's a real danger in using antibacterial
drugs in animals like chickens.
MARTHA EWING, Veterinarian, Sanderson Farms: We talk to scientists as well.
PAUL SOLMAN: Veterinarian Martha Ewing.
MARTHA EWING: But we have our own scientists who say that if we get a bacterial infection
in chickens that's serious enough to warrant another antibacterial, it's very possible
it may actually induce more resistance.
PAUL SOLMAN: It sounded like the red state/blue state divide.
PHIL STAYER: University of Minnesota, Kansas State University, they can't find a link in
terms of human resistance based upon food animal use.
PAUL SOLMAN: While the elite East Coast schools have.
So we asked Ellen Silbergeld of Johns Hopkins, is it your word against their word?
ELLEN SILBERGELD: No, it is not.
And, if I may say so, I'm very tired of the press who says, on the one hand, and on the
other.
PAUL SOLMAN: But you do understand that somebody in my position, who can't possibly assess
one study from the next, or one journal from the next, you can understand why I would be
trying to be, on the one hand, on the other hand?
ELLEN SILBERGELD: You know, at a certain point, this is rocket science.
PAUL SOLMAN: OK, so what am I supposed to do if it is rocket science?
Fortunately, I had someone else to turn do.
You're the guy who covers rocket science.
So, am I just out of my depth here?
MILES O'BRIEN: I'm afraid it is rocket science.
And the scientists I speak with are practically apocalyptic about a post-antibiotic era.
Think of the procedures that could not happen.
Chemotherapy, Caesarean sections, hip replacements, all of them absolutely rely on antibiotics.
So imagine a world where we can't have those procedures and where people die of simple
blisters, as occurred, not uncommonly, in the pre-antibiotic era.
PAUL SOLMAN: But we don't want to scare people.
This isn't happening right now.
Most antibiotics still work for most problems that people have.
MILES O'BRIEN: But the numbers are grim.
And it is time to do something right now.
The alarm bells are ringing.
PAUL SOLMAN: And, from my point of view, the problem is that the market hasn't been able
to solve this problem.
Maybe it cannot solve this problem, and, therefore, we need alternative solutions.
For the "PBS NewsHour" this is economics correspondent Paul Solman.
MILES O'BRIEN: And I'm the science correspondent, Miles O'Brien.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can watch all of Miles O'Brien and Paul Solman's reports on antibiotics
and superbugs online at PBS.org/NewsHour.
As part of our ongoing Race Matters Solutions series, special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault
recently visited Montpelier, the home of the fourth U.S. president, James Madison.
It's in Virginia.
A new permanent exhibit is opening the door on a rarely told side of Madison involving
his slaves and how they lived.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: This sprawling, bucolic Virginia countryside is the plantation where
James Madison, the so-called father of the Constitution, puzzled over liberties as he
helped frame America's democracy.
It's also here that he and his wife, Dolley, held over 300 slaves.
Now, with a new interactive exhibit called The Mere Distinction of Colour, there is a
new way of looking at that story.
Visitors hear stories of the slaves here told by their living descendants.
There's insight into economic, ideological and political factors that cemented slavery
in the Constitution, without ever using the word slavery.
And films connect the past to the present, looking at the legacy of slavery to issues
of race and identity today.
In addition to the new exhibit in the Madison home itself, there are new ways of talking
about the rich and complicated history of Montpelier.
Visitors can tour slave cabins, tour a slave cemetery which bears no headstones, watch
archaeologists dig up more evidence that pieces together the interconnectedness of everybody
on the plantation.
To talk about those issues, I spent time with Leontyne Peck, a genealogist and participant
in Montpelier's public archaeology program.
Peck took me inside one of the cramped slave quarters where eight people lived.
So, this was all dirt?
LEONTYNE PECK, Montpelier Descendent: It was all dirt, yes.
We found our artifacts.
We found a lot of different things.
We found a pipe, which was extraordinarily exciting.
My grandfather, he had smoked a pipe.
And, really, when I touched the pipe, I really felt connected to him.
And then I found much more than that.
I found my family.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I also visited Madison's bedroom with Mary Alexander, a great-great-granddaughter
of Paul Jennings.
He served Madison at the White House and also at Montpelier.
He wrote the first White House memoir, "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison."
She told me what her reaction was when she saw this room or the first time.
MARY ALEXANDER, Montpelier Descendent: I had just finished caretaking for my father, who
died of Parkinson's disease.
And to think that Paul Jennings was doing the same exact things for James Madison that
I had done for my father, it just overwhelmed me.
I knew the intimacy and the love and the care that had to go on between the two of them,
because you can't take care of someone and not love them.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I talked further with Mary Alexander and with Montpelier president
and CEO Kat Imhoff inside the Madison mansion.
Kat, first tell me how you arrived at the title for this exhibition.
KAT IMHOFF, President and CEO, The Montpelier Foundation: The title The Mere Distinction
of Colour comes from a quote that Madison writes in his notes when he's working in 1787
on the Constitutional Convention.
He says: "We have never seen the mere distinction of color in a most enlightened period of time
a ground for the most oppressive dominion exercised by man over man."
Now, Madison is saying this as a young man.
He's in the debates about the rights and the freedoms that are going to be set forth in
what becomes the U.S. Constitution.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: When he uttered those words, he didn't have slavery in mind.
KAT IMHOFF: He did.
He was saying that mere distinction of color, what an incredible missed opportunity that
we're using that distinction of color to make one man oppress the other.
And this is as a young, idealistic 35-, 36-year-old in the hot rooms in Philadelphia as they're
duking out writing the U.S. Constitution.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But who had slavery.
KAT IMHOFF: And he is a slave owner, and he's grown up now third-generation slave owner
here at Montpelier.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So, what happened?
He just didn't make that distinction, or...
KAT IMHOFF: What the debate ends up being is, can you get enough votes to get the U.S.
Constitution ratified?
If you said that you were not going to allow or enable in some way or codify slavery, without
ever mentioning it, you were never going to get enough votes to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
So, James Madison, in those early days, chooses the union over really what he knows in his
heart is the right thing to do.
But the other part that got me so intrigued was the descendant community was involved
with Montpelier early on, but no one had really been able to pick up that thread and bring
those 300 voices into the stories.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The descendant community is sitting next to you.
So what drew you here?
MARY ALEXANDER: Well, actually, my mother, she never told the family history to anyone
outside of our family.
Paul Jennings was enslaved here with James Madison.
He said that he shaved him every day for 42 years.
My understanding is that he and James Madison had a relationship where they were almost
like brothers with each other, the way that they interacted.
I think if you put it in the context of slaves being assets and property, and that, when
James Madison died, his estate being in such debt, and them having to sell off every asset
they had, and, unfortunately, the human beings who were here were assets also, he didn't
get the chance to be distinguished outside of those people.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Kat, how do you see that?
KAT IMHOFF: Well, they had trouble explaining their double standard even to themselves during
their time period.
And I think it's quite intriguing to look at their own writing on this.
But, I mean, I think that's the challenge of American history.
Not only can you be inspired, yes, James Madison, father of the Constitution, great thinking,
defines rights, but I think we have always had this love-hate affair with really understanding
how complex our history is.
Not only can I be inspired by James Madison, but I can be inspired by people like Paul
Jennings.
I can now understand that African-American history is indeed American history.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How do you think it's working, Kat?
I mean, who is coming here?
And what are they taking away from it in terms of race?
KAT IMHOFF: What I'm hearing from people when they're visiting, they're both saying, we're
so happy because now we really understand more the humanity of the people who lived
here.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Black and white.
KAT IMHOFF: Black and white.
I think, really, people, when they hear those stories and they can put themselves, project
themselves into those places, they really take more away from it, and also the relevance
today.
I think that's what we have always been -- it's really easy to talk about things 200 years
ago.
And it's a lot more difficult when you bring it all the way up today, and you go, no, the
legacy of slavery is still with us.
It's part of our democratic DNA.
It is hard-baked into how we are as a people.
MARY ALEXANDER: There's a morality question that all of us have to grapple with.
This was a business to these people.
Unfortunately, the business was other human beings.
James Madison would have never been able to do, or any of the founding fathers would have
never had the liberty to go into this whole discussion about government and humanity and
how people should conduct themselves.
They would have never been able to do that without these people who were in the background
working for them.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So, this will help set that record straight, you think?
MARY ALEXANDER: I'm praying.
KAT IMHOFF: You know, Mary has often commented on how she wants people to think and understand
and have that strong intellectual connection.
So, I love that fact that we're both the heart and the head in thinking about how people
should connect with Montpelier.
MARY ALEXANDER: And I also recognize you can't get the head without getting to the heart
first.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Kat Imhoff and Mary Alexander, thank you so much for your
insights.
Thank you very much.
MARY ALEXANDER: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now to another in our Brief But Spectacular series, where we ask people
to describe their passions.
Tonight, we hear from poet and rapper G Yamazawa.
His latest album is called "Shouts to Durham."
G YAMAZAWA, Poet and Rapper: I had a pretty tumultuous childhood.
My dad had very heavy hands.
One day, I ended up having to go to a foster home.
Got kicked out of high school when I was 17.
When I was 17, 18, I think, is when I really sort of stood up and decided that I wasn't
going to, you know, be a victim to my circumstances.
I knew I would never get anywhere unless I sort of broke through my own, you know, karma.
I grew up in a restaurant where my parents in Durham, North Carolina, were serving traditional
Japanese food to this North Carolinian community, Asian in the south and Buddhist in the Bible
Belt.
You know, these are things I talk about a lot in my art.
You just don't feel like you belong here.
Anywhere I am, they're like, oh, we're diverse now, because the Asian guy's with us.
My drive came from just a very deep place of insecurity and needing validation from
strangers.
And I think that's where my love for the stage really began.
Working with youth and doing workshops and facilitating performance workshops and sort
of safe spaces for young people to cultivate their voice is the greatest gift in the world.
There's always a student that reads.
And the teacher is like, you know, I have never heard him say anything.
I have never gotten that student to speak about anything.
It changes the dynamic of the classroom.
It changes the culture of vulnerability in young spaces.
I wanted to acknowledge this place in my life that I felt like I was proud of myself and
all of the things that I have done up to this point.
I think I'm starting to rhyme more because I want my life to start connecting, because,
see, I have learned how to learn.
So now I'm learning how to teach, because I done learned how to practice whatever I
preach, but I grew from a grain into a beach.
And I knew for the game, I'm playing for keeps.
So, whatever I say, I say what I mean.
So, whenever I speak, I'm able to reach a place that bleeds and a place that burns and
a place that knows I got a lot more to learn.
My name is G Yamazawa.
And this is my Brief But Spectacular take on art and transforming your karma.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can watch additional Brief But Spectacular episodes on our Web
site.
That's at http://ift.tt/2b4iCt4.
And we will be back shortly with a look at a slice of life in the Alaskan oil fields.
But, first, take a moment to hear from your local PBS station.
It's a chance to offer your support, which helps to keep programs like ours on the air.
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now to a "NewsHour" Shares, something that caught our eye that might be
of interest to you, too.
Oil started flowing down the Trans-Alaska pipeline some 40 years ago.
Every summer, thousands of workers come to work in the oil fields in and around Deadhorse,
Alaska, transforming this small town and keeping postal worker Les Dunbar very busy.
From Alaska Public Media, Eric Keto has this profile.
LES DUNBAR, Postal Worker: It's just the Arctic is awesome.
It's a very, very awesome place.
I mean, look at the size of his paws.
He was probably like, not even two miles from here.
Figured he was like 800 pounds.
My name is Les Dunbar, and I am the postal clerk for the Prudhoe Bay Post Office.
I have been doing this about 18-and-a-half years.
ERIC KETO: The Prudhoe Bay Post Office is located in Deadhorse, Alaska, a collection
of industrial buildings clustered at the far north edge of the state.
People get confused when Les tells them about the place she works.
LES DUNBAR: They all think it's a town with stores and churches and hospitals.
And it's not.
It's actually a work site.
ERIC KETO: Just like the thousands of oil workers who staff Prudhoe Bay, Les lives in
modular housing that's trucked in and stacked up.
She eats meals prepared in a company cafeteria, and she works long days.
LES DUNBAR: It's 10, 12 hours of work a day.
We do two-week hitches.
So, we work 14 days.
And then we get 14 days off.
I meet a lot of neat people that work up here, but the really interesting ones, obviously,
are the travelers, the adventure people.
ERIC KETO: Les' bulletin board, right outside the post office window, features a handful
of the people she's encountered over the years.
LES DUNBAR: There was a lady that flew her horse up here on a freight plane
and then rode the whole pipeline from here to Valdez.
ERIC KETO: For Les, working at Prudhoe Bay is one way to connect with the wildness of
Alaska.
LES DUNBAR: You got to make your own entertainment.
I enjoy the hike, winter or summer.
And I'm a real advocate for keeping the wilderness the wilderness, which is funny for me to be
saying, because I'm working up here in the oil field.
Some Alaskans have never been up here, and it's getting more and more popular to drive
up, do some camping along the way, and you got to buy a postcard or a hoodie and
mail it home.
ERIC KETO: And if you're lucky, Les might just add your photo to the bulletin board.
From Alaska's ENERGY DESK, I'm Eric Keto in Deadhorse.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Thank you for that view.
And on the "NewsHour" online right now: It's been
three years since a teenager named Michael Brown was shot to death by a police officer
in Ferguson, Missouri, prompting protests, unrest and national attention.
How were lives changed by those events?
We take an in-depth look on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.
And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.
I'm Judy Woodruff.
Join us online and again right here tomorrow evening with David Brooks and Ruth Marcus
to analyze the week's news.
For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, and we will see you soon.
END

PBS NewsHour full episode August 10, 2017

Latest Posts