Tonight we begin a series called “Medical Mysteries” about autoimmune diseases. We picked the title because these very common conditions remain incurable, difficult to treat, and poorly understood.
An autoimmune disease strikes the exquisite system that protects our bodies from viruses and bacteria. The white blood cells and the proteins called antibodies turn on us. The result can be damage to almost any organ in the body—chronic illness that can be severe and even life-threatening. The National Institutes of Health has a good primer on autoimmune diseases.
In the series we will examine three of the most common autoimmune diseases: lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
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By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
Our friend and producer Sam Singal thought it was an important enough email to alert me to it over the weekend. When I read it, I understood why he thought it deserving of special mention. In turn, I read the following to my extended family, gathered at our house last night for a Mother's Day cookout. It might be the most extraordinary email, in what it says about our age of communications, I've ever received.
It came from a U.S Army soldier named Tim Terpak, who was responding to my blog post from last week about the Bruce Springsteen concert in Red Bank, New Jersey. I'll let him take it from there:
Brian,
Sounds like a concert to remember. With my being in Iraq, connectivity is hit or miss, so I didn't realize Bruce was even doing the show. Being a fellow Jersey Shore boy, as we discussed back in April 2003 in the Iraqi desert after your helicopter landed next to the one my Bradleys were securing, I am certainly a big Bruce fan. I would have liked to have been home to see the show, but duty calls again.
I would like to take this moment to thank you for your continued coverage of what's going on over here. When I do get a chance to surf the net or watch the news, it appears Iraq and Afghanistan have fallen off most news reports. It is nice to see someone is still covering the effort of our service members.
Let's take a moment to de-construct this: a young soldier, who is, like me, from the Jersey Shore, reads my blog entry last week during a break while on active duty in Iraq. The last time I saw him, I was with my friend and NBC News Military Analyst Wayne Downing, a retired 4-Star Army General. Wayne and I were riding along as part of an Army mission to deliver bridge components to the Euphrates River, so that the invading forces of the 3rd Infantry could cross the river on their way to Bagdhad. We came under fire by what appeared to be Iraqi farmers with RPG's and AK-47's. The Chinook helicopter flying in front of ours (from the 101st Airborne) took an RPG to the rear rotor, as all four of our low-flying Chinooks took fire. We were forced down and stayed down -- for the better (or worse) part of 3 days and 2 nights.
Soon after we hit the desert floor, (just as we were wondering how we were going to survive this unplanned stay in the desert south of Najaf, and just as General Downing was going to propose "the distribution of weapons," as he put it) we heard the sound of approaching Bradley Fighting Vehicles -- an armored mechanized platoon under the command of a young West Pointer, Lt. Eric Nye. He ordered his men to dismount and dig in and surround us. They set up a perimeter, they killed two Iraqis who arrived to fire on us again, and they are the only reason we lived to see U.S. soil, or our families, again.
Tim Terpak (who came to have a big admirer in the late General Downing, who was mightily impressed by the indefatigable and resourceful Terpak) was among those few soldiers. He has served more tours since then. It is clear he still has his priorities in order while serving this country: he's expressing obvious concern that a Springsteen development has somehow taken place without his knowledge. It's an awful feeling. It was far from a routine email -- it speaks to our shrinking earth, our volunteer force, love of country and the great feeling of loving a great band. Wayne would have loved this story.
Now to a spot thousands of miles from the Iraqi desert, but having to do with a harsh stretch of land just the same. The first story I ever did for television was about abandoned lead and zinc mines in the region surrounding the far corner of Northeast Oklahoma. As part of my travels on that very first day on the job at a Kansas television station, I stopped at several locations to shoot videotape pictures of the mine openings and the "chat piles" -- the discarded rock -- mountains of it, that contain lead and zinc remnants (and other chemical compounds) that give off a relentless toxic dust. Chat piles are a hazard and an eyesore across a huge swath of the old mining region in the middle of the country.
Among the towns I stopped in that day: Picher, Oklahoma. Picher was then a down-on-its-luck town of a few thousand people -- these days, a few hundred. Mickey Mantle played ball there as a kid -- he was from a neighboring town. The mining business had long ago shut down, and left its sorry remnants behind. The mines that had provided the lead for so many of the bullets fired from American weapons in World War II and Vietnam -- quickly became a health hazard. I often felt, talking to folks in Picher, a bit of sadness. It was well known that children in Picher had lead levels in their blood way above the national average. Raising a family in Picher often meant having no other financial options. Many of today's residents of Picher are the sons and daughters of the original "Okies" -- the brave Americans who were part of the westward movement to settle the Plains. They worked their patch of dirt, they somehow scratched out a living. They paid their taxes, sent their children to school, and at the end of the week enjoyed a church supper, a ball game, and services on Sunday. A lot of good people have stayed in Picher, trying to petition their government to clean up the problem, trying to make a go of it as a town.
Then came this weekend's tornadoes, which wiped the earth clean of structures everywhere they swung. There was a familiar sight in the background of one of the interviews conducted with a storm survivor this weekend. While the woman spoke, standing in front of what appeared to be her former front porch, off in the distance was the unmistakable sight of a chat pile -- a man-made mountain of rock.
It survived the storm. So did the woman being interviewed. Sadly, because of what happened there this weekend, living in Picher, Oklahoma got tougher. If Picher is to make it, and recover from what man and nature have done to that small, proud, Oklahoma town, it's going to take the work of a lot of good people.
By Bo Gu, NBC News, Beijing
I noticed the swinging leaves on our office manager's desk when she pointed out her plant to me and asked me if I felt the earthquake. Her eyes were wide open and her hands were on her chest. I told her I didn’t feel anything, but I couldn’t help giving a quick glance on our ceiling lamp-it obviously swayed for a few seconds.
In a few minutes our freelance producer Steven called in, told us there were hundreds of people evacuating from office buildings to the street, causing a small traffic in the main road of Beijing.
News started popping up on major websites: a quake measured at magnitude 7.5 struck western China, shaking buildings in cities as far away as Beijing and the business hub of Shanghai. The quake struck 57 miles (92 kilometers) northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu at 2:28 p.m. (0628 GMT). The 7.5-magnitude quake was centered 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) below the surface.
7.5 magnitude is absolutely an appalling level to Chinese people, who two years ago just had the 30th anniversary of the greatest earthquake in the northern city of Tangshan in 1976. Over 240,000 people were killed in that 7.8-magnitude earthquake, the second largest death toll in a single earthquake in modern history.
More news and images caught up at a frightening speed. Schools buildings fell down with hundreds of children buried underneath. Chemical plants collapsed, causing tons of liquid ammonia to leak. Cracks showed up in buildings. Water tower was toppled. In a village in northern Sichuan alone, 80% of buildings were destroyed. Electricity was out and no phone calls could be made to the quake zone. Death toll climbed up gradually from ten to a hundred to hundreds, then thousands.
By 8:00 pm, Premier Wen Jiabao has arrived in Sichuan in his private jet, and gave a speech to the whole country, expressing central government’s condolence, ordering a military entry to the disaster zone and calling for the whole country to fight against the catastrophe.
Regions and countries as far as Bangkok and Taipei felt the tremor too. More and more deaths are reported in other nearby provinces in Gansu, Shanxi, and Yunnan provinces.
By the time I finish this blog, 9,000 people are reported to have died in the earthquake, and official news says the death toll is likely to grow.
By Ann Curry, NBC News anchor
Tonight we will see more dramatic images from Myanmar's delta region, hardest hit by last weekend's cyclone, our report from one of the few journalists able to get close.
The images are haunting. Showing the dead, and the survivors, their suffering is palpable. But even they do not even begin to tell the horror of what happened.
The government of Myanmar, which tells us 100,000 people were killed or injured, and that one and a half million are homeless, today is still preventing foreign aid from coming in.
We hear food and supplies from the UN are still in warehouses, as the government, which denied aid workers visas, doesn't have the infrastructure to get the help to the suffering.
People need food and shelter, and are expected to start getting sick and many are orphans.
How long can the world sit and watch, allowing it's hands to be tied?
If Myanmar's government can prevent the world from seeing images like those we are going to show you tonight, the world could well forget.
By Trudy Hall, Headmaster of the Emma Willard School
Editors Note: Shelby Davis, featured in Rehema Ellis' segment tonight, began his investment crusade by providing scholarships for international boarding schools and American universities. In tonight's piece, we did not have time to share Mr. Davis' newest venture, an effort to diversify American boarding schools. Each participating school has been asked to design their own program to recruit the most promising need-based students representing new dimensions of international diversity.
Upon graduation, this new branch of Davis International Scholars will be eligible for continued scholarship support if they are accepted into a participating college.
Pilot programs will begin at 5 select boarding schools this fall: Emma Willard, Phillips Academy, Lawrenceville, Taft, and Westminster.
Trudy Hall, head of Emma Willard, reflects on her goals for the unique program.
Making a difference. Altogether a good thing. I think we might agree, however, that the Davis idea of making a difference through scholarships is to do so on a grand scale; indeed, a global scale. It is an incredible notion really: the way to make a global difference just might be through one relationship at a time. The Davis family in their remarkably visionary way is betting on this concept in new ways even as the NBC story airs. They are pushing the needle of cross-cultural influence ever deeper into the core of American culture through a fascinating partnership with five American high schools.
Emma Willard School in Troy, New York has the good fortune to be one of those partners. For nearly two hundred years, amazing girls from around the world have come together to create an educational community, and as they have done so, their lives are transformed in remarkable ways. “Empower a girl. Transform the world,” we are fond of saying. And the Davis family is holding us accountable as they extend their visionary philanthropy to include the secondary school experience.
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By Subrata De, NBC Nightly News senior producer
You might remember the e-mails I posted back in September from a friend who lives in Myanmar's capital Yangon (Rangoon). He'd been describing the monk uprising against the military rulers there. Well, he's now living in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. He's ok and finally getting messages out. We'll maintain his anonymity once again, given the retaliatory nature of this regime. Here are excerpts from his recent e-mails:
"It's Tuesday evening, 4 full days since the world of Yangon was turned upside down by Cyclone Nargis. We had known for several days that a big cyclone was in the Bay of Bengal, gathering strength for a run at Burma, but it didn't seem like an imminent danger. On Friday, some parents took their kids home early, but it didn't even rain that afternoon. We had heard stories that landfall would come around 6 pm on Friday evening, but at that hour all seemed quite normal. I laughed it off as an overreaction, and went to bed confident that at worst we would get a thorough soaking with rain.
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By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
I got off the air last night, sped through the Lincoln Tunnel and soon entered the familiar confines of home -- the Jersey Shore, and a benefit concert by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Count Basie theater in Red Bank, NJ. Bruce and his wife Patti granted me one of the great honors of my lifetime when I took to the stage on my home turf to introduce the band. As a fan of over 30 years, who spent countless Friday and Saturday nights chasing rumors of impromptu E Street concerts up and down the Jersey Shore -- it was an emotional event. Followed by a history-making concert: Bruce performed, in order, the songs from Darkness on the Edge of Town and Born To Run. It's never been done, and won't be done again. It was heaven. Those of us who were present for it knew it at the time -- there were shared looks of amazement among complete strangers last night. In all our years together -- we'd never seen or heard anything like it.
I'm typing this on my Blackberry in a car en route from LaGuardia, having flown to Washington to interview Senator Obama. We'll have a large portion of it on the broadcast tonight; it will also air in its entirety tonight on MSNBC and on the web.
Time is short. We're late, and I don't like getting a late start on writing for the broadcast. So that's all for now -- I hope you can join us for the finished product tonight. Oh -- I almost forgot -- thanks to Bruce and Patti.
By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
Watching Evan Bayh warm up the crowd last night before Hillary Clinton's speech, I could not help but think of the spiderweb of relationship that fuses our modern politics to the generation before it.
Consider this, a story many people have forgotten: Senator Bayh's father, Senator Birch Bayh, was on board a twin-engine plane when it crashed in an orchard in Westfield, Massachusetts. It was June of 1964. Senator Bayh and his fellow passenger, Senator Edward Kennedy, had just cast affirmative votes for the Civil Rights Act, and were en route to make a joint appearance at the Massachusetts Democratic Party convention. The crash killed Ted Kennedy's pilot, Ed Zimny, and a Senate aide, Ed Moss. After Senator Bayh pulled his own wife from the wreckage, he returned to rescue his friend Ted Kennedy. The Massachusetts Senator had a "negligable" pulse when he emerged from the wreckage. He came near death that night, and it must be said he would have died were it not for Birch Bayh's efforts.
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By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
There's not a lot of information available on Army Staff Sgt. Jason L. Brown, a 29-year-old Green Beret killed April 17 in Iraq.
He was from Magnolia, Texas, north of Houston, and he graduated from Sam Houston State University with a degree in criminal justice. He enlisted in 2003 and was just two weeks from completing his second tour in Iraq when he died.
He was killed by small arms fire while entering a building in Sama Village in search of an Al Qaeda leader. He is survived by a daughter, Alyssa Gomez of Cypress, Texas, and his parents, Rosemary and James Brown of Cartwright, Okla.
His mother and father were too distraught to talk to reporters after his death, but you can practically trace his life through the tributes friends wrote in the online Guest Book:
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By Brian Williams, Anchor and managing editor
Chuck Todd, our Political Director, has it about right about tonight: the ground game, while not over, takes on much less importance after tonight, because the number of undeclared superdelegates will exceed the number of available "regular" delegates in the remaining primary states.
Tonight could be a game-changer, and it could be the 6th inning in a long ballgame. We get our first indication at about 5:30 Eastern time, when Sheldon Gawiser briefs us on his read of "first wave" exit polling results (which he puts through his algorithym pro-rating blender) and about which we are sworn to secrecy. It can "educate" but not otherwise affect our coverage in the Nightly News feeds prior to the poll closings. Tonight might go fast. We will be here nonetheless, making sure each time zone gets a new, live and updated feed. Tonight's speeches will be fascinating, depending on the outcome. The morning shows have already booked a "roadblock" -- both Democrats, in separate interviews, on all three broadcast networks. It feels like the height of primary season. I guess, in a way, it is.
I want to thank the great folks, my friends (sitting about 50 yards from me) at MSNBC for helping me put on a great hour earlier today. We did it seat-of-the-pants style; I hadn't written a word, no teleprompter, and just the most basic format -- the best kind of television news there is. The only problem is: while it's huge amounts of fun for the anchor (and, we hope, the guests) it's hell on a control room, where they always need to plan 2 or 3 moves in advance. But they keep having me back...
We've now swung over to work on Nightly News and begin the writing (they insist on it here) for tonight. We have a great broadcast planned, no matter your time zone, and we hope you can join us. Off to work.
