Driving alone in my car drives my ADD crazy. Attention Deficit Disorder is the pharmaceutical label du jour for an active, rapid-fire mind. And, the way my mind was bouncing around right now, I’m convinced I not only have it, but helped give it to bay area viewers.
Television news relies on focus groups and surveys. The data those produce are the stock and trade of the consultants currently teeming like mosquitoes around America’s newsrooms. Consultants are hired to come in and tell GMs and News Directors how their newscast is “out of touch” with “key demos” and how to sex-up the newsroom and increase the size of their audience share. Kinda like Viagra for broadcasting. Anyway, all the data, according to consultants, indicates that viewers have short attention spans. So, management uses that, along with the constantly shifting tastes and preferences of “the viewing public,” to decide what news to deliver, what programs to run and what talent to hire. Today, survival in television news almost requires ADD. A reporter or anchor must focus on one part of a story and then, within ten to fifteen seconds, change their focus onto another, and then another, and another…and so on. Writers and producers have to stack, stack, stack—which means piling up shorter and shorter “stories” and writing surface-scratching copy at a break-neck pace. Viewers are supposed to follow all of this amidst a swirl of graphics, heavily edited sound-bites and over-produced teases, all while making some attempt to read the information scrolling by on the bottom of the screen…and perhaps texting friends simultaneously.
So, I’m speeding along and smiling because it occurs to me that TV news is, in fact, promoting the spread of ADD and its new twin ADHD by conditioning us to think less and less deeply, and more and more quickly. Then, consultants conduct more surveys and attention spans get even shorter…and newsrooms adjust again! Local news invented twitter before it had a name. Eventually, the news will feature an animatronic anchor reading a series of short, one sentence stories. Like a news haiku.
I am now crossing the Bay Bridge and…Ta–Da! My tires read the bridge’s infamous story, written in a strange Braille, when a 50-foot-long section of concrete ker-plunked from the top deck onto the bottom during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.* My mind hop-scotches back to that day…when the section collapsed just as the nation settled in to watch Game Three of the Bay Bridge World Series. Seven years after that devastating earthquake, and two years after my first circus story, my tires grab and then report the spot where the bridge was finally repaired.
Yet, with Ringling Bros. still on my mind, the sound of the tires on the road pushed all other thoughts aside for this one: Ta-Da! Ladies and gentlemen, sick and contagious endangered Asian elephants have just entered a closed arena with M-Tuberculosis! Next thought: He will understand. If anyone knows how infectious diseases work it is Dr. Don Francis. A world-renowned epidemiologist, Don knew stories like this better than anyone. Unconsciously, my right foot bore down harder onto the floorboard. “At least he is honest, and he won’t be afraid,” I told myself, “…he will either confirm or debunk my theories. Then I can stop worrying.” Worry can make you sick.
My GPS boldly and without hesitation told me to turn right. I never argued with the voice on the Global Positioning Satellite. She never exhibited signs of ADD. Plus, she’d saved my ass too many times to argue. If I didn’t do what she told me to, I’d invariably end up in rattle snake humping nowhere. Instead, I was closing in on Don Francis’ new office in South San Francisco; a non-profit called, “Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases.” Don and his team develop low-cost, effective tools for diagnosis and prevention of infectious diseases around the world. As I write this, he’s off vaccinating tens of thousands of North Korean children against encephalitis. Yeah, Don is one of the good guys.
Don Francis has a one-word description in my email address book—it’s embarrassing really. It reads “GOD.” Years earlier, I had put those three letters after his name, half-jokingly, after recalling his fierce bravery during the AIDS epidemic. Corny, I know, but if you knew him back when he first fought to stop AIDS, you might feel a bit corny about him, too. All of his career he had a Nelson Mandela-like fearlessness. If he believed in something, he stood his ground in spite of the consequences. Francis is the antipodean of men who are willing to make money, even if it means putting lives at risk. He is the polar opposite of the Kenneth Felds of this world.
Francis is credited with helping to discover HIV and AIDS. He headed the CDC’s first AIDS division. Screaming from the mountaintops, he tried to explain the coming AIDS crisis to anyone who would listen. He understood its lethal implications long before anyone else did. He tried to convince the world of its chameleon nature by pinning down HIV’s ability to morph and evolve and, in so doing, bringing new and horrifying side effects along with it. Dogged in his attempts to explain HIV’s vestigial nature, vilified for a time himself for sounding alarms no one wanted to hear, he reminded me of a truth-telling Indiana Jones wielding a scintillation vial…or GOD.
There are few people we meet in this life who cannot be redefined by any amount of money or fame. Don Francis is one of those rare human beings who, in spite of success, stayed human. His biggest test came when he desperately warned a distrusting community devastated by a new virus it did not understand. In the late 80’s and 90’s, Don Francis warned about the rapid transmission of the disease through sex. He hit a wall of denial that was followed up by accusations that he was homophobic. He was the target of the very people he was trying to save.
The savior vilified, Shakespeare could not have written a more compelling plot! I met Don Francis during this unfolding drama. You can read about him in “The Band Played On,” a book reporting those days and Don’s life during that time.* The reporter, Randy Shilts died of AIDS. If ADD has got you, too, and you don’t want to read the book…then rent the movie. It’s a good one. But then, I’ve already confessed my bias.
Throughout Don Francis’ fight against big business, prejudice, ego-driven scientists, a government in denial, the medical community, greedy pharmaceutical companies, the Reagan Administration, and even the victims themselves, Francis showed unfathomable perseverance. Reporting on all this from the sidelines, I marveled as Don swash-buckled his way into earning the Bay Area’s and, eventually, the world’s trust. He never complained. He never appeared to tire. He never gave up. He saved untold numbers of lives because of his tenaciousness. Okay enough already, I know. You get the picture.
“Turn right in a quarter of a mile,” commanded the GPS. Its ridiculous, electronic voice over-enunciated each word, which made me smile because mechanical over-enunciation was a big part of what I used to do, or did. Should I send in a mock résumé for my little GPS? It could take my place, so long as it’s not “resistant to change.” Seriously, though, it would not be long before computers replaced anchors. In some cases, the similarities were already too close to call.
The driveway led to a group of office buildings. The only available space turned out to be right smack in front of his office door. Apparently, crusading scientists don’t get a lot of visitors other than Ebola, Smallpox and AIDS. This is where their mysteries are untangled and, hopefully, forced into surrender. A good day for Don Francis was always a bad day for a disease. If he was truly successful, that bad day would become eternal night. Imagine that!
“You have arrived at your destination,” announced the anchor-ready GPS. “Okay,” I thought “here we go.” I turned off the engine and looked up. “Global Solutions,” was cheaply embossed on the door right in front of me. After living in the Bay Area for a few decades, I’d learned that many of the world’s most important discoveries often happen in the most humble of places. Just forty-five minutes away, in a once little-known town called Cupertino, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak worked anonymously in a suburban garage to build a prototype computer that would launch a company called Apple. Dorm rooms at Stanford gave us Google. Silicon Valley was littered with innocuous office parks, each incubating the dreams and inventions of hopeful people from around the world. Geniuses, it would seem, lived and worked outside the box and, sometimes, they worked in the garage next door.
A nose snort of relief sneaked out as I opened the door. Don’s out stretched hand awaited mine. “Well, it has certainly been a long time.” The subtle warmth of his first words made me smile. His manners reminded me of the finest southern men I’d known. I’m dressed in jeans and a white shirt and he’s wearing the exact same uniform.
How old is he now? It’s impossible to tell. I’d met him when I was just 26 years old. Twenty three years had passed. Why do people with good intentions and strong spirits grow old so gracefully? Don’s strong spirit hadn’t skipped a beat. Early 50s, I guess. After a quick hello, he began moving and he waved his arm for me to follow, “This place is a mess. Come on in my office.”
“This is no mess. This is nuclear chaos!” We laughed. Not surprisingly, his anarchic office desk, stacked willy-nilly with some seriously important looking documents, made perfect sense to him. He reached deep into a pile of papers and pulled one out, “Just need to fax this to Africa.” He was working on the Ebola virus, and said matter-of-factly, “It’s sure a lot less complicated than HIV!”
Standing there while he readied his fax, it all came flooding back to me—memories of countless funerals, of funeral homes refusing to embalm bodies, of men crying and mothers grieving, and the outrage when Ronald Reagan’s government ignored it. Jason came to mind. I opened my arms soliciting a hug. Roy would have been disappointed. It was Don Francis after all, I couldn’t help myself.
It would have been very embarrassing had Don said no, my arms already outstretched and all. Relief flooded over me when he hugged me back. I’m guessing he could feel how hurt I was…the hurt I was still refusing to acknowledge. Also, I was afraid of showing him what I carried. I knew he would tell me the truth.
“Les, I‘ll be right back,” Don smiled as I finally released him. He still needed to send his fax. “Don, is there a place where I can get ready to show you these documents?” He pointed to a conference room with a conference room table. It was perfect. I could display my documents, now in a five-inch binder…take them out and put them one after the other down the length of the table. The information in these documents may not have ruined my life, but they did change it. In the beginning, if it were possible to wash this story off in the shower, my skin would be raw from scraping with Brillo pads. It covered me like a wet-cold-itchy-stinky blanket. But, I’d been too stubborn to let it go. That used to be a very good trait in a reporter. Now, it was labeled obsessive compulsive---and there’s a cornucopia of drugs for sale for that too.
When Don walked back into the room, he smiled at my system. We both had great respect for time, and this would save him some.
He saw the letterhead on a few of the documents: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. His eyes locked into mine for a moment. His trademark poker-face still intact. If the letterhead did not read “Ringling”, it read “FELD” along with the document number. No doubt, these were official. Don began his perusal with, “How did you get these?”
“After several years of Ringling’s attorneys fighting to keep the elephants’ health documents under wraps a federal judge ordered Kenneth Feld, the owner of Ringling Bros., to either turn the health records over to the plaintiffs in a federal law suit, or go to jail.” I gulped air as inconspicuously as I could. It was hard not to appear anxious. “I see,” he said calmly. If Don noticed my tension, he pretended not to. “Let’s have a look.” He began the sort of analysis that made him a world renowned scientist.
The documents held his undivided attention. Nothing else was in the room. Like a ballplayer in “the zone,” he moved effortlessly around the table. His eyes always on the documents, he sidestepped from one to the next. His ability to read and quickly comprehend was not really that surprising. He didn’t say anything for about five minutes as he travelled the length of the table. Then, he abruptly stopped.
“M-Tuberculosis,” his voice sounded ponderous, “…so many of them. Why?” He did not wait for an answer. Don needed to search the documents himself first. I couldn’t “tell” him anything. He trusted only himself to reach his own conclusions, and that’s why I chose him. He paced past a few more documents. Touching the diagnosis with his forefinger seemed to somehow make it more real. His fingers touched the words on each page…gently though…as I had run my own fingers over Roy’s eyelids at the coroner’s office several years earlier.
Laser-focused and locked-in, Don Francis began what seemed like a ritual of rapid-fire mumbles…intended more for him than me. Leaning in, inaudible sounds turned into a few recognizable words. I listened hard. “Osgood. Poor fellow, look at all those drugs they gave him.” * “Uhm,” he said, sounding a little like Tom Rider. He moved further down the table of documents. “This poor guy’s been on two TB meds…and this one has taken two series of meds as well. So many of them were treated and then treated again with different drugs.” He whispered, “drug resistant.”
“What are you saying, Don?” Rubbing his hand across his chin, “What do you know about M-tuberculosis, Leslie?” Don sees it! I wonder if he heard the relief in my voice. “I know it’s contagious and it can kill. The evidence of M-Tuberculosis appeared when I finally got my hands on the elephants’ health records. And, it kept showing up a lot. Then, after studying the Feld Entertainment documents I realized almost the entire Ringling herd had positive trunk washings. I also know elephants are prone to mycobacterium tuberculosis, and it can be transferred to humans.” Without ever looking up, Don said, “The elephants probably got it from humans.”
“Yeah, one legendary circus story passed down through the decades is that Kenneth Feld’s father, Irvin Feld, liked to arrive with his animals in small towns in Ringling train cars, go to the nearest homeless shelter and pick up men and women to clean up after the animals. After the circus left, the homeless handlers would leave…never to be seen again. Many of the handlers work for a short time and move on. Apparently, circus officials discourage today’s clean-up crews from wearing protective gear when working with the elephants.*Ringling doesn’t want the public or the press asking questions.”
“I see.” He said.
“Kenneth Feld, the sole owner of Ringling, denies there is tuberculosis in his herds.” *
“Is that a fact? That takes a lot of nerve considering what’s here.” Don starred down at the documents as he walked.
“Don, the drugs they use to treat the M-TB in the elephants, as you probably already know, are the same drugs used to treat people. At Ringling, one young elephant died a few minutes after his second performance of the day. They made him perform even though he had a trail of blood coming from his rectum.*I’m guessing that was M-TB and the drugs he must have been taking.”
“Could have very well been.” Don answered softly. “I’ll bet they don’t know how much to give these huge guys. But, Leslie, this is what worries me. Look at the different drugs used on the same elephants? See? So, here’s what happened.” He pointed to one of the documents, “look at this.* In this case, this elephant was given a round of drugs that did not work. So, they gave him another round of another drug. That means the elephant became drug-resistant to the first. The drugs are harsh and there are only a few of them. And it’s certainly true that these same drugs are the ones given to humans who contract M-TB,” Don paused, “…if drug-resistant forms of M-TB are passed on to humans…that’s how epidemics get started. That’s when scientists go back to the lab in hopes of finding another drug that will knock it out, but that takes time.”
He looked up from the documents just in time for me to whisper, “And, in the meantime, people die?” His eyes got soft around the edges. “That’s right.” In a flash, the sinister nature of the emails between Kenneth Feld’s veterinarians and private investigators began to make more sense. They clearly knew what they were up against, and they clearly wanted to make sure no one outside Ringling’s circle of veterinarians and private investigators ever found out.*
Emboldened by Don’s assessment, I told him about the animal activists groups filing suit against Ringling. “The Asian elephants are considered an endangered species and they are not supposed to be ‘harmed.’” I explained that those activists are suing because they say the circus knowingly violates the Endangered Species Act. “There is evidence the elephants are beaten with bull-hooks and generally lead a horrible life. But the M-Tuberculosis is not part of the lawsuit. Apparently, knowing endangered elephants are deathly ill and forcing them to perform anyway…is not abuse. I’m not sure what a criminal court would do with this. What happens to people who knowingly spread a communicable disease? What happens when it’s clear that Ringling tried to cover up the tuberculosis while also forcing the sick elephants to perform? It all looks pretty bad to me. But my opinion means nothing. Yours does. That’s why I’m here.”
Apparently the talk of abuse triggered some thought in his mind. He mumbled something about “Mahouts in Asia,” but I didn’t catch what he said. Don asked, “Does this M-tuberculosis go on and on like this? Do all the animals have it?” My eyes stayed steady on his. “I’ve counted twenty-six perhaps thirty deaths in approximately 15 years. Almost all were diagnosed with M-tuberculosis.”
Don’s voice turned somber, “And those animals travelled around the country with M-TB?”
“Yes, although the owner of the circus, Kenneth Feld, says sick animals never travelled. But, health records and travelling schedules and emails turned over in discovery clearly indicate Ringling did travel with sick elephants and likely still does.”* Don drew in a deep breath and pulled back his stiff shoulders. He’d seen so much in his lifetime. His body language indicated the possible magnitude of what we were discussing. Don was piecing it together quickly:
“Who are these emails written to? Are these vets?”
“Some of them, but mostly they are from Ringling vets to private investigators.”
“So, let me get this straight, these emails are not written to other scientists looking for help in finding a cure or explaining how these diseased animals should not be in contact with the public. Instead they are emails about hiding the disease and making sure no one finds out so the animals can keep performing?”
“Yes. I’m afraid if they find out I know this, they’ll come after me. I sleep with a Willie McCovey baseball bat next to the bed.”
We smiled. “Well at least you have good taste in baseball players.” This guy was not afraid of the devil himself.
“Feld’s former head of surveillance also swore under oath that Kenneth Feld wanted him to find a vet to test the elephant handlers for M-Tuberculosis and make sure the Centers for Disease Control and the Ringling’s elephant handlers never learned of the results.*The only real research ever done on transference between the elephants and their handlers did not turn out well for the handlers. It was a small sampling of about fifty-four handlers, and more than half tested positive for the same M-Tuberculosis as the elephants.* No one that I know of is doing DNA testing to match the exact strain to the elephant and the handlers. That would prove definitively that one passed the M-TB on to the other. Then the CDC would have to do something. Wouldn’t they?” I’d seen enough now to convince me that much of what I’d believed about the government protecting citizens was another lie.
Don struggled to digest this type of injurious behavior. Slight disdain began to show on his face. I suspect Don was struggling to understand the sort of profiteering that allows a person to expose people to a communicable, perhaps even an incurable deadly disease. Francis lives to cure people from disease. He cannot fathom knowingly spreading one.
“Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus! Amazing,” Don said as he looked back down at the damning documents arrayed before him. “Don, this was the story I was working on when a perfect storm of dysfunction finally convinced me it was time to leave television news. No one will run this story. There’s too much advertizing money at stake. Kenneth Feld buys just enough commercials to keep corporate newsrooms quiet. Feld Entertainment has a lot of powerful, expensive, and famous attorneys who make convincing threats.”
“How do you know that no one will run this story? It’s powerful.” It was a fair question. It was the question that burned inside me. It kept me up at night, wondering if I was wrong to push so hard. But Don’s assessment now buoyed me and my conclusions. “I found out about it quite a while back and tried to get the story out. But media corporations that own most news departments these days will not go near this story because of their own self interest. Plus, Kenneth Feld knows a lot of media moguls. He owns part of Disney On Ice. Disney, which also controls ABC. He knows many of the most powerful media moguls.”
I took a breath and then laid it out, “When I left Channel Three, I promised myself I would get this story out. I was cooking dinner the other night when a report on Andrew Speaker came on the radio. Remember that guy? He traveled to Europe with a drug-resistant form of M-Tuberculosis and the nation freaked out over one guy! Don, one guy! Congressional hearings were held two days later…there was so much outrage.”
“I understand.” He knew exactly what I was getting at. “Consider a traveling show with dozens of elephants blowing mucus from their trunks as little kids bask in the spray? Don, no one seems to connect the dots on this story, or that’s my take on it. What do you think?”
“At the very least, the circus should have a disclaimer,” he said, “…in it they need to warn anyone with a compromised immune system…old people, and children should not enter the closed arena with these elephants.” I wanted to remind him that the animals in the circus according to these documents were at their most infected during the most horrible years of the AIDS epidemic. Many AIDS patients died of “lung infections.”
“Don, Ringling’s never going to issue a disclaimer to the very people they are hoping to attract. They won’t even admit the elephants carry M-Tuberculosis. After a judge’s recent ruling allowed the release of the elephant’s health records, I finally had the proof to substantiate my story. But, even though my information is firm and I have the documents to prove it, no one will listen. I can’t get people to listen. Look at this, Don. This elephant, Dolly, had negative Tuberculosis trunk washings but, when she died, her necropsy says she had M-Tuberculosis lesions in her lungs. The same thing happened with another elephant…Susie.” *
Don already knew why. “Odd you should mention that. Before you got here, I contacted a colleague who knows more about M-tb and elephants and she said the same thing. The trunk washings they use to determine whether the animals are sick are notoriously unreliable.” He read the final document. Then he delivered a bottom line, “So, there’s no way to tell if they have truly been cured. That’s a problem.”
“Don, there’s no x-ray machine large enough to take a picture of their lungs. And the current testing is unreliable. Now what? Will you help me get through to the Centers for Disease Control?” Don once headed the first AIDS division of the CDC and still knew people there.
He nodded, “Sure, no problem. But Les, why didn’t Ringling just take care of this by keeping the infected elephants away from the healthy ones in the beginning?” I could come up with only one answer.
“Money, I guess. I really don’t understand this level of greed.” Don shook his head.
“Is this as serious as I think?”
“If you are thinking you might be crazy, you are not. This is important. At the very least, like I said, Ringling should tell the public to enter their elephant performances at their own risk.” Gathering up my documents, my eyes filled with tears. If only the world were full of such men. Relief flowed over me. Plus his scientific credentials were pretty hard to argue with.
“Les, this story is important, but, you need to hear me on this okay?”
“Okay.” Don always thought globally.
“This is not in a food supply or a water supply. It can be stopped.”
With that reassurance in hand, I left the modest offices of Global Solutions and, that night, I slept a little bit easier.
At first, the Centers for Disease Control did not get back to Don either. That was a shock. Then, one USDA official told me he would surely lose his job if he spoke to me: “Kenneth Feld has friends in very high places in the USDA. Hell, he has parties for them!” I called and called, but, was ignored or brushed off. Here’s a list of those who did not call me back:
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The Centers for Disease Control
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The USDA
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Several local health departments
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A former Ringling veterinarian, who tried to keep, Kenny, the sick and dying young elephant from performing
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Reporters for “60 Minutes.” They had done a story on the dirty tricks Ringling had pulled on writer Jan Pottker. The producer of that story is no longer with 60 Minutes and he hung up on me when I mentioned Ringling.
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Reporters for 20/20. ABC News. How relentlessly naïve am I? Don’t answer that.
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Reporters for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, PBS’ Frontline, and the San Jose Mercury News.
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The Oakland Tribune? Well, I’ll go to my grave before reading that paper again.
Despite all the rejections, it still seemed simple for Don, and it didn’t seem so complicated to me. If the circus spreads disease, it should stop. By publishing the tuberculosis stories in online newspapers, I took the only route left to me. Those brave enough to run the story were, not coincidentally those outlets not beholden to corporate sponsors. Feld offered no carrot and held no stick. The first editor of a well known online news source didn’t hesitate to publish the story. He understood immediately just how important it was.* They flew in another reporter to double check my facts…the story was good. *
While this was going on…not even a whisper was heard from Ringling Bros. The Rapid Deployment Force was only covertly deployed. Later, as I tried to find work, a couple of well known reporters began calling me “a journalist who turned into an animal activist.” With a little time and distance from the Grump incident and freed from the pressures of Channel Three’s news “show,” it was easier to recognize these attacks for what they really were…just the churnings of the Rapid Deployment rumor mill. Feld and company used that “activist” smear to great effect, and it remained a roadblock to my future.
Such an obvious health threat had become a political football. I wondered if much of America was malfunctioning for the same reasons. Agency after agency punted, and the ball is still sitting out there in the middle of the field.* But as for sounding alarms, those will no longer be delivered by me. Not on this story. A new, fresh, and objective reporter will, hopefully, take up where I have left off. I had to close the book on the better part of a lifetime. I needed to go home. After all this, I needed to get home to Texas.
