Discuss terrorism and security --- Greg Mile (slow)
>> halliburton has agreed to pay their 7.5 million to settle a securities and exchange commission investigation. the s.e.c. was looking into accounting at halliburton when vice president dick cheney headed the firm. the s.e.c. says halliburton failed in 1998 to disclose a change in the way it booked some construction work revenue. the company settled the investigation without admitting or denying wrongdoing. halliburton faces two criminal probes related to operations in iraq and iran and an s.e.c. investigation into the alleged bribes or into alleged bribes, rather, to win business in nigeria. homeland security secretary tom ridge met in new york city today with representatives of 25 major u.s. corporations, including citigroup chairman sandy weill, to discuss terrorism and security. new york state and city leaders also in attendance and greg miles was there at a press conference after the meeting and joins us now with the lowdown. what was going on?
>> the security was quite tight. the secretary tom ridge said the federal government took unusual steps over the weekend to privately alert several new york corporations that al qaeda had been scouting their headquarters. the public learned this news only later when al qaeda had been compiling what ridge called a volume of information about the offices of citigroup, prudential and the new york stock exchange. corporate representatives told ridge today that the early warnings are key to enabling companies to prepare for attacks.
>> one of the points that several of the members of the -- several security professionals emphasized was that the hope and the desire that we continue to get them this kind of specific information in advance of everybody else. over the weekend, there’s a great deal of concern about going public and when you go public but we wanted to get some of this information to security professionals before it went public so they could notify their employees. i’d much rather have these men and women who showed up for work on monday morning begin to receive notification from their employer.
>> ridge said there was no sign at all that al qaeda thus far it infiltrated the headquarters of any large u.s. corporation.
>> there’s no such information. it’s interesting, the security professionals in the financial serious―services arena alerted me, there are rigorous background checks they do before you can have critical positions in these companies, as well. but the answer to the question is no.
>> secretary ridge responded to criticism that much of the latest intelligence about new york companies is three to four years old. ridge said that a key part of the intelligence had been gathered in january and said this information will give companies insight regarding how to prepare against future attacks. matt.
>> interesting timing, too, after the increased threat condition yesterday. thank you very much. appreciate it. in other news, we turn to healthcare industry. anthem is suing california insurance commissioner john garrahmendy saying he overstepped his legal authority in rejecting a merger. he blocked the company’s $16 billion proposed acquisition of wellpoint network saying the deal would drive up healthcare costs in california. the merger has won the approval of the federal government, 10 states and shareholders of both companies. pfizer says it’s suing five internet pharmacies in trying trying to seize the domain names of two dozen others to stop the sale of counterfeit viagra and the company is starting an ad campaign to warn consumers about fake drugs. viagra has been losing sales to rival products cialis and levitra, sold by glaxosmithkline and bayer. viagra’s worldwide revenue dropped 70% in the second quarter. on the hb, celgene says it may be able to raise the price of thalamid, a treatment for blood and bone marrow cancer. chief executive officer john jackson says that is because the drug benefits, because of its competitive landscape, but a price increase may be put through.
>> one of the good things about thalamid, of course, is it’s helping save a lot of lives in multiple myeloma and we hope to get approval in october and we’ll look at the pricing at that time and we’ll take it from there. we are actually less than half the price of our key competitor right now.
>> if so, the bottom line or their profits should get a boost mainly from the prescription drug coverage under the new medicare law. the c.e.o. also says that celgene’s reimbursement program is one of the most generous in the industry.
>> starting in 2006, much of that will be reimbursed by the government so that will be great for celgene in that about $50 million of that will be covered and drop to the bottom line. so that’s a great positive but we have a generous program there.
>> checking on the stock, you can see, up 16% year to date. tenet healthcare shares ended the day lower after the company said its losses more than doubled in the second quarter, down 3%. tenet had to take a charge against earnings by writing down the value of unprofitable hospitals and lost 91 cents a share. backing out certain charges, they lost six cents. that’s five cents more than wall street estimated. sales were also down and the company received fewer payments from the government and managed care plans. the fed’s preferred measure of inflation has reached what economists call a “zone of comfort.” when we return, we’ll look at this in our “chart of the day.”
