RENOWNED WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER THOMAS D. MANGELSEN ONCE WAITED 42 DAYS TO GET JUST THE RIGHT SHOT OF A COUGAR
No Waiting Sunday, When “60 Minutes” Samples His Amazing Body of Work
60 MINUTES will showcase the extraordinary wildlife images of Thomas D. Mangelsen, one the world’s foremost nature photographers, on Sunday, May 6 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Anderson Cooper interviews Mangelsen about his work and accompanies him on a wildlife shoot in Wyoming for this profile, in which Jane Goodall, his friend and collaborator, also appears.
Some of the animals he photographs, such as mountain gorillas, black rhinos and jaguars, are threatened with extinction. He and Goodall help to raise awareness for their scarcity and raise money to save them.
Mangelsen’s name is not a household word, but he is credited with producing some of the world’s most recognizable wildlife photos – all shot in the animals’ natural habitat. One, which captures the nanosecond before the jaws of a brown bear clamp down on a leaping salmon, is one of the most famous ever taken. It’s what it’s all about to Mangelsen. “This is the magic. This is the moment. This is the decisive moment, and this little tiny space right here I think is so important.”
It may be one of his best, but it’s not the one that took the longest to get. The photo he took of a mother cougar leaving her den took 42 12-hour days of waiting, he recalls. He says that if you calculated all the time he spent trying to get the right shot over his decades-long career, it would be “stupid.” Nonetheless, “You wait long enough, it does pay off,” he tells Cooper.
WHY DOES YOUR PRESCRIPTION COST SO MUCH?
What One City Did to Fight High Drug Prices Reveals a Drug Supply Chain
In Which Just About Every Link Can Benefit When Prices Go Up
“60 Minutes” This Sunday
Rockford, Ill., had had enough. What pushed it over the edge was the high cost of a prescription drug that in 2001 cost about $40 a vial and today goes for more than $40,000 a vial. The city decided to challenge the healthcare system that created the 100,000 percent price increase in that one drug. Lesley Stahl reports on one city’s quest to take on an industry that it says is shrouded in secrecy and puts its bottom line ahead of the best interests of its sick customers. Stahl’s report will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES, Sunday, May 6 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Rockford, an old industrial city, still pays the healthcare costs for its 1,000 municipal workers and their dependents rather than using an insurance company. When it was faced with paying nearly half a million dollars for the 66-year-old drug used to treat infantile spasms in just two of its employees’ children, the city’s then-mayor, Larry Morrissey, wanted to know why. But his investigation hit a brick wall for two years. “It’s absolute secrecy. There’s an absolutely opaque system of pricing for drugs in our country. That’s part of the problem,” Morrissey says.
Morrissey says because his city’s drug bill was skyrocketing it was affecting his ability to fund basic services like fire and police. “Everybody’s asking the question, ‘Why is healthcare so expensive?’ Because the fix is in…That’s the short answer,” he tells Stahl. Rockford is suing the drug’s owner for price-fixing, which the company denies.
The story of Rockford reveals how just about every player in the drug supply chain can make money when drug prices go up. For example, pharmacy benefit managers – firms that buy drugs for clients and promise them cheaper rates – can and do own businesses that earn money from packaging or delivering drugs. Under that scenario, Rockford’s lawyer says, the company has a divided loyalty between its mission to keep drug prices low on one hand and to maximize profits on the other.
Dr. Peter Bach, of Memorial Sloane Kettering hospital in New York, studies the cost and value of drugs. “The underlying problem we have with prescription drugs in this country is that every single actor has the potential to make money when drug prices go up,” he tells Stahl. “[Doctors] make more money when they give expensive drugs than less expensive drugs. It’s true of hospitals, too. It’s true of pharmacies as well.” Says Morrissey: “As long as they can get away with the increase in price, they’re going to do it. Until somebody pushes back.”
MEET THE HUMANITARIANS WHO ARE SAVING SOME OF SYRIA’S WAR ORPHANS, ON “60 MINUTES” THIS SUNDAY
Fatima Ousi Lost Her Parents in the Syrian Civil War
Elaph Yassin could no longer just tell their stories on television – she had to try and help change the lives of Syrian orphans she met covering the war in Syria. Yakzan Shishakly left a comfortable life in the U.S. to lend a hand with war refugees, and he wound up directly aiding over 65,000 people torn by the Syrian conflict. Scott Pelley profiles these two humanitarians and meets some of the war victims they have helped on the next edition of 60 MINUTES Sunday, May 6 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
No one knows how many orphans have been created by seven years of fighting. Estimates from local and international groups range from a conservative 100,000 to over a million. UNICEF warned that the situation was creating a lost generation of Syrian youth, but 60 MINUTES found individuals who are working to save some of Syria’s orphans of war.
Yassin was covering the war in her native Syria for Al-Jazeera television when she decided she had to do more than feed or give money to the refugees she was reporting on. “You feel guilty, because you can go there and you give them hope that maybe, if you put their stories on TV, maybe somebody will help them,” she tells Pelley. “But usually nobody will help…they get used to seeing Syrian kids, like… suffering…they just then turn to another channel.”
She convinced a wealthy friend to help her convert an apartment building in Turkey into an orphanage. Yassin says that giving the orphans steady shelter, food and some kind of a normal life gave the children back the dignity the war had taken from them. She decided to call the orphanage Karim, Arabic for “place with dignity.” Her orphans call her Mama Elaph.
Shishakly, grandson of a former Syrian president, was living comfortably in Houston where he owned an air-conditioning business. He had been there more than a decade, went to college and became a U.S. citizen. But the conflict drew him back to his native land. “I had no experience with humanitarian work. And I just came, just a normal citizen, to help,” he recalls.
Shishakly found out quickly what he needed to do. First, he started a refugee camp that he says grew to 65,000 residents. Then, he gathered private donations and used them to build a school and an orphanage.
Sixty children live in it; he calls the orphanage Bayti, which means “My House.” It’s a good start for traumatized war orphans. “They’re looking for somewhere like what we call safe haven. It’s just like they’re looking for a place where they can trust to wake up the next day, and there’s no airstrike… food on the table,” says Shishakly. “They can find somebody [who] will not leave them behind. And that’s what we’re trying to offer.”
“60 MINUTES” LISTINGS FOR SUNDAY, MAY 6
THE ROCKFORD FILE – A look at the fight that Rockford, Ill., took up against the high cost of prescription drugs explains why they cost more in the U.S. than nearly every other place in the world. Lesley Stahl’s report pulls back the curtain on a drug distribution chain in which just about every link has the potential to make money when prices go up. Richard Bonin is the producer.
ORPHANS OF WAR – The civil war in Syria creates war orphans every day and hundreds of thousands since it began. Scott Pelley profiles two humanitarians who have opened orphanages in Turkey to help these youngest victims of war. Henry Schuster and Rachael Morehouse are the producers.
INTO THE WILD – Renowned wildlife photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen goes to the ends of the earth to capture some of the world’s most beautiful animals in their natural habitats. In this profile, Anderson Cooper accompanies him on a shoot. Denise Schrier Cetta is the producer.
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