Exhibit 99.02


         The Company incurred special items during the second quarter of fiscal
2005 consisting primarily of restructuring charges of $105.1 million,
merger-related charges of $10.2 million and costs related to the SEC
investigation and Audit Committee internal review of $9.0 million. These costs
were partially offset by income of $21.2 million received in conjunction with
the settlement of litigation arising from antitrust claims alleging certain
prescription drug manufacturers took improper actions to delay or prevent
generic drug competition. Restructuring charges primarily relate to the
previously announced global restructuring program. The costs incurred to date
under the global restructuring program primarily consist of employee-related
costs, asset impairments and facility exit costs. Merger-related charges include
such items as employee-related costs and costs associated with exit and
consolidation of facilities, as well as costs of integrating acquired
businesses. Costs related to the SEC investigation and Audit Committee internal
review primarily include legal fees and document preservation and production
costs. On an after-tax basis, the special items incurred during the second
quarter of fiscal 2005 totaled $71.1 million versus income of $3.3 million for
the year-earlier period. In the opinion of management, these special items, by
their nature, rarely have predictable trends and are not truly reflective of
ongoing operating results. Therefore, the Company presents its results on both a
GAAP basis ("GAAP") and a GAAP basis excluding these special items ("adjusted").

         Management uses adjusted results to measure its performance in addition
to the GAAP results. As the Company's core business is providing health care
products and services to the healthcare industry, management finds it useful to
use a metric that does not include charges and gains associated with
restructuring, merger-related activity and litigation. While these special items
may be recurring items for the Company, management believes they are not
reflective of the day-to-day offering of its products and services and relate
more to strategic, multi-year corporate actions that tend to mask the trends and
financial performance of the Company's products and services. Management also
believes that investors may also find an unmasked view of the Company's core
operations to be useful.

         In addition, the Company has identified certain items that are either
infrequent or will aid the reader in analyzing comparability between prior
periods. These items include asset impairment charges, net of minority interest
and foreign currency translation adjustments, of $63.6 million and a $3.4
million charge incurred by the Company's Clinical Technologies and Services
segment as a result of a purchase-accounting inventory adjustment associated
with the acquisition of ALARIS Medical Systems, Inc. The Company provided
information regarding the impact of each of these items on its consolidated
results. The Company believes this information is useful for investors'
assessment of the operating trends of the Company's businesses.

         Management encourages readers to rely upon the GAAP numbers, but
includes the GAAP amounts that have been adjusted as a supplemental metric to
assist readers. It should be noted that the items being adjusted from the GAAP
results represent actual income or expense to the Company. These items impact
operating cash flow available to support on-going operations. As such, these
items are an important component of the financial performance of the Company and
any metric excluding them will present an incomplete picture.