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®k ©amecock Alzheimer’s could drain Medicare, actor tells Senate by Anjetta McQueen Associated Press WASHINGTON — F/aserstar David Hyde Pierce urged Congress on Tuesday to double federal spending on Alzheimer’s research to $1 billion, calling the disease a time bomb that must be defused. Pierce brought a daunting prediction to lawmakers currently struggling with the federal budget: A wave of baby boomers with Alzheimer’s will overwhelm Medicare and other health programs in the next decade. “If Alzheimer’s is not stopped in its tracks, it will bankrupt the; nation,” the Emmy-winning Pierce told senators who oversee health spending. “It is already bankrupting individual families.” Pierce, who plays uptight psychiatrist Niles Crane on the NBC sitcom, said he lost his father and grandfather to Alzheimer’s disease. The disease, which robs the elderly of their memories and the ability to care for themselves, was the focus ofTuesday’s Senate hearing. “Congress has to find a way, Congress has to fond a way to defuse that time bomb, or it will destroy us,” Pierce said. He joined nearly 500 ‘If Alzheimer’s is not stopped in its tracks, it will bankrupt the nation. It is already bankrupting individual families.’ David Hyde Pierce Actor families of Alzheimer’s victims to lobby for more money. The Alzheimer’s Association, which organized the visits to Washington lawmakers, wants Congress this year to add at least $200 million to the $500 million currently spent on researching the ailment, which has no known cure. The total spending for Alzheimer’s should reach $1,billion in three years, the association says. The group released a report Tuesday detailing the toll Alzheimer’s is taking on federal health programs—especially Medicare. An insurance program for the elderly and disabled, Medicare’s pending financial troubles have been the focus of budget battles in Congress. Gas giant takes over Russia’s NTV by Angela Charlton Associated Press MOSCOW — Outraged journalists at Russia’s only independent nationwide television network vowed to resist a takeover by state-run gas giant Gazprom, which purged NTV’s leadership Tuesday in a dramatic salvo in the fight for the influential station. Gazprom’s move to replace NTV’s board of directors with loyalists and install new editorial bosses devastated the floundering campaign by the debt-laden station — seen as a flagship of Russia’s hard-won media freedom — to stay out of government hands. Its outspoken journalists took little comfort in pledges by their new director, a controversial American investment banker, not to meddle in editorial policy. “NTV will survive, whether (its journalists) want to work with us or not,” Boris Jordan, who is of Russian descent, told a news conference. Then he added: “There should be no illusions” about the financial side. “I have a fiduciary responsibility before my shareholders to make the company profitable.” The case of NTV has come to be seen as a test of President Vladimir Putin’s commitment to media freedom. The journalists’ anger was on display Tuesday on the network in an emotional live talk show that lasted more than two hours, with politicians, NTV staffers, lawyers, other top journalists and even a priest weighing in. “I am convinced that preserving an independent, open, serious channel such as NTV is a public task and our public responsibility,” former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who was among the guests, said “We must decisively say that this should not happen,” he said of Tuesday’s events. Several lawmakers said they would raise the issue in parliament, and some participants appealed to Putin to intervene to save NTV while others called for protests and demonstrations. The tough question facing NTV employees, however, was whether to serve their new masters and show up for work Wednesday morning. NTV’s reporters claim the Kremlin wants to end the kind of journalism NTV has championed since its founding in 1993: critical coverage of the wars in Chechnya, efforts to expose corruption in high places, dramatic footage of the decline of housing, heating and health in Russia. “Wfe do not doubt that Vladimir Putin, as in the past, knows about what is happening and bears responsibility for the consequences,” a statement by leading NTV journalists said Tuesday. The struggle for NTV started last year from the financial woes of its parent company, Media-Most, and its founder Vladimir Gusinsky, who is fighting attempts to extradite him from Spain on fraud charges. Farmers debate foot-and-mouth vaccination by Sue Leeman Associated Press TEDBURN ST. MARY, England —Reger Cann doesn’t believe vaccination would have saved his 300 cattle and 100 sheep from contracting foot-and mouth disease. “It is so quick to spread, and vaccination takes time to take effect,” said Cann, who owns 100 acres of verdant Devon countryside. “And then you lose your disease-free status.” A few miles away along a twisting country lane, Mary Quicke says vaccination could be used to build “firewalls” around infected farms like Cann’s to protect healthy dairy herds like hers. This is the dilemma Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government is struggling to answer: vaccinate and lose export markets, or carry on slaughtering diseased animals and perhaps delay containing the contagion. With more than 960 confirmed cases and nearly a million animals condemned for slaughter, officials are battling to keep up with the cull and disposal of carcasses. The government is considering a targeted campaign to vaccinate up to 180,000 dairy cattle bound for slaughter in the worst-hit areas of Devon, in southwest England, and the northwestern county of Cumbria. After getting European Union permission, the government has twice put off a decision — it was first promised by Saturday, then Monday, then postponed indefinitely. In the House of Commons, lawmaker Stephen O’Brien from the opposition Conservative Party complained Tuesday that “there is deep anxiety about the uncertainty and lack of clarity on this particular difficult issue.” Farmers like Quicke — who has had to shut her popular farm shop and is living behind barriers of protective tape and straw sodden with disinfectant — aigue that vaccination must be used alongside slaughter. “If this epidemic goes on, we are going to lose our export markets for years, anyway,” said Quicke. “Many countries have used it in the past 12 months, and they’re using it in Holland now.” The National Farmers’ Union and some Agriculture Ministry officials fear vaccinating will shut Britain out of export markets for up to two years because other countries won’t accept meat and animals from a vaccinating country. Tests for foot-and-mouth can’t distinguish between animals that have been infected and those that have been vaccinated. Opponents argue that vaccination is not 100 percent effective and requires booster injections. They also say animals can take 5-12 days to build up immunity. Some vets say shots would quickly control the spread of the disease, buying time for officials to catch up with the slaughter. / Up To 50% Off! sprvngtvme. t$MARKDQWNSi}{ The SunCom Welcome Home™ Plan 300 anytime minutes for $30 ✓ Welcome home to SunCom. Where you can always get a new, affordable digital phone. Where anytime you see SunCom and AT&T on the screen of your phone, every call is a local call. No roaming charges. No long distance charges. No restrictions on when you call. So give us a call or stop by your SunCom store and pick up a college faceplate. SunCom. It's Economics 101. we get it." 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