If you have lived beyond the age of 100, countless people may ask you for your secret to long life. The truth is you probably haven't a clue, but you may theorize that it has been a result of your clean living, or even your occasional indulgences.

Those inclined to celebrate the just-passed huge and historic expansion of Medicare should pause in their champagne toasts to consider this: most doctors, nurses and other health professionals in the U.S. receive almost no formal training in geriatrics, which seriously undermines the quality of care - especially safe prescription drug therapy - for America's seniors.

President Bush and the Republican Congress are on the verge of wreaking havoc upon on America's preeminent medical research system, at the same depriving themselves of a glowing political legacy.