tv Consider This Al Jazeera November 18, 2014 1:00am-2:01am EST
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>> and you only have a solitary chance to turn your world around >> the way to get entrance is through taking one single exam... >> testing under fire an america tonight investigative report only on al jazeera america >> ferguson on edge, missouri's governor calls up the national guard preparing for grand jury's decision in the michael brown case. also the enemy of our enemy. should we team up with iran and syria to beat i.s.i.l? and more americans fear alzheimer's than any other disease. so why does it get so little funding for research? hello i'm antonio mora. welcome to "consider this," those stories and more straight ahead.
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>> fight back, fight back. >> the missouri governor declared a state of emergency. >> as the city of ferguson braces for a decision from the grand jury in the shooting death of michael brown. >> the point won't be made until that cop is indicted. >> strategy in the war against i.s.i.l. there's no expectation that we are going to enter into an alliance with assad. >> a surgeon who contracted the disease has died. >> a scientist has landinged a ship on a moving comet. >> nfl knowingly supplied players with a seemingly endless amount of painkillers to get them ready to play. >> they were getting shots on game day.
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>> we begin in ferguson where the governor has declared a state of emergency and called up the national guard. ferguson is bracing for the grand jury's decision, on whether or not to indict officer wilson. many protestors predicted that officer wilson will not be indicted. >> shut it down shut it down. shut it down shut it down. >> meanwhile the fbi has issued a bulletin to law enforcement officers across the country that the grand jury decision could lead extremist protesters to threaten police officers and federal agents. for more we're joined from ferguson by al jazeera correspondent jonathan martin. jonathan good to have you with us. in declaring a state of emergency governor jay nixon
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cited unreasonable arrest, waiting a week after the shooting of michael brown to declare a state of emergency. so how are people there reacting to his move? >> antonio, it certainly has fueled a lot of speculation that this decision from the grand jury could come sooner rather than later. but again no one knows at this point. but a lot of the businesses at least in ferguson are glad to hear that the state of emergency has been put into effect. as we have been showing you all week a lot of the business are bordered areboarded up. the st. louis mayor is very quick to say today that this does not mean there will be a militarization of the law enforcement but they want to be prepared and make sure everyone is working in a unified way and appropriate way in dealing with these protesters. >> talking about precautions there are real concern about the protests getting in the way of wilson who is not indicted and local officials are urging
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people to stock up on water food and medicine. >> yeah not just here in ferguson but some of the surrounding counties and suburbs they are telling the residents to prepare as you would for a storm because they really don't know how large these protests could get, how long they could last again if there's no indictment. >> over the weekend, the st. louis postdispatch potioned new audiovideo from the day of the shooting it included audio and video of darren wilson, had no obvious injuries but the video is not that clear. the brown family though has reacted. >> the brown family did issue a statement. as you said the video is not very good detail but it shows that some of the information that perhaps came early on from the police department about the officer's injuries, officer wilson's injuries being severe, he had a wound to his eye socket, they believe that was
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exaggerated based on the video. the audio recording does perhaps provide a better time line doesn't answer exactly why the officer stopped michael brown in the first place on that day, antonio. >> it's not completely clear whether he knew or didn't know about the robbery that michael brown is accused of being involved in. >> exactly. it's not clear. you know he did call for backup in that audio, the parents are saying that it shows based on the audiofro audio, from what they'e heard, that it is not the audio they are stopping him for. in 90 seconds the altercation but exactly why he was stopped the family says at least that's not exactly clear. >> i know there are a whole bunch of groups that are calling for peaceful protests, they have been organized but they have called for the protests, while peaceful, to be disruptive. outside agitators will come in and hijack the demonstrations.
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>> right. antonio we were out today and there was a pretty sizable protest, 200 or so protesting in clayton, a suburb right outside st. louis. protesters say we have had 100 days to prepare for this. they are concerned law enforcement fbi just issued a bulletin saying they are concerned about outside agitators coming in. there has been a lot of talk on twitter a lot of speculation, the people here who have been here the whole time say they will be peaceful. they are concerned what will happen if people come out here and exploit the situation and turn otherwise peaceful demonstrations to something else. >> the people whom you have talked to how worried are they if things get out of hand fast ai if there's no indictment? >> a lot of the people are concerned. you drive down the street and you see businesses boarded up in
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ferguson but even in some of the nearby communities they're concerned, not just here in st. louis or in missouri. a lot of law enforcement in other states and cities are preparing. a lot of police departments are getting in touch with their officers and letting them know how to handle potential mass demonstrations if there's no indictments. people here in ferguson as well as beyond this community. >> as we mentioned the fbi has issued the warning to law enforcement organizations across the country. turning from the state of emergency in ferguson missouri to america's war with i.s.i.l. president obama struggled to form a coherent foreign policy and keep it on track. outside the embattled town of kobani again on monday, i.s.i.l. also right release released a ve showing it had beheaded another american captive. peter kassig.
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his father ed spoke about peter. >> please pray for abdul rahman or pete if that's how you know him at sunset this evening. pray also for all people in syria and iraq and around the world that are held against their will. >> for more i'm joined from the council on foreign relations in new york by leslie gelb, president emeritus, and columnist for the new york times. he is former assistant secretary of state and director of policy arm control at the department of defense. les, thank you for joining us. let's start with i.s.i.l. and how it continues to murder its foreign hostages, mass massacres syrians. defeat i.s.i.l. under the work principle that first threats need to be dealt with first. here though is what president
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obama had to say about working with syria on sunday. >> we have communicated to the syrian regime that when we operate going after i.s.i.l. in their air space that they would be well advised not to take us on. but beyond that, there's no expectation that we are going to in some ways enter an alliance with assad. he is not credible in that country. >> what do you say to the president les? how can you go back on that now and work with assad after assad has killed and tortured so many tens of thousands of his own people? >> i'd say he is going back on it even as he talked. of course we're not going to have an alliance with assad's syria but we are informally sort of cooperating with one another. for example: we aren't hitting the oil wells that are controlled by i.s.i.l.
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and these oil wells are supplying assad with oil. assad doesn't want us to hit those oil wells. they're safe. in other cases, we're operating against i.s.i.l, and where assad's troops are operating against them, we don't attack assad's troops. so there is kind of a de facto you should partnered the expression cooperation going on. >> but what would happen if we went beyond that de facto cooperation? wouldn't our sunni arab allies in the gulf, weren't they to object if we made a deal that would strengthen syria and also its allies in iran? >> there would be a lot of objection if we simply made a deal to strengthen assad. but that is not what i would propose. i think if we extend our
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cooperation with assad, it's got to be directed entirely against i.s.i.l. because they're the biggest threat to him, to us, and to our friends in the region. and we've got to say to him, here are the terms of cooperation. and by the way, we say that through the iranians and through the russians who happen to agree with what i'm about to say. we say, look, you got to focus much less on beating up on the rebels, the sunni rebels, and much more on beating i.s.i.l. that's the main threat. secondly, in the area where the sunni rebels are, let's declare a safe zone. humanitarian zone. so we can begin to deal with the humanitarian disaster there. and we say to the rebels, we're not going to stop arming you. we'll continue to arm you. and you'll have a chance to get your act together. so we're planning for the future.
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and what's in it for assad? what's in it for assad is the chance to be a part of that future bargain, and to deal with the i.s.i.l. threat. because that's going to be the biggest threat to him and to his iranian and russian friends as well. >> you don't seem to have much confidence that the white house is going to manage this well. ha ha. >> you wrote a recent article about the prospective white house foreign policy shakeup. before ditching his top aides, obama should look in the mirror. you talked about his team and you wrote that where the president is concerned the essential fault lies with not the stars around him however dim but with himself. wouldn't a shakeup help though? >> antonio, you know, as all the people know who really cover washington, this is the most centralized, and
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personalized, decision-making presidency probably ever. mr. obama is the man, on almost every issue. he calls the shots. so the absence of strategy really, in almost all cases, comes back to him. just look at what he said two weeks ago. he got up at a press conference and said, much to my astonishment, we have no strategy for syria. now, whether or not he had a strategy, i don't think he does, he never should have said it. because all it did was to confirm to everyone in the region that we didn't know what we were doing. but you see, it all comes back to him in the end. and he didn't -- >> and talking about him, you say that the president is clueless about how to get things done and you talk about the stories criticizing the white house from congress and the state department.
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you seem more critical from the defense. do you think there's a significant split between the white house and the pentagon? >> i think there's a growing difference of perspective and a growing lack of confidence between the generals on the one hand and the white house. and again, i'm not saying anything, people who discover washington don't know. they just don't write about it. it's just that these generals are now coming out in the open a little bit more . and telling reporters and congressmen about their concerns. >> i want to bring up ukraine and russia briefly. we saw vladimir putin leave the g-20 meeting early but the president still seems to think that the sanctions on russia are somehow having an effect on the russians but it seems that everything is intensifying in ukraine rather than deescalating. so do you think sanctions are
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enough? >> well, there's no question that the sanctions are having an effect on russians. they're just not having much of an effect on putin. he continues to get worse and the situation for the russians continues to get worse. look, here's the problem. obama, mr. obama is criticized constantly from the scefts for conservatives for not doing enough. they want stronger action on his part. but yet you look at what they're proposing. what are they proposing? they're saying well, arm the ukrainian government more. but the fact of the matter is, the conservative critics know as well as anybody else that even a much better armed ukrainian army would not be able to resist the
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russian army. you don't take the first step without knowing what you're going to do in the second and third step. i don't hear any of them saying that when they argue we should get tough with putin to say that we should get into a war with russia. >> yes, so the hope is that the sanctions will affect the russian people and that that will end up making putin behave a little bit better. leslie gelb, thank you very much. >> see you antonio. >> now for more stories from around the world. we begin in nebraska where the ebola patient flown to the u.s. this weekend has died. 44-year-old dr. martin salia a maryland surgeon contracted ebola while working in his native sierra leone. he had received a negative ebola test days before coming ill and was already in critical condition when he arrived at the nebraska medical center on saturday. doctors say
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they used ever treatment available. including zmapp. dr. salia is the second person to die of ebola in the united u.s. state department had to shut down its entire unclassified e-mail system after a state department official mentioned as affect by the attacks. this follows the hacking of the white house e-mail system which is blamed on russia. the chinese are blamed for two other recent attacks. the breach of post office employee records and systems at noaa . >> the vatican confirmed on monday that pope francis will visit philadelphia in september to attend the roman catholic
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churches meeting of families. also to visit the philadelphia museum of art. millions will flock the the city of brotherly love to see the pope. he will be only the 4th pope to visit the united states. and that's some of what's happening around the world. coming up: is our best option to secure afghanistan, a partnership with the taliban? also, concerns that nasa is outsourcing too much of its operations and making the u.s. space program lose ground. and what do you think? join the conversation on twitter @ajconsiderthis and on our facebook page. >> fault lines brings you an eye opening look at what life is really like under the taliban. >> i'm actually quite nervous >> from girls attending school, to enforcing sharia law. >> they rely on the local population, and so they need to win the hearts and minds of locals to be able to fight. >> fault lines,
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al jazeera america's hard hitting... >> today they will be arrested... >> ground breaking... they're firing canisters of gas at us... emmy award winning investigative series... special episode this is taliban country only on al jazeera america >> music doesn't change change the world, but it does influence that way people think >> rock icon peter gabriel believes we can all make a difference >> get technology to people... to empower them... to become more effective >> giving a global stage to important issues >> climate change... we've gotta take action >> every saturday, join us for exclusive... revealing... and surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time... talk to al jazeera only on al jazeera america al jazeera america gives you the total news experience anytime, anywhere. more on every screen. digital, mobile, social. visit aljazeera.com.
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but after 13 years of fighting, about 2300 american deaths and nearly 800 billion in spending, will the good war be remembered as a failure? taliban suicide bombers are still targeting nato convoys. while u.s. troops are being cut from 18,000 to less than 2,000 at year's end. meanwhile, opium is at an all time high. for more i'm joined by jack fairweather, author of the good war why we couldn't win the war or the peace in afghanistan. good to have you with us jack. really thought provoking book. this war was supposed to be fairly straightforward. we got rid of al qaeda, put in a relatively good government. you thought that was nigh
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naive te. dwr? >> why? >> the problems was we got rid of al qaeda and then by the mistake of then tacking on the taliban into our war objectives, and the taliban is no single entity it's a bunch of tribal affiliates with different loyalties, different motivations and we very quickly found ourselves drawn into a battle in afghan villages against the afghan people. >> and you published an editorial in the new york times entitled give the taliban a chance. because you say that it's important to bring them into the talks and to be able to figure out a way of having the taliban be part of whatever afghanistan's future is. how, especially you know we've seen them waging guerilla war, we've seen them killing
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americans we've seen them committing terrorist acts so how can we possibly bring them into a government in afghanistan? >> you've got the taliban leadership in pakistan. dealing with them is a long term process, there's no quick fixes. but what we've seen over the past decade is in the ground in these villages there are tribes where local accommodations are possible. afghanistan is like a patch work quilt. you can full together the fabric and you keep stitching, you can hold something together. what's happening on the ground now is u.s. troops have pulled out. afghan forces have moved in and slowly they are ceding ground to the taliban. what should be happening is a process of political engagement of local negotiations that u.s. troops have -- who have incredible knowledge on the ground of these politics, they need to be playing a role in helping bring these sides together. >> but couldn't that help bring the bad guys from pakistan into the even the taliban who were the leadership that may be in
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pakistan into afghanistan with more strength once any foot hold exists for these loose elements of the taliban? >> granted but the taliban leadership in qatar doesn't speak for all these groups. that leadership is playing to an audience, these tribal groups that afghan government needs to be reaching out for, that's a battle for popular support and we are not trying to win that battle. >> with 2300 american deaths in afghanistan, do you think there's anything for the afghan government to deal with the taliban? >> the reality is the taliban are back in places like northern where american troops fought for long periods of time. >> even outside kabul? >> even outside kabul. it's a reality. u.s. troops are not going back into afghanistan, we are not doing another surge, you've got
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to deal with the reality. that's one of the key take aways. you've got to embrace the reality that's there, not try build your own bubble. >> what you hope might happen. >> right. >> the taliban did turn afghanistan into a much more backward place than it ever was, not that it had moved into the 20th century much less the 21st century but since we went in you've got you know tremendous advances, 85% of people have access to some sort of medical care. whield under the taliban it -- while under the taliban it was less than 7%. third of the kids going to school are girls who the taliban wouldn't even allow to educate. so when you ask the question whether it was a good war, did we win it at all the war or the peace are there things that we did that certainly have been good for that country? >> the removing of the taliban was a good thing. and i think what should have happened in 2001 is that they
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would have been incorporated in some level into a comprehensive peace settlement. what we did in 2001 was, seclude them, and sow the seeds for discontent, persecuting tribes, and leaders ready to lay down their arms that is our mistake. there is something to build on there as you say, education is a giant -- and the inclusion of girls in school is a giant leap forward. but that gives you an idea of the scale of the changes. it's generational, it's going to take 20, 30 years. because afghanistan is predominantly rural country, 80% live in the country side. in those environments conservative forces prevail. in the cities, is we're slowly bringing the country together. >> you wrote that the west's good experiment was effectively lost when president obama stuck to his decision three years ago, to end the surge. as you know, you know, we are
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winding down even further now. what hope, are you hopeful for the future? >> i'm hopeful in one sense. that as long as the u.s. remains engaged, the afghan government is going to be able to hold the major cities. the country side will return back as it is already to its sort of tribal governorships. what the u.s. needs to do is help bring together the city, and the country side, in a accommodations. as long as we remain engaged that's possible. as long as you keep the money flowing and the support there, that's where afghans say that they want and it's time we actually listen to them. >> and a lot of money has flowed that way already. >> that's true. we need to scale our effort to the needs of afghanistan, not to the needs of the state that we wanted to create. >> certainly very thought
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provoking, jack, pleasure to have you with us. again the book is the good war, why we couldn't win the war or the peace in afghanistan. turning now to space, ever since neil armstrong made his giant leap for man kind, nasa was first to successfully fly bay and land on mars. but the are breathtaking photos of philae lander, we are currently hitchhiking rides to the space station with the russians so is nasa falling behind? joining us here in new york is michael lega lemonnic. and spate.com. guys good to have you here. there's some croag out of europe about the european space agency managing that marvel of landing on that comet. is
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that an indication that they somehow have leaped ahead? >> i wouldn't go that far. we have big missions coming up but we are no longer the only game in town when it comes to these things. >> david, we have no unmanned flight anymore. the former nasa administrator michael griffin says we are held hostage by the russians when getting to the international space station. >> that may be true but all congratulations for europeans for that spectacular mission. but don't forget there was some nasa participation in that mission as well. it is a species, for us to attack that as humanity, not just individual nations. >> nasa not only participated, it was the original nasa project but it was the funding cuts for
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nasa that led for the european space agency to taking it over. >> in the 1990s the u.s. backed out of. not the first or the last time that the united states has done that to the europeans. if there's a lesson to be learned let's respect those folks across the pond because they can really do space and do it quite well. >> not just the folks across pond. serious competition from china some from india, there are space programs from around the world. >> lots and lots of countries are intending to go into space and trying to do it and increasingly they will do it. they've got along way to catch up to us and to the europeans. but there's no reason why some of them can't. >> they're doing it more cheaply. one of the amazing things i read was china getting a ship to orbit mars. india, i mis misspoke. >> very well trained people who
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are increasingly able to do these things. >> what we're doing in the united states is handing a lot of this over to private industry. is that a good idea? >> depends what you're talking about. like an orchestra you need the right instrument to play the right voice. you don't ask the piccolo player to play the tuba. that's absolutely something that the private sector can do and has been engaged by nasa to do. when you are talking about maintaining national reconnaissance satellite that's an entirely different proposition. >> but nasa did so much and it was such a glory of american technology. why if it was so successful for so long, should we hand this over to private industry. >> because it cost a huge amount of money and congress is increasingly reluctant to spend that money and it's a fact of life. >> when it does spend it, if i
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may interrupt, it tends to tell where to spend the money. congress was not populated by scientists. >> and private industry is much more nimble. >> and not that a bunch of influential congressional districts each get a portion of the project. >> which is exactly, in the space launch system that nasa has been tasked with developing, it's a big rocket but is that really the best and most cost effective way to do space? many refer to it as the senate launch vehicle. >> and competition can make things cheaper. >> leading to greater innovation. the aviation, modern aviation industry as a private industry and if you try and imagine that the government ran all of our aviation, and all of our airlines, it might not run so well.
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>> right, you'd have six or eight government employees going to explore air three or four have. >> on the other hand, we saw what happened to the orbital science rocket that crashed soon after takeoff and what happened to virgin galactic so are you concerned about how private industry is doing? >> yes and no. space is really, really difficult to do, and the way it is learned to do the better we all will do it. >> nobody remembers or talks about the fact that jet fighters are flown initially by test pilots and they have been all along the way. and those pilots sometimes die in crashes. and they just weren't publicized, that's the difference. the idea that we can go to space without casualties in that very dangerous and complicated environment it's just not realistic. but we've kind of been led to believe that somehow it can be done. it's just not possible and we're
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never going to make any progress. >> and we should say that nasa has had its problems too. it's had issues with the telescopes, with how it's dealt, how poorly it has done in asteroid identification project that they had. >> space is difficult. and bureaucracy, chances are multiplied because people are looking at tiny pieces of the issue. we tend to do things better in smaller groups which is what do. >> on the other hand is it important to have nasa there for those big projects to focus on that next leap to get humans to mars or to figure out how to stop an asteroid that may threaten earth? >> an agency overseeing those projects, or the hubble space telescope, it would be hard to finance it because there's no profit in it. big science asteroid landings
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and the new horizons mission reaching pluto in july, has nasa has to see. >> inspirational for people, do you think this new environment will be similarly inspirational? >> even more so because let's look at the population that is funding these things. they are the ple millenials. they are all about these idea that high net worth individual can realize his or her vision, and actually get somewhere, in the universe. >> do you agree? >> yeah, i do. and in fact look at elon musk who is in fact a tech billionaire. >> richard branson, also a billionaire but not a tech one. let's hope this one does work program. it is a pleasure to have you both here. good to see you both.
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get our exclusive in depth, reporting when you want it. a global perspective wherever you are. the major headlines in context. mashable says... you'll never miss the latest news >> they will continue looking for survivors... >> the potential for energy production is huge... >> no noise, no clutter, just real reporting. the new al jazeera america mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. download it now >> a rient poll found that americans -- recent poll found that americans are more fearful of developing alzheimer's disease. november is alzheimer's awareness month and to discuss the latest efforts to fight the disease we're
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joined by geriatrician. one in nine americans at age 65 have it, one in three at age 85. this could be a more terrible burden on the country as baby boomers age. how are we where are we right now and have we made progress? >> we've made enormous progress. when i went to medical school i started in 1970. throughout the entire time i was there i never heard the word alzheimer's disease, it was discovered in 1970 when some doctors were discovering people who died of disease, had what alsheimre described in 1976. come a long way in a short period of time.
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>> there's no cure, we really can't do much to delay onset and we can't make the symptoms any better. so how much can we do? >> well, actually we can do a lot. i think that one thing we have to remember is that the role of doctors and health care providers is to take care of people. and many people get chronic diseases that don't have cures but they need to be taken care of and more than anything i think families and patients with alzheimer's disease needs to be taken care of by competent and adequate doctors, because there are behavior disorders that need to be taken care of so people don't get too many medications. there are four medications for alzheimer's disease that are effective and safe and they do work to a modest degree but we certainly neat better drugs and we need disease modifying drugs. but more importantly we have found out more about prevention of alzheimer's in the last ten to 20 years.
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>> in that context you mentioned chronic disease, what is the relationship between other chronic diseases and the onset of alzheimer's? >> we learned that hypertension and diabetes, very powerful so they should give incentives for people who have hypertension and need to take their medication every day that they need to take their medication not just to prevent a heart attack or kidney failure or major stroke when they're paralyzed but to prevent them from losing their minds. >> and you wrote recently that developing countries seem to have a lowering incidence of alzheimer's. so do you believe that lifestyle modifications aside from chronic diseases we are talking about can also have an effect? >> there is no doubt about it, actually in the developed world where we have a big lifestyle -- >> i'm sorry i meant developing.
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>> there are more people in the developing world with alzheimer's just because of the sheer numbers and the developing world is really aging. it is a problem of the developing world as well as the developed world. but we've had a huge change in lifestyle. people are not smoking as much they're examining. so cohort changes, people in their 60s smoked didn't exercise and they were at risk for heart attacks and strokes and dementia. people in their 60s day are going to be at lower risk and perhaps delay the onset of alzheimer's average beige 78 to maybe 80, 82. and that will be a good thing. >> very good thing, yes. what i heard about was systemic inflammation could make a difference, people who have that could have a bigger risk of getting alzheimer's. the obvious question then should people be popping
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advils and aleves? >> risk factors, ep epidemiological factors, clinical trials of advil and motrin, they don't work. what our foundation is funding is the development of brain specific antiinflammatory drugs that will really work better in alzheimer's disease. there is no doubt there is inflam aches in the brain with people with sliermings. when people get pneumonia, the huge amount of inflammation all the chemicals that are released go to the brain and can kill brain cells. >> polls show 82% of americans want some major comprehensive effort to deal with alzheimer's
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disease. it's costing us more than $200 billion a year, families are burden he by this and tremendous ways as you know because i know you have had to deal with it yourself. there's talk that this could reach a trillion dollars by 2050. so this is massive. but we're -- the funding is just not there. is this a question of ageism? >> i think it's partly ageism. i think it's also less value to life in old age of our society but i think it's also a matter of the delay that we had. as i mentioned the nih was started in 1948 and its primary purpose was to cure cancer and heart disease. in those ages where alzheimer's was just being recognizes as a disease of old age, at a time when we are spending billions and billions of dollars on cancer and heart disease, we spent $625,000 on four plans
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for, we are 20 times underfunded for alzheimer's as we are for hiv aids on a per patient basis. we really need to gear up our research efforts. >> in the issue of ageism, what it does to families, it's very important, to have you here to bring attention to this, it's a real pleasure to have you. >> thank you for having me. appreciate it. thank you very much. >> coming up the dea blitzes nfl teams with surprise inspections for drugs. but first the changing nature of what kills americans over the past century that's in our data dive next. >> an all new airplane in a once in a generation achievement of human ingenuity. >> three years late... fleet grounding... fires on the airplane... >> they're short changing the engineering process...
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>> at the height of the cold war >> we're spies... intercepting messages from embassies, military bases... >> one of the america's closest allies... >> we were not targeting israelis... >> suddenly attacked >> bullet holes... ...just red with blood... >> 34 killed... we had no way to defend ourselves >> high level coverups... never before heard audio... a shocking investigation >> a conscience decision was made to sweep it under the rug... >> the day israel attacked america only on al jazeera america
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dea agents conducted surprise inspections of the medical staffs of at least three teams on sunday. they were looking for possibly illegal use of prescription painkillers. adding to the nfl's troubles it faces new domestic abuse allegations for another treatment. special relationships between the miami dolphins and local law enforcement. dave zyron, host of edge of sports radio. good to see you dave. let's start with the dea's surprise inspections. part of an ongoing investigation into drug abuse in the league. they searched bags, questioned team doctors, the league is looking at possible distribution of drugs without labels, and trainers not doctors are illegally giving drugs out. this is all linked to this big
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collaboration lawsuiclass actio0 players. >> true, the big story is that the dea got involved at all. today i was doing research and you have players giving testimony of things like toreadol and painkillers given out like m and ms for 50 yeerms yet here for the first time the dea, interseeds, which speaks to the bigger issue that the relationship between the national football league and the federal government is so toxic, not just about the dea, but people in congress talking about stripping nfl about its nonprofit status, the name of the washington football team, i mean it is a wild west right anonymity on capitol hill and i think that's what the nfl has become reeling, they have lobbyists to keep the feds off their back. and the feds say wait a minute
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you do not live in rarefied air national football league. >> when you have 1300 former players saying they were getting per perkocet and vicodin, being handed out like candy. after that lawsuit they didn't thy at some point somebody wasn't going to investigate. >> you said stupid, another word in the thesaurus was arrogance. that it exists in a constitution-free bubble protected by antitrust exemptions and monopolistic exemptions that allows it to operate outside of the law. no matter what party was in power in washington they gave the nfl reason to believe that it could be the wild west and whatever they had to do to get players on the field they could do it. whatever practices took place in the personal lives of players they could make it go away without the federal governmental saying wait a minute what's
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going on in these local communities. there's all kind of skulduggery that's gone on that the nfl has said to the world we are too big to fail we cannot be touched. and i think you are seeing a new era now where a lot of people in the federal government are saying wait a minute. this will not fly any longer. >> and if the players are to be believed this is really serious, the amount of drugs that they were given was really dangerous and there is evidence that there's -- whatever's happening today, that after people leave the nfl the misuse of opioid painkillers is four times worse among former players than it is among the general population. so clearly -- >> terrifying. >> -- something's happening. >> it's terrifying and i would encourage people to read a player's memoirs like out of their league by dave nemesee which came out in 1970 which detailed same things. what is accepted practices in
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the nfl frank reply i don't think is surviving in the 21st century. >> what about the players though don't they have some responsibility because they obviously want to get on the field they want to play and they might have been willing to do whatever they needed to do in order to play. >> this is a really facinate of fascinating discussion one that belongs in a philosophy class with the idea of responsibility when it comes to national football league. players play on average three and a half years. to get to a point where you are playing such a sport at such a high level ilt tends to attract people who have a certain reckless attitude about their bodies in the first place. what is the gap between going out there being able to play with a separated showered or multiple concussions or man up and doing the same, in that locker room based on interviews i've done with players and things you can hear all the time on espn when players talk about their past is that there's no real gap between being tough and
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taking that shot. >> want to go to this other controversy for the nfl. the ex fiancee of a form he miami dolphin, phillip merling said she was beaten by him when she was two months pregnant. despite constant pleas to the nfl they did nothing to stop harassment that continues to this day. this is happening during the league waiting to make a decision on the adrian petersen child abuse and the ray rice domestic abuse problems, a decision is expected this week. so -- >> yeah and it's important to say this is not only an issue of say your local police officer who is a big fan of the team and gives a player a break. there are so many financial ties that exist between police departments and franchises, particularly, in cities that are somewhat smaller and more
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cloistered in their football culture. i'm not trying to single out the football communities in south florida especially to you antonio it seems almost unfair but it is a fact that you have not only these financial ties but hiring police officers to provide security at parties, and security guards, ben roftsberger roethlisberger and a woman in a bathroom, that led to a suspension for the steelers quarterback. on the wake of what happened with ray rice and genae rice. coverups involving the nfl but coverups involving law enforcement. that's more frightening than a league that just turns a blind
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eye to abuse. >> thank you for joining. thank you. >> that's it, we are on facebook and twitter @ajconsiderthis and can you tweet me @amoratv. we'll see you next time. he america stands on the brink of a new cold war with russia. i journeyed to the frontlines in the frozen north where america's nato allies are already locked in a high-stakes standoff over huge deposits of oil and natural gas. tonight i'll begin a five-part special report with a first hand look at how arctic melting has unlocked a wealth of opportunity and fueled new tensions between olden mys. also, iran's controversial nuclear program, i'll lack at how world powers are trying to curb iran's ambitions as a crucial deadline draws closer. >>pl
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