Yes, Robert, the Russians have a great experience with the human side of space exploration, in all aspects. Apparently, there are a number of illnesses that could appear while in space and that no one could have detected before a flight.
Unless NASA wants to become really serious about very long duration flights (and they could start right away by asking Foale to spend a full year in space...if he wants to;), the best way to get to Mars, is to develope an entirely new propulsion method.
But even then, it might be preferable to have the crew land automatically on Mars (if astronauts can accept it).

Raoul