ANN ARBOR---Against the backdrop of music performed by Ugandan children orphaned by AIDS and war, a well-known HIV scientist will discuss the science and ethics of offering treatment to those infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Resource-poor countries face difficult questions about whether to provide treatment for HIV, especially to HIV-positive pregnant women. Treatment gives their children a chance to live, but their mothers will likely die and leave the children orphaned.

At a time when it is increasingly clear that the life sciences are changing everything about the way we live and work, University of Michigan will use two upcoming University Musical Society performances as the springboard to illustrate the degree to which the arts provide a context for a richer, more nuanced understanding of the life sciences. One program examines the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and the other deals with what science suggests about the relationship between President Thomas Jefferson and slave Sally Hemings.

Tied to a show by the Children of Uganda, keynote panelist Vinh-Kim Nguyen, physician and anthropologist at McGill University, will participate in a discussion titled "AIDS in Africa," 3-5:30 p.m., Feb. 7 in the Vandenberg Room of the Michigan League. A brief appearance by the Children of Uganda Choir will be featured.

In a talk titled "Globalization and Biopolitics: Antiretroviral HIV Therapy and Biosocial Change in West Africa," Nguyen will discuss one of the most important breakthroughs since the AIDS epidemic began ravaging Africa, the availability of drugs to prevent HIV transmission from pregnant women to their infants. The talk will examine the related social issues, including the challenges facing resource-poor countries about whether to provide antiretroviral drugs to halt the AIDS epidemic when there a
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Contact: Colleen Newvine
cnewvine@umich.edu
734-764-7260
University of Michigan
28-Jan-2002