Closing the Gap: Antiretroviral Therapy for the Developing World Part II—Roles by Robin Pals-Rylaarsdam Biology Department, Trinity Christian College

Each group will be assigned a personality from the list below:

• Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID).
• Mpule Kwelagobe, Botswana Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFP).
• Dr. Russell Greig, President, Pharmaceuticals International at GlaxoSmithKline.
• Dr. Alison Boerma, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC) public health worker stationed in Botswana.
• Peter Piot, Executive Director of Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
• Chris Solomon, person living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) from Atlanta, Georgia.
• Congressman Henry Hyde, Chair of the House Committee on International Relations.
• Mitch Matthews, a clinical pharmacist at UCLA Medical Center who specializes in the treatment of patients with HIV/AIDS.

Read the sheet for your person. From the point of view of your person, answer the following questions about AIDS and the most appropriate U.S. response to the crisis in Botswana.

1. What are the priority issues surrounding HIV/AIDS? What aspects of the HIV/AIDS situation in Botswana and the U.S. response to the situation are most interesting or most important to you, as your personality?
2. Why do you prioritize these and not other issues?
3. What policy recommendations are you likely to make to the President? How do you think U.S. foreign aid can best be used to address the issues you most care about?

It is important to contrast your recommendations with those of the other people on the panel. Demonstrating your understanding of other expert recommendations can strengthen your argument as you help the President formulate an effective foreign policy. Write a two-page recommendation to the President. In this document, you should describe the issues, your reasons for prioritizing them, and your reasons for choosing the solutions to these issues. Your group’s paper will be graded on (1) its choice of issues appropriate to the group personality and (2) the quality of your arguments—do you back them up with data, do you contrast the importance of your issues with other ones and explain why your choices are more important than others, etc. Please come to class with a copy for each member of your group, as well as a copy for the instructor to grade.

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