HIV intervention trials being conducted in developing countries continue to raise questions of ethics in clinical research. Most recently these questions have arisen because of a prospective study reporting the rate of transmission in discordant couples that was conducted in Uganda. The study raises serious questions about the minimum ethical standards required for this kind of research and the responsibilities of the researchers. We re-examine that research particularly focusing on issues of informed consent and duty of care, and place this (...) trial in the context of the broader debate. (shrink)

The human brain has long been misunderstood in its features. It is up to neuroscience to have shown that all its activities are connected, and understand each other only in this relationship between its different instances. To ascend, to merge, to connect are the basis of the organization of our psyche, including in its most elaborate symbolic productions. This is precisely the system highlighted by the Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary by Gilbert Durand, brilliant precursor.