The Economist

About the author: The Economist is Britain's leading newsweekly.

Researchers have produced a multi-drug therapy for AIDS that holds promise as a potential cure for the disease. However, because of the tremendous cost of the treatment, the Third World will not be able to make it available to its AIDS victims. If driven to do so, the rich countries could export AIDS treatments to poor nations. However, such an effort would not be economically feasible and is therefore not likely to be undertaken.

Mercutio's horrific curse on the warring family clans of Romeo and Juliet—"A plague on both your houses"—carries little terror for today's audiences. In Elizabethan England, the threat of plague was ever present. In the world's rich, developed...