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This chapter clarifies differences in the national role on key questions of the relationship between the individual and the civil society, and between religion and the state. At the end of the chapter, information is provided on each state's Muslim population. Change in states’ conceptualization of the national model of integration is reflected in the shifting mechanisms of their accommodations to the requirements of Muslim well-being. Britain moved from a race-based to a faith-based policy; the Netherlands from a consociational rights-based policy, to a policy based on individual responsibilities; France from a laicite policy ignoring individuals’ religion, to one penalizing displays of religious identity in public institutions; and Germany from a policy based on the assumption that non-German difference has no place in German society, to a policy establishing a minimum threshold of commonality between those “foreigners” who will remain and German citizens (placing on Muslims the burden to conform to the majority). Efforts to prevent examination of the extent to which life chances are limited through institutional discrimination and prejudice are sanitized by reference to the immutability of “national models of integration”. The authors seek to demonstrate the utility of expanding national and supra-national well-being projects to provide for the greater well-being of Muslim Europeans.

HIV infection can occur at any time in the life cycle from the newborn period, through childhood and adolescence to adulthood, older age. The unique issues and special vulnerabilities involved with each aspect of the life cycle, from family planning to pregnancy and the newborn to older aged person with HIV, are addressed from the biopsychosocial standpoint. While some features of HIV illness are common to any age group, specific challenges arise at various stages of the life cycle, as well as different patterns of transmission, clinical course, and service needs. This chapter will consider such differences at various stages of the life cycle. At the beginning of the AIDS epidemic almost 30 years ago, infected blood products represented a common mode of transmission, with many children diagnosed with HIV infection after receiving transfusions for hemophilia and blood disorders. Because of current practices of screening blood products prior to transfusion, the face of neonatal and early-childhood HIV has changed considerably, to one of children who are infected mostly perinatally through vertical transmission, rather than through exposure to blood products. While the incidence of perinatally acquired infections is decreasing in areas of the world where there is access to HIV care and antiretroviral medication, some transmission of HIV from mother to child remains, both in the United States and throughout the world. In 2007, approximately 79 infants were born with HIV in the United States, compared with 330 in 1994 (CDC, 2007). The primary means of HIV infection of a newborn is vertical transmission during gestation, birth, or breastfeeding of an infant by an HIV-positive mother. It is strongly recommended that all pregnant women be screened for HIV infection as part of routine prenatal care. Such screening is not legally mandatory, however, and may not be performed without the mother’s consent. It is advantageous to obtain HIV testing as early as possible in the course of a pregnancy so that preparation can be made to reduce the risk of transmission to the infant. Without preventive care during gestation or delivery, the risk of transmission from mother to child is 15%–35% (Newell, 1991; Gabiano et al., 1992).

Rain is a blessing when it falls gently on parched fields, turning the earth green, causing the birds to sing. But when it rains and rains, for forty days and nights, as it did for Noah, then the waters rise and destroy. Life is everywhere like that. Too little is a curse, too much is a plague. For thousands of years, the philosopher’s task has been to discover an optimum point where men and women can live modestly and securely, avoiding the extremes. The philosopher may seek a point of environmental balance where there is neither too little nor too much of nature’s gifts. Or he may try to define the point where private ambitions and collective needs are in harmony, where individual appetites do not overrun the commonwealth and society’s demands do not cut too deeply into individual freedoms. When philosophy is applied to the definition of a society’s welfare, we call that point the "public good." Farmers, more than most people, ought to be responsive to that philosophical quest for a harmonious, balanced good, for it has been their aim over a long history to seek moderation from nature and cooperation from their neighbors. Yet it has been a while since American agriculture, as a whole, has enjoyed a feeling of balance. The problem has not been in nature so much as in our society. We have not had a feeling of balance because we have come to hold extravagant ideas of what agriculture should contribute economically to the nation and the farmer. These days we are not a people noted for moderate thinking, so perhaps we have no reason to expect the idea of moderate farming to thrive. The most serious consequence of an immoderate culture, I will argue, is that the public good will not be well understood and therefore will not be achieved—in agriculture or in other areas. Another consequence is that farmers in the aggregate will suffer immensely and so will the practice of farming. That has indeed happened in America, and we can blame it on our extreme dedication to the goal of maximizing agricultural productivity and wealth.