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When a major, internationally funded effort gets underway in 1997 to research the reasons and ways in which the AIDS epidemic is spreading in southern Africa, the reaction in the South Africa state of KwaZulu-Natal is surprisingly mixed. The International Research Centre in Population Studies and Reproductive Health, also known as the Africa Centre, has set out to conduct world-class field studies examining the ways in which local customs and conditions had contributed to the disastrous spread of the AIDS-causing virus -- such that one in three women in the region tested positive for its presence. Local officials, however -- both public health officials and tribal elders -- raised an ethical question: should a center with the human capacity, if not the stated mission, not just to conduct research but to treat the sick be required to do so as a condition for being allowed to set up shop? This research ethics question, a crucial one for a wide range of medical, scientific, scholarly, and even journalistic researchers, inspired soul-searching among the Africa Centre''s staff, which included more physicians, including pediatricians, than were available in the entire region surrounding the center. This video case, shot on location in KwaZulu-Natal, frames a series of specific options which the Africa Centre had as it faced demands to assist the area in which it set out to conduct its research. The case raises the broad question of one''s responsibility to engage in humanitarian and Samaritan effort when one confronts conditions that one can potentially ameliorate -- even if it detracts or distracts from the mission for which one is ostensibly being paid. Funding for this case was provided by the National Institutes of Health.