Paul E. Sax, MD is the Editor-in-Chief, Journal Watch HIV/AIDS Clinical Care, Clinical Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Learn more about HIV and ID Observations.
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)The Lancet has just published a large prospective study demonstrating the protective effect of HIV treatment on the risk of viral transmission: 3381 couples were eligible for analysis … Only one of 103 genetically-linked HIV-1 transmissions was from an infected participant who had started ART, corresponding to transmission rates of 0·37 (95% CI 0·09—2·04) per 100 [...]
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)The recent dengue cases acquired in Florida prompted me to think of two things. First, is this really a surprise? Dengue has become increasingly common in the Caribbean, the mosquitoes that transmit the virus are widespread in the United States, and it’s not as if there’s some sort of microbiologically (if that’s a word) impermeable barrier between [...]
(5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)When it comes to writing consult notes, it often seems as if we ID specialists have a blatant form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Every detail is fair game — travel history, dietary habits, all sorts of seemingly trivial exposures, and of course microbiologic data stretching back to the Cretaceous period. I’ll never forget receiving sign-out from the [...]
(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)Over on our Journal Watch AIDS Clinical Care site, we did a poll asking about the ongoing START study: In the START study, HIV-infected patients with CD4 counts greater than 500 cells per cubic mm are being randomized to start antiretroviral therapy right away or to wait until the CD4 count falls to 350 cells [...]
(6 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)Someone pointed out this cartoon to me. What an eloquent depiction of the interior dialogue of a young doctor as she considers various non-medical careers. Brilliant! Which led me to thinking more broadly about humor in medicine, about which I quickly remembered that anyone writing about humor (as opposed to writing humorously) will be instantly [...]
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)From the Annals of Internal Medicine: Eighty-eight percent of providers recommend herpes zoster vaccine and 41% strongly recommend it, compared with more than 90% who strongly recommend influenza and pneumococcal vaccines. For physicians in both specialties [Internal Medicine and Family Practice], the most frequently reported barriers to vaccination were financial. From my admittedly biased perspective [...]
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)In the ongoing debate about when to start antiretroviral therapy in our sickest patients — those with acute opportunistic infections — comes this study from Zimbabwe of early vs. deferred ART in patients with cryptococcal meningitis: The median durations of survival were 28 days and 637 days in the early and delayed ART groups, respectively [...]
