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.
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(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)One of the most frequent criticisms of randomized clinical trials of HIV therapy is that certain patient groups — in particular gay men — are over represented compared to the HIV population as a whole. For example, in the recently published and presented clinical trials of the Quad and dolutegravir, women accounted for < 20% of [...]
(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)We now have a third single-pill treatment available for HIV treatment, co-formulated tenofovir/emtricitabine/elvitegravir/cobicistat. From the FDA announcement: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Stribild (elvitegravir, cobicistat, emtricitabine, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate), a new once-a-day combination pill to treat HIV-1 infection in adults who have never been treated for HIV infection. Stribild contains two previously approved [...]
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)In the fastest-moving area of ID drug development, answers are eagerly sought to the following questions three: What does the bad news on BMS-986094 — formerly INX-189 — mean for other investigational HCV nucleotides? Severe cardiotoxicity, fatal in one case, has ended the drug’s development. Importantly, nothing similar has thus far been observed with the structurally-similar IDX184, but that [...]
(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)August 17, 2012, is the first day in over 25 years that I left for work without clipping a beeper to my belt. Yes, our hospital now offers paging through cell phones. Eureka! As I’ve written before, it was a long time coming. Here are some advantages: Spares the embarrassment of wearing a circa-1980s device around non-MD [...]
(6 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)I was an English major in college, so when my acceptance to medical school (miraculously) arrived, several people gave me books written by doctors about their experience in the medical profession. “See,” these gifts implied, “Just because you’re going to medical school doesn’t mean you need to become a science drone. Doctors can write too!” [...]
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)Got this email recently from a former colleague who now does mostly international work: Hey Paul — nice recap of the IAC conference. But I was wondering if you’d forgotten about someone very important when you wrote, “I can’t think of any major politicians who have done more for HIV than the Clintons.” Um, how [...]
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)The CDC issued its second “Interim Guidance” on the use of tenofovir/FTC as pre-exposure prophylaxis for prevention of HIV, this time for prevention of HIV in heterosexually active adults. The rationale? Since January 2011, data from studies of PrEP among heterosexual men and women have become available, and on July 16, 2012, the Food and [...]
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)With all the hoopla at last month’s International AIDS Conference about ending AIDS and curing AIDS and bringing us an AIDS-free generation, there was plenty of ink spilled on the topic. Ironically, the attention the meeting received was inversely proportional to its scientific content, which was actually fairly light on a content-per-day scale. The meeting [...]
(14 votes, average: 4.29 out of 5)Last week’s International AIDS Conference in Washington got plenty of media attention, mostly because it was the first time in umpteen years that it was held in the United States, the delay between meetings due to our absurd (and now repealed) immigration laws regarding HIV. (Quick trivia question — where was the conference supposed to [...]
