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.
(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Here’s a little secret about those brilliant ID consults we do on patients with mysterious fevers: Sometimes we don’t know what’s going on either. I know, I know — shocking. But now that the secret is out, I can tell you something we do know, and that’s how to recommend lots of tests — the [...]
(11 votes, average: 4.64 out of 5)Guaranteed: Every day at a hospital near you, a patient is receiving antibiotic therapy for an infection, and the orders include the following: A slew of various oral medications, both continued from outpatient care and started anew on admission. An intravenous antibiotic. The odd thing about this combination is that there are many antibiotics with [...]
(7 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Gastroenterologists, ID doctors, C diff-sufferers, and microbiome-obsessed humanoids everywhere were treated to this surprising news recently — a decision by the FDA about fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). From an email sent by the IDSA: Because fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is not approved for any therapeutic purposes, an investigational new drug (IND) application is needed for [...]
(8 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)Some very hard-working folks at the NIH, CDC, and IDSA have updated the Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Opportunistic Infections in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents, which are available for review here. As with the previous versions (the prior iteration is from 2009), the OI Guidelines are comprehensive, exhaustively referenced (184 references for TB alone!), [...]
(8 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)There it is, right in your daily paper, on your tablet or computer screen, or wherever you get your news today — a headline about a great medical breakthrough everyone’s been waiting for: Scientists on brink of HIV cure Researchers believe that there will be a breakthrough in finding a cure for HIV “within months” [...]
(8 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)I have a friend who is a thoracic surgeon. Imagine his daily agenda: 5:00 AM: Oops, slept late. 5:30 AM: Drive to hospital; not much traffic. 6:00 AM: Round on inpatients. They’re all doing great! Wonder why they’re not more talkative. 6:15 AM: Coffee, gossip with other surgeons. 7:00 AM: Get in scrubs, prepare for [...]
(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Today, as the The International Liver Congress is about to start, two papers are published in the New England Journal of Medicine on sofosbuvir, the investigational anti-HCV nucleotide submitted to the FDA for approval earlier this month. Each paper actually includes within them two studies. (For some reason, all the studies sound like 1950s science fiction [...]
(6 votes, average: 3.83 out of 5)From a colleague came this query: We are being consulted by surgeons who are finding within blast victims tissues from other humans. We have been offering post-exposure prophylaxis. Have you folks developed any policies re PEP for explosion victims? Welcome your thoughts, P Needless to say, the bombing victims are currently facing far greater challenges [...]
(13 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Two weeks, two companies, two press releases, two future HCV drugs that begin with “S”: March 28, 2013: Janssen Research & Development announced that it has submitted a New Drug Application to the FDA seeking approval for simeprevir (TMC435), an investigational NS3/4A protease inhibitor, administered as a 150 mg capsule once daily with pegylated interferon and ribavirin for [...]
(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)On reading this other real news about a single patient and how it may shape the future of HIV vaccine research, I decided to write the following fake news, drawing liberally on many similar stories over the years: Scientists today reported a discovery that could finally pave the way for an effective AIDS vaccine. In the study, [...]
