Paul E. Sax, MD is the Editor-in-Chief, Journal Watch HIV/AIDS Clinical Care and Clinical Director of the HIV Program and Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Here’s a surprising report in Science:
Studying peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from CFS patients, we identified DNA from a human gammaretrovirus, xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV), in 68 of 101 patients (67%) compared to 8 of 218 (3.7%) healthy controls … These findings raise the possibility that XMRV may be a contributing factor in [...]
(No Ratings Yet)As every card-carrying ID specialist knows, hardly anything is more common these days than patients with — and questions about — MRSA.
And one question I’ve been hearing increasingly these days is “Could I be getting my recurrent infection from Rufus?”
To which the answer is, unfortunately, yes.
(I had a dog named Rufus. No offense intended to [...]
(No Ratings Yet)The alphabet soup that characterizes HIV therapeutics has always been one of its quirky challenges — for example, who could possibly know that 3TC, CBV, TZV, EPZ, and LAM all refer to drugs that are (or contain) lamivudine?
This drives our ID fellows nuts, and is certainly a strong deterrent to non-HIV specialists to learning the [...]
(No Ratings Yet)Interested in researching the cause of AIDS? Well go ahead and give NetBase Solutions’ healthBase a try, but don’t expect much in the way of filtering:
One of the most unfortunate examples is when you type in a search for “AIDS,” one of the listed causes of the disease is “Jew.” Really. The ridiculousness continues. When [...]
(No Ratings Yet)A few ID/HIV items to cover before summer “unofficially” ends (Sept 1? Kids back at school? Labor Day?):
Will US Public Health officials recommend infant male circumcision to prevent HIV? They might be considering such a move, but I suspect it will not be strongly promoted. After all, none of the studies demonstrating its efficacy have [...]
(No Ratings Yet)From the New York Times last week:
Health officials in Los Angeles said Friday that 22 actors in adult sex movies had contracted HIV since 2004, when a previous outbreak led to efforts to protect pornography industry employees.
(snip)
Occupational health officials have long argued that failing to require that performers wear condoms during intercourse and [...]
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)The gang from Canada is at it again, reviewing human rabies cases from bats and trying to make some sense of the data.
(For a summary of their outstanding prior paper in CID, read this.)
But before we get to their latest masterwork, here are some questions to ponder. While doing so, keep in mind the practice [...]
(No Ratings Yet)As every house officer, hospitalist, intensivist, and ID doc knows, ceftriaxone and calcium have been contraindicated since 2007 due to fears of a potentially fatal precipitation of the two that led to the death of 5 neonates.
Pediatricians are fond of saying “kids are not small adults” (I should know), and if that’s true, it’s even [...]
(No Ratings Yet)A couple of interesting ID guidelines out this week. For those of you too busy with basketball, here are the relevant links:
Guidance for Control of Infections with Carbapenem-Resistant or Carbapenemase-Producing Enterobacteriaceae in Acute Care Facilities. Identified in 24 states and now found “routinely” in New York and New Jersey, these carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (”CPE” is much [...]
(No Ratings Yet)Ciprofloxacin-resistant Neisseria meningitidis has now been documented in the United States. Here’s a nice summary in Journal Watch, with two different perspectives.
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised, but it did take a while. (At least compared to that other famous neisseria-bug, Neisseria gonorrhoeae.)
Oh well.
Why is this important? As every practicing ID doc/primary care provider/public health [...]
