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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(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 [...]
(6 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)The early 1990s has potentially many associations — the break-up of the Soviet Union, the first Gulf War, the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings, The Lion King, Forest Gump, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and the cancellation of the baseball season, to name a few. But we HIV/ID specialists will [...]
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Want to catch up quickly in HIV clinical care? Forgive the bias, but the best strategy may well be to read our “Year in Review 2010” summary over on Journal Watch: AIDS Clinical Care. Always interesting to speculate what we’ll be choosing next year — I wouldn’t be surprised if progress in eradication (i.e., cure!) [...]
(6 votes, average: 4.83 out of 5)Could there be anything more interesting than the start of the baseball season? Maybe, because this is quite something: In a major shift of HIV treatment policy, San Francisco public health doctors have begun to advise patients to start taking antiviral medicines as soon as they are found to be infected, rather than waiting — sometimes [...]
(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)No end-of-year wrap-up is complete without a “Top 10″ list, and Journal Watch: AIDS Clinical Care is no exception. This year we did two lists, one chosen by the Editors, the other a numeric tally of what’s read on line by the Readers. The “When to start” issue was the top story from the Editors. [...]
(6 votes, average: 3.83 out of 5)First the updated WHO Guidelines. Then the following: Updated DHHS Guidelines. Agree? Disagree? Sensible or crazy? Practical or ivory-tower academic? South Africa does the right thing. Yes, it’s about time, but good news nonetheless. 2012 International AIDS Meeting in Washington, D.C. First time in USA in a long, long time — 1990, to be exact [...]
(4 votes, average: 3.25 out of 5)This just in: WHO is now recommending that ART be initiated at a higher CD4 threshold of 350 cells/mm3 for all HIV-positive patients, including pregnant women, regardless of symptoms. Which makes eminent sense, of course. Because if starting HIV therapy might prolong survival in developed countries, why shouldn’t it do the same in the developing [...]
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Emphatically yes — to the tune of >600,000* years of life gained nationwide. So says a nifty paper being presented at the annual IDSA meeting today by Mike April, under the direction of Rochelle Walensky. (*Original abstract said 549,437, cited in the link; number at the actual presentation, though, was 609,656.) Bottom line is that [...]
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)Remember the HIV vaccine trial press release? The one announcing the first-ever positive result? Then the backlash, with people questioning how the analyses were done, and reported? Now, less than a month later, we have the scientific presentation and the paper appear on the same day. Read all about it here and here. If you [...]
(No Ratings Yet)Well, that didn’t take long: Researchers from the U.S. Army and Thailand announced last month they had found the first vaccine that provided some protection against HIV. But a second analysis of the $105 million study, not disclosed publicly, suggests the results may have been a fluke, according to AIDS scientists who have seen it. [...]
