HIV and ID Observations

May 22nd, 2025

Why the Latest FDA Actions on COVID Vaccines Are Both Sensible and Controversial

In case you missed it, last week the FDA granted full approval for the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine. This vaccine, which uses a more traditional protein-plus-adjuvant strategy instead of the mRNA approach of Pfizer and Moderna, is no longer in “Emergency Use Authorization (EUA)” limbo. Here’s what that means in practical terms: It shows the data the company […]

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May 18th, 2025

How ID Doctors Get Paid — The Bread, Butter, and Budget Deficits of Infectious Diseases

Two decades ago, Dr. Atul Gawande wrote a memorable piece for The New Yorker about how doctors in the United States get paid. Providing a nice mix of self-reflection about his own experience and some skillful reporting, he described the challenging process of figuring out what he, a newly hired surgeon, should earn for a salary. […]

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May 7th, 2025

FDA’s Latest Appointment Is … Interesting

Those of us who follow infectious diseases and vaccine science closely (OK, obsessively) know that the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) plays an enormous role in public health. Vaccines, gene therapies, monoclonal antibodies, blood products — all pass through CBER on their path to approval. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this center became […]

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April 30th, 2025

On-Service ID Link-o-Rama — Osmosis Edition

First-year ID fellows this time of year bring a lot to inpatient consult rotations. Years of high-volume inpatient care have sharpened their clinical instincts, and at this point they have an impressive fund of ID knowledge. Plus, the fellow on our current rotation gets along great with everyone — patients and consulting clinicians alike — […]

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April 18th, 2025

SNAP Trial Helps Resolve Long-Running Controversies Over Management of Staph Bacteremia

For those who do hospital-based patient care, the significance of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) cannot be overstated. It’s one of the most frequent reasons for infectious disease consultations — and for good reason: when mismanaged or complicated, it can lead to high morbidity, a myriad of complications, and a disturbingly high mortality rate. Despite its clinical […]

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April 11th, 2025

Looking Back at a Defunct ID Meeting — and Ahead to a Thriving One

Back in prehistoric times, many ID doctors and microbiologists would gather each fall at a meeting to review the latest antimicrobial clinical trials and promising “bug-drug” studies of novel compounds in development. The meeting was called the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, abbreviated ICAAC. There were a bunch of problems with ICAAC. First, […]

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April 3rd, 2025

Gepotidacin — New Antibiotic or Rare Tropical Bird?

Imagine you’re birdwatching in the Costa Rican rainforest, Merlin app in hand. A flash of iridescent blue catches your eye. You scan the canopy and whisper excitedly: Look, it’s the elusive Blujepa! A rare sighting! No, not a real bird, but the brand name of gepotidacin, something rarer — and arguably more exciting — than […]

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March 22nd, 2025

Really Rapid Review: CROI 2025 San Francisco

Wow, that was an interesting conference — in ways both good and bad. The good part was the content, as the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) is our leading HIV research conference. There was plenty of interesting stuff. The not-so-good part was the stunned state of many HIV clinicians and researchers. So much of […]

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March 5th, 2025

What Is the Future of Treatments for COVID-19?

In this raging flu season, where people with influenza-related illness outnumber those with COVID-19 for the first time since the pandemic hit in 2020, we might be fooled into thinking that we no longer need better treatments for COVID-19. This would be a mistake — this virus still causes much misery, peaking each winter but […]

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February 27th, 2025

Tragic Childhood Death from Measles Reminds Us That Some Don’t Understand Either the Medical Significance or the Human Heart

My ID colleague Dr. Adam Ratner, Chief of Pediatric ID at NYU Medical Center, just published an insightful and remarkably timely book called Booster Shots:  The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health. Chapter Six is entitled “Making Nothing Happen,” and it starts off with this especially profound paragraph: Prevention can be a […]

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