HIV and ID Observations

August 24th, 2020

FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization for Convalescent Plasma for COVID-19 Seems To Be Fooling No One

Starting late Saturday night, and proceeding the next day — like a relentless series of coming attractions for a blockbuster summer movie or the finale of a reality TV series — we repeatedly heard word that the President planned to make an announcement Sunday evening about a “major therapeutic breakthrough” in treatment of COVID-19. 6 p.m. […]

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August 16th, 2020

Picking the Top Internet ID Resources, and a Wistful Look Back at the CDC That Was

Over on Open Forum Infectious Diseases — and that’s abbreviated “O-F-I-D”, not “Oh-fid”, thank you — I sometimes invite other ID-types to join me on a podcast to pick their favorite ID-related item: Examples of these mock “drafts”: Antibiotics Landmark HIV research papers Expired antimicrobial brand names And some time this past winter (a million years ago), […]

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August 9th, 2020

Rapid Home Testing for Contagious COVID-19: How to Make It Happen

You know that feeling when you have an aha moment. If you’re not familiar with the phrase, we can’t do better than our friends from Merriam-Webster: aha moment (noun):  a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension This is how I felt when research revealed three key findings related to COVID-19 transmission: A small number […]

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August 4th, 2020

Carbapenems and Pseudomonas, Lyme and Syphilis Testing, a Bonus Point for Doxycycline, and Some Other ID Stuff We’ve Been Talking About on Rounds

As noted multiple times, many of us ID doctors attend on the general medical service. This offers us a chance to broaden our patient care activities and to work with medical students, interns, and residents. Boy, that’s fun! Yes, those of us who attend on medicine enjoy it enormously, though the experience humbles us on a daily […]

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July 26th, 2020

Time to Amplify Our Voices Calling for Inexpensive Rapid Home Testing for COVID-19

Earlier this month, I highlighted how inexpensive rapid home testing for COVID-19 could get us out of this mess faster than a vaccine. To spare you re-reading the whole thing, here are the main points. Imagine a simple test done on a saliva sample placed on a paper strip. Results back in 15 minutes. Available without a […]

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July 19th, 2020

Reaching Out to ID Doctors in COVID-19 Hot Spots — You Must Be Truly Exhausted

For us ID doctors in most of the northeastern United States (and Chicago and Detroit and some other northern cities), March and April hit us like a giant wave of never-ending calls, pages, emails, and crises. With COVID-19 case numbers increasing every day, the challenges crashed down on us in an endless torrent of hospital needs […]

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July 15th, 2020

Really Rapid Review — AIDS 2020 Virtual

The International AIDS Conference — or AIDS 2020 — shifted from its Bay Area dual locations of San Francisco and Oakland to be entirely online. Digital. In the cloud. Virtual. The primary motivation for the switch was to show off what the numerous tech giants in the region could do with this fancy thing called the World […]

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July 5th, 2020

Rapid, Inexpensive Home Testing for COVID-19 May Get Us Out of This Mess Before a Vaccine

As cases of COVID-19 continue to climb to record numbers, it might seem impossible that something is already out there that could dramatically reduce new infections — and even bring us back to some semblance of normal life. I’m not referring to a vaccine. It’s a rapid, inexpensive home test. You’re forgiven for being incredulous. Indeed, you […]

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June 28th, 2020

Is COVID-19 Different in People with HIV?

From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of most common questions I’ve received has been whether COVID-19 has different clinical manifestations in people with HIV. Would it be more lethal since people with HIV have impaired immune systems? Or milder since some of the damage in severe cases is immunologically mediated? Or would it be similar, […]

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June 21st, 2020

Dexamethasone Improves Survival in COVID-19 — Why This Should Be Practice Changing Even Before the Paper is Published

When the news broke last week that the dexamethasone component of the RECOVERY randomized clinical trial was halted because those receiving the drug were significantly more likely to survive, I posted the following: – Very welcome news, dex is cheap, widely available!– Demonstrates the power of RCTs vs obs studies, which were conflicting– How will the […]

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