HIV and ID Observations

October 2nd, 2018

Winner of Latest Cartoon Contest Proves Again That We ID Specialists Are a Different Breed

It is with a mixture of professional pride and embarrassment that I hereby present the winner of our last ID Cartoon Caption Contest: Yikes. Talk about inside jokes. Though the second-place finisher “Ah, no, I prescribed the AEROSOLIZED, not PARASOL-ized form” mounted a late charge, the geeky reference to Listeria monocytogenes and its “umbrella motility” held out for the win. […]

---

September 23rd, 2018

Picking Your Next ID Journal Club Paper? MERINO or POET Trial? Two ID Fellows Debate

Late afternoon/early evening at an academic medical center. Bright young doctors sit in a hospital workroom, putting the finishing touches on what are undoubtedly the most comprehensive and, yes, simply the best consult notes in their respective patient’s electronic medical records.  Best ever. ID Fellow #1:  Hey, pretty soon we have to do Journal Club, right? ID […]

---

September 16th, 2018

Supermarket Chain CEO Defends High Prices of Water, Salt, and Other Items as a “Moral” Requirement

Inspired by recent events in antibiotic pricing. SACRAMENTO, CA. The head of a national supermarket chain is defending a recent substantial increase in the price of water, salt, and other food and kitchen essentials, arguing that this change is the equivalent of a “moral” requirement. Last month, iFoods Plus Stores announced that common low-cost items such as […]

---

September 9th, 2018

Doravirine Sets a New Standard for NNRTIs — But What Role in HIV Treatment Today?

The HIV drug class called “non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors,” or NNRTIs, must have something of an inferiority complex. First, anything defined by what it is not is already in trouble. Believe me, hepatitis C was thrilled when it could shed the “non-A, non-B hepatitis” label. Second, despite their high antiviral potency and good tolerability, the NNRTIs have […]

---

September 3rd, 2018

Eravacycline Approved by FDA — How Might It Be Used, Today and in the Future?

While last week the world was sunning on the beach, hiking in the woods, eating ice cream, and performing careful tick-checks, the hard workers at the Food and Drug Administration hunkered down in Silver Spring, Maryland to get three anti-infectives approved — eravacycline, doravirine, and doravirine/TDF/3TC. Maybe they saw the weather reports — hot and humid, this […]

---

August 23rd, 2018

Eye Worm, MALDI-TOF, New Lyme Testing Approach, Dogs Fail as C. diff Testers, Uiyk (?), and More — A Summer Is Getting Shorter ID Link-o-Rama

A recent chilly spell here in Boston recalled a universal truth about aging — that summer seems to get shorter every year. As far as I can tell in my unscientific poll of everyone who will engage with me on this topic, there are no exceptions to this rule. Everyone thinks summer is shorter than when […]

---

August 12th, 2018

Apologies, Our E-Mail Notifications Are Not Reliably Going Out

Last week, I wrote something I really wanted my long-time friend and colleague, Susan Larrabee, to read. Susan is the HIV social worker-extraordinaire I’ve been working with for a million years, give or take a few. The piece covered how rewarding it is to care for people with HIV. If anyone could affirm that view, it’s Susan. […]

---

August 5th, 2018

Why Caring for People with HIV Is Still Great

Earlier this year, I wrote a piece about friends and colleagues of mine who have left HIV clinical practice. Something about it touched a nerve. It’s one of the most commented-on pieces in the history of this blog. Read this for a typical response. Admittedly, it was kind of a downer — but it might have been […]

---

July 29th, 2018

Really Rapid Review — International AIDS Conference 2018, Amsterdam

The International AIDS Conference — or “AIDS 2018” — returned to Amsterdam for the first time since 1992. It’s worth pausing, with gratitude, to remember that 26 years ago antiretroviral therapy consisted of three available drugs — zidovudine (AZT), didanosine (ddI), and zalcitabine (ddC). All were marginally effective, with limited durability and significant toxicity. In fact, the […]

---

July 22nd, 2018

FDA Approves First PI-Based Single-Tablet Treatment for HIV — How Will It Be Used?

The latest HIV drug approval from the FDA came this past week with the release of a single-tablet treatment containing the following drugs: Darunavir (DRV) 800 mg Cobicistat (c) 150 mg Emtricitabine (FTC) 200 mg Tenofovir alafenamide (TAF) 10 mg Often abbreviated “DCF-TAF,” this is the first full treatment regimen in a single pill with a […]

---