HIV and ID Observations

August 20th, 2013

Underreporting of Lyme Disease No Surprise, but a Big Problem

In a welcome update, CDC just presented revised data on the number of Lyme Disease cases annually in the United States. Here are the key facts: Cases reported by clinicians: 30,000 Estimated number of cases using additional information from insurance claims, laboratories, and patient reports: 300,000 Go ahead, check my math — that’s a whopping 10:1 […]

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August 12th, 2013

Dolutegravir Approval Signals a Beginning and the End of Something Very Special

As anticipated, the FDA approved dolutegravir today for HIV treatment, the third integrase inhibitor now available. This was about as surprising as the arrival of Royal Baby Prince George. We knew dolutegravir was coming soon, just not exactly when or what it would be named. Here’s a short list of the data we have thus far on this drug […]

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August 6th, 2013

Nelson Cruz and Yet Another ID-Baseball Link

Texas slugger Nelson Cruz is one of the Biogenesis gang just suspended from baseball for use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). For those who care about these things, he’s also probably the most important player from the banned list, since he’s 1) very good and 2) on a team in contention for a playoff spot. For those who […]

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August 1st, 2013

Poll: Will There Be A Shortage of HIV Providers?

Over on NEJM Journal Watch — love that new name — I reviewed a paper on the demographics of people living with AIDS in San Francisco. Bottom line — more than half are now older than 50. Implication — that’s so old! First, it really isn’t, unless you compare it to the dismal era 20+ years ago, when […]

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July 29th, 2013

CROI 2014: March 3-6, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, North America, Earth

Ok, that’s one mystery solved. (We’ll do our best to have the ice and snow cleared away by then, but no promises — New England weather is the very definition of unpredictable.) And now that we know the CROI 2014 dates, here’s some good news:  I hear they’re working on getting the 2015 dates squared away as well. If […]

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July 20th, 2013

There’s No US News & World Report Infectious Diseases Ranking — Is That A Good Thing?

As the internet burns through traditional print media, decimating anything paper in its path, several odd things have happened beyond simply putting those newspapers, magazines, and journals out of business. For example, Gourmet was subsumed into Bon Appetit — who could have predicted that? PLoS One and its ilk were born. And what about the hard-copy […]

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July 7th, 2013

Almost Annual Whine About No CROI Dates, and a New Temporary (I Hope) CROI Website

Believe or not, sometimes we know a year in advance the dates of the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI). For example, we learned at the beginning of CROI 2010 that in 2011, it would take place February 27-March 3 — in Boston no less. Yay! (The meeting was a bit shorter, but it did in fact […]

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July 3rd, 2013

First Year ID Fellows — What Do They Learn, and What Do They Hate?

In the weird calendar of academic medical centers, July 1 is the “official” first day of school. In our ID program, however, we shifted it to July 5 a few years ago to avoid the interruption of the July 4 holiday at the beginning of the year. On July 3 — today — our incoming first-year […]

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June 27th, 2013

Testing Out the New Website with an ID Link-o-Rama

Hey, new website is live! Interested to hear what you think about our new-ish look. In celebration, here are some quick ID/HIV tidbits that have recently crossed my path, or have been sitting in my inbox for a while, dying to get out: Doxycycline shortage. Hardly anything more frightening to a New England ID doc than a shortage […]

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June 20th, 2013

Let’s Move the HIV Testing Algorithm Into the 21st Century

As I’ve written before, the most widely used testing algorithm for HIV — enzyme immunoassay followed, if positive, by Western blot confirmation — is long overdue for an update. A brief review why this is the case, and also why sticking with it is so problematic: Immunoassays have become progressively more sensitive, especially when paired with p24 […]

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