HIV and ID Observations

April 10th, 2012

A Skeptical Look at “Test and Treat”

Over in Journal Watch AIDS Clinical Care, Abbie Zuger has written a fascinating perspective on the recent enthusiasm for universal HIV treatment. Her take? Let’s just say she doesn’t share the enthusiasm of public health officials and members of guidelines committees. Well, that’s a huge understatement. Specifically: This strategy, which calls for universal voluntary HIV testing and […]

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March 27th, 2012

Latest Guidelines Recommend HIV Treatment for All

From the key “What’s New in the Guidelines” section of today’s Department of Health and Human Services update: ART is recommended for all HIV-infected individuals. The strength of this recommendation varies on the basis of pretreatment CD4 cell count. This recommendation replaces a rather confusing categorization on when to start ART that, not surprisingly, was widely misinterpreted — […]

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March 22nd, 2012

More Confusion on Anal Cancer Screening

Screening for anal cancer in men who have sex with men (MSM) — with pap smears, high resolution anoscopy, with whatever test — is quite the quagmire. As I’ve mentioned before, the proponents of screening cite the success of cervical cancer screening and the startling high rates of anal cancer among HIV+ MSM as reason enough […]

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March 1st, 2012

Post-Exposure Prophylaxis, the World’s Most Outdated HIV Guidelines, and What To Do About Them

Every time I cover HIV prevention in a lecture, it’s always kind of embarrassing to cite the “official” post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) guidelines, which are here (non-occupational) and here (occupational). That’s right, they were last updated in 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina. Yes — more than six years ago. The alternative choices seem particularly curious (read: don’t do […]

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February 23rd, 2012

Hepatitis C and the “Retooling” of HIV/ID Specialists

The news that hepatitis C (HCV) has passed HIV as a cause of death in the United States got quite a bit of attention when it was first presented last year at ICAAC — and no doubt the published paper, in this week’s Annals of Internal Medicine, will also cause a stir. In fact, I boldly predict […]

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February 10th, 2012

Boceprevir – PI Interaction: A “Dear Doctor” Letter We Didn’t Want To Get

By now I’m sure that most of you ID folks out there have received the following letter from Merck, the makers of boceprevir: URGENT — IMPORTANT DRUG WARNING: VICTRELIS (BOCEPREVIR) The purpose of this communication is to inform you of recent pharmacokinetic study results evaluating drug interactions between VICTRELIS, an oral chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3/4A […]

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February 3rd, 2012

More on Low (but Detectable) Viral Loads — Is Knowing This Useful?

I have a very smart, very experienced colleague — clue, his initials are CC, and he doesn’t pitch for the Yankees — who continues to use bDNA testing for HIV viral load monitoring. You know, the assay with a lower limit of detection of 75 copies. He knows that bDNA is less sensitive than PCR. He knows […]

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January 29th, 2012

Pre-Super Sunday Scombroids

Some quick ID/HIV links while we await big guys playing the big game with a big (or at least bigger) ball. Did you see how this doctor cheated Medicaid out of more than $700,000 by prescribing HIV meds to people who didn’t have HIV? Not surprisingly, he’s going to jail. Proof that if there’s money behind a […]

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January 22nd, 2012

Generic Lamivudine Has Arrived

An e-mail from a patient last week: Just got refills. Epivir is now generic???  Refill is simply labeled Lamivudine Tablets by Aurobindo Pharma USA, Inc …but made in India.  Should I be concerned about that??? John I told John (not his real name) not to be concerned — he is merely substituting the generic for the […]

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January 8th, 2012

Journal Club: In Early HIV Infection, Little Reason to Delay Therapy

Every experienced HIV clinician will recognize the following new-patient scenario: At least one, but often several negative HIV antibody tests in the past, generally due to being in a “high risk” group. Recent non-specific viral-type illness that, in hindsight, was undoubtedly acute HIV infection, undiagnosed. Now completely recovered, but found to be newly HIV antibody positive. […]

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