HIV and ID Observations

August 3rd, 2011

Why the Proposed Massachusetts HIV Testing Bill is Bad for Patients

As I’ve written about here multiple times, I’m not a big fan of the HIV testing law in our state. First, there’s the requirement for written informed consent, something that every state (except a couple) has wisely abandoned. Second, it’s more than a testing law — it’s also an HIV privacy law, which is arguably unnecessary […]

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July 28th, 2011

Really Rapid Review — IAS 2011 Rome

Just back from IAS 2011 (which was followed, I’m thrilled to say, with a visit to perhaps the most beautiful region in the world). Here is a Really Rapid Review™ of the meeting, with apologies ahead of time for lack of organization and (even more likely) leaving out something important.  FYI, the abstracts are online […]

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July 20th, 2011

CROI 2012 Dates Now Official: March 5-8, Seattle

Good news for coffee lovers!

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July 13th, 2011

More Favorable Results on PrEP, But …

As part of the usual flurry of studies released just before major scientific meetings, results of two pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) trials in heterosexual men and women have just been made public: In the CDC TDF2 study, 1200 HIV-uninfected men and women in Botswana were randomized to take oral tenofovir/FTC or placebo daily. Tenofovir/FTC was found to reduce the […]

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July 12th, 2011

A Thank You to Nice Patients

Yesterday I saw one of my favorite long-term patients. She’s just wonderful, and it’s always a joy to see her. Here are some reasons: She’s uniformly nice — not just to me, but to all the nurses and social workers and other support staff in our clinic. She shows up on time for her appointments. Love […]

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July 5th, 2011

Unofficial CROI 2012 Dates: March 4-10, in Seattle

No, there’s nothing up yet (as of July 5, 2011) on the official CROI web site. But someone was kind enough to send me this link that lists upcoming meetings in Seattle.  Here’s an extract: Note that only those events with green shading are “Definite.” And since these dates haven’t yet been confirmed by the CROI-meisters, it’s […]

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June 19th, 2011

Abacavir Agonistes

The studies on abacavir and its potential association with increased cardiovascular risk have been inconsistent ever since the news first broke at CROI 2008. But recently the data have been swirling around so fast and furious that it seems appropriate to take out this famous Greek epithet. A summary of some recent notable studies: An FDA meta-analysis […]

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June 15th, 2011

Hockey Helicobacters

Today’s ID/HIV items come to you courtesy of a winter game being played during a summer month: So it appears that community-based care of HCV augmented by telemedicine is just as good as traditional clinic visits to specialists. My first thought on reading this important paper is that there are undoubtedly lots of ways to incorporate […]

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June 13th, 2011

More on Generic Antiretrovirals …

In the recent post on the approval of generic Combivir — and the lack of availability of generic Epivir (lamivudine, 3TC), which was both anticipated and likely to be more useful — I speculated there were several possible causes of this surprising turn of events. But ultimately I concluded, “In sum, the real reason there’s no generic […]

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June 4th, 2011

HIV Epidemiology and Something Even Many Smart Medical Students Don’t Know

Periodically I like to give an informal quiz to the medical students about HIV epidemiology. It’s a multiple choice question that goes something like this: Based on the recent epidemiology of HIV in the United States, in what group are new cases of HIV infection rising the fastest? Men who have sex with men (MSM) Injection drug […]

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