HIV and ID Observations

January 20th, 2011

A New Antiretroviral Drug Class, and a Movie

In my email in-box today was a very odd press release, referring to this paper, just published in PLoS ONE.  With the subject line, “Koronis – Clinical Trial Results Demonstrate Promise for First Non-suppressive HIV Drug,” it included the following information: Recently published Phase 2a clinical trial results show that the frequency of specific, drug-induced mutations in the […]

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January 11th, 2011

Revised DHHS Guidelines, and Some Thoughts on Guidelines in General

As another major snow storm barrels in on us, you might have time over the next 24-48 hours to make some hot chocolate, throw some logs on the fire, and read the spanking-new 2011 Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) HIV Treatment Guidelines, just posted here on the AIDSinfo web site. (Disclosure: I’m on the […]

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January 4th, 2011

HIV Year in Review Posted on Journal Watch

Want to catch up quickly in HIV clinical care? Forgive the bias, but the best strategy may well be to read our “Year in Review 2010” summary over on Journal Watch: AIDS Clinical Care. Always interesting to speculate what we’ll be choosing next year — I wouldn’t be surprised if progress in eradication (i.e., cure!) starts moving […]

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December 22nd, 2010

Holiday Hafnias

Some items to consider in HIV/ID world as you dig into your salmonella-free holiday bird: Drug label change for stavudine (d4T):  The label no longer has recommendations for dose-reduction in case of peripheral neuropathy, and cites data more strongly linking d4T use to lipoatrophy.  The strategy of decreasing the dose to reduce d4T toxicity hasn’t made […]

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December 17th, 2010

Update on Berlin Patient II: Still Cured of HIV

First, who was Berlin Patient I? Second, over in the journal Blood is the latest update on Berlin Patient II, the guy apparently cured of HIV by bone marrow transplantation: We have previously reported the case of an HIV-infected patient in whom viral replication remained absent despite discontinuation of antiretroviral therapy after transplantation with CCR5Δ32/Δ32 stem cells…  In […]

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December 13th, 2010

My (Second) Favorite Journal Switches Publishers

I absolutely love the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. It’s easily my second-favorite journal. (Can you guess my favorite? Perhaps this new “About this blog” section will give you a hint.) But back to CID — here’s why I love it: Great content.  Seems every issue has fascinating studies, usually of great clinical relevance to the field of Infectious […]

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December 9th, 2010

Chronic Lyme Tough to Diagnose, Tough to Treat

Over at the Chicago Tribune, there is this superb review of the Chronic Lyme disease issue. Lyme disease is real. The bacterial infection, chiefly transmitted by deer ticks, can cause rashes, swollen joints and inflamed nerves, and usually is curable with a round of antibiotics. But doctors around the country are telling patients with common medical problems […]

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December 1st, 2010

World AIDS Day: See You in Kuala Lumpur

A few random thoughts on this 2010 World AIDS Day. Now you can mark your calendars for the next three International AIDS Society/World AIDS Meetings:  2011 in Rome, 2012 in Washington, DC — and now, 2013 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  And what do all 3 of these cities have in common?  Extreme summer heat!  (For Kuala Lumpur, it’s actually […]

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November 29th, 2010

Once-daily Raltegravir “Not Non-Inferior” to Twice-Daily

In your electronic in-box this AM, this press release from Merck: … although the treatment regimen that included ISENTRESS once daily enabled more than 80 percent of patients to achieve viral suppression, ISENTRESS once daily did not demonstrate non-inferiority to the treatment regimen that included ISENTRESS twice daily. Merck said that based on the initial results, […]

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October 29th, 2010

With HIV Medication Adherence, It’s Not a Competition

There has been an irresistable urge for people — doctors, public health officers, politicians, journalists, the usual pundits — to compare adherence to HIV treatment in resource-rich vs. resource-limited setting.  I suspect this is because the whole issue got off to a famously bad start in 2001, when then-head of  the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Andrew Natsios […]

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