HIV and ID Observations

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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October 12th, 2010

Worlds Collide: Roberto Alomar and HIV

Now that a second woman has accused Roberto Alomar of having HIV, it’s probably time to give this sad story a look-over.  After all, how often do these two worlds of mine — HIV/ID (work) and baseball (lifetime hobby — my wife would say that’s a collosal understatement) actually meet? For those unfamiliar with the basics:  Alomar was […]

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October 7th, 2010

Post-Halladay Video Treat: Prospects for HIV Cure

For a little entertainment between playoff games — but how could anyone beat the guy in the picture? — you might want to check out this interview I did with Dan Kuritzkes about the prospects for an HIV cure. So which do you think we’ll see first — an HIV cure or a vaccine?  And I don’t mean an […]

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October 1st, 2010

Five Friday Fasciolas

As we await either the start of the baseball playoffs (or Spring Training), here is some ID/HIV content to consider, in no particular order: Could adenovirus infection be the cause of obesity?  That would be the media take, especially from this highly-esteemed research journal, The New York Daily News. (Warning:  kind of ugly photo in link.)  […]

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August 30th, 2010

Required Reading: In Love and “Serodiscordant”

Being of a certain age, my wife and I still subscribe to the print version of the Sunday New York Times.  Since we also get the local rag, quite a bit of paper is deposited on our doorstep each week. Worth it?  You bet, especially since occasionally there’s a gem in there like this week’s Modern […]

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August 3rd, 2010

HIV Testing: NY Makes Progress; Massachusetts … Not So Much

From the office of New York Governor David Paterson: The Governor signed into law S.8227/A.11487, which will allow patients to agree to HIV testing as part of a general signed consent to medical care that remains in effect until it is revoked or expires. The bill will also, among other things:  allow oral consent to an HIV […]

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July 30th, 2010

Perinatal Transmission of HIV “Solved” — Now How Do We Pay For It?

Conspicuously absent from this year’s International AIDS Conference were major studies on prevention of maternal-to-child transmission. It could be that I just missed them, so I emailed a colleague who specializes in the area, and she concurred: Nope, did not see or hear major PMTCT updates at IAS. The thing is, this problem has been all but solved, […]

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July 19th, 2010

Vienna IAS: First (Really) Positive Microbicide Study

Big news from Vienna and Science, imminently: The CAPRISA 004 trial assessed effectiveness and safety of a 1% vaginal gel formulation of tenofovir, a nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor, for the prevention of HIV acquisition in women. A double-blind, randomized controlled trial was conducted comparing tenofovir gel (n = 445) with placebo gel (n = 444) in sexually active, HIV-uninfected 18- to 40-year-old women in […]

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