HIV and ID Observations

October 12th, 2009

AIDS Vaccine: Maybe not Effective After All

Well, that didn’t take long: Researchers from the U.S. Army and Thailand announced last month they had found the first vaccine that provided some protection against HIV. But a second analysis of the $105 million study, not disclosed publicly, suggests the results may have been a fluke, according to AIDS scientists who have seen it. In short, […]

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October 5th, 2009

No Baseball Tonight

“Are you writing another funny blog post because there’s no baseball?” asks my son J. As “funny” is very much in the eye of the beholder, that remains to be seen.  But here are a few things on my mind the last few days: No data supporting N95 over surgical masks for flu.  One huge logistical issue […]

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September 24th, 2009

HIV Vaccine Study Shows Promise …

So says this press release by the US Military HIV Research Program: A Phase III clinical trial involving more than 16,000 adult volunteers in Thailand has demonstrated that an investigational HIV vaccine regimen was safe and modestly effective in preventing HIV infection. According to final results released by the trial sponsor, the U.S. Army Surgeon General, […]

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September 18th, 2009

Integrase Inhibitors: In Search of an Abbreviation

The alphabet soup that characterizes HIV therapeutics has always been one of its quirky challenges — for example, who could possibly know that 3TC, CBV, TZV, EPZ, and LAM all refer to drugs that are (or contain) lamivudine? This drives our ID fellows nuts, and is certainly a strong deterrent to non-HIV specialists to learning the field. […]

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September 16th, 2009

News Flash: The Internet Cannot Replace an Actual Human

Interested in researching the cause of AIDS?  Well go ahead and give NetBase Solutions’ healthBase a try, but don’t expect much in the way of filtering: One of the most unfortunate examples is when you type in a search for “AIDS,” one of the listed causes of the disease is “Jew.” Really. The ridiculousness continues. […]

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September 12th, 2009

49th ICAAC Starts Today

Browsing through the program book, I see these topics extensively covered: H1N1 and seasonal flu, in all their glory — transmission, pathogenesis, treatment, predictions Highly resistant GNR — acinetobacter, carbapenemases, ESBL, etc. MRSA — my personal favorite C diff — though perhaps a little less this year? While no one expects ICAAC to be an HIV-focused […]

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September 2nd, 2009

Etravirine Warning

From the FDA Advisory: There have been postmarketing reports of cases of Stevens-Johnson syndrome, toxic epidermal necrolysis and erythema multiforme, as well as hypersensitivity reactions characterized by rash, constitutional findings, and sometimes organ dysfunction, including hepatic failure. Intelence therapy should be immediately discontinued when signs and symptoms of severe skin or hypersensitivity reactions develop. These rare — […]

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August 26th, 2009

Late Summer Odds and Ends: Circumcision, H1N1 Vaccine, Lyme Movie, etc.

A few ID/HIV items to cover before summer “unofficially” ends (Sept 1?  Kids back at school?  Labor Day?): Will US Public Health officials recommend infant male circumcision to prevent HIV?  They might be considering such a move, but I suspect it will not be strongly promoted.  After all, none of the studies demonstrating its efficacy have […]

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August 20th, 2009

The V.A. Opts Out

Read all about it here: As of August 17, 2009, written (signature) consent is no longer required for HIV testing in the VHA. Instead, patients will provide verbal informed consent prior to HIV testing. Furthermore, scripted pre-test and post-test counseling are no longer mandated. Since the VA is the largest HIV provider in the nation — […]

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August 14th, 2009

Who Gets Toxoplasmosis in the United States?

This might seem bizarre, but one of the reasons I chose to go into Infectious Diseases as a field was the names of the diseases (and often the micro-organisms that caused them) sounded so darn cool. For example, if you were a science fiction writer you could hardly come up with a better-sounding name for a […]

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