HIV and ID Observations

February 4th, 2009

Brush with Greatness: Bruce Walker

Bruce Walker has just received a $100 million grant from Terry and Susan Ragon to start a vaccine research institute, with a focus on finding an HIV vaccine. The news of this gift (which as you can imagine has been floating around these parts for some time) is all the more remarkable since it comes […]

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February 1st, 2009

Whither PEPFAR?

Mark Dybul will no longer be running the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, the multi-billion dollar international program for HIV treatment program started by Bush in 2003. Some are happy.  Others are not. (Note the exquisite use of euphemism — he was “required to submit his resignation“, not “fired.”) Experts on global HIV treatment […]

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January 29th, 2009

Too Many Options: What Actually Happened

We recently published a case in AIDS Clinical Care entitled “Too Many Options”, describing a patient with longstanding HIV infection, virologic failure, and resistance to NRTIs, NNRTIs, and PIs. Fortunately, resistance and tropism testing gave him several options for a new drug regimen — including darunavir, etravirine, maraviroc, enfuvirtide, and — if one believes phenotypic NRTI […]

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January 17th, 2009

Salmonella, CDC, and How to Prevent a Cold

Today’s ID/HIV Link-o-Rama is being brought to you from the frozen tundra of Boston, MA: This past summer’s salmonella outbreak that sickened more than 1000 people was linked to raw jalapeno and serrano peppers.  In the current one, the suspected culprit is contaminated peanut butter.  Aside from the fact that raw hot peppers and peanut butter in […]

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January 13th, 2009

Can We Have “Too Many Options?”

As part of our regular series “Antiretroviral Rounds” in AIDS Clinical Care, today we post a case of a highly treatment-experienced patient with dreaded “triple class” resistance — that is, resistance to NRTIs, NNRTIs, and PIs. The good news now, of course, is that we have more than these three drug classes. The tough part is choosing […]

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January 4th, 2009

Top Stories in HIV Medicine

Happy New Year! In the spirit of list-making that seems to permeate the world right about this time, we’ve just published our own list over at AIDS Clinical Care.  Check it out — our editorial board this year did a superb job of summarizing the field. I have a strong feeling that next year’s version will have […]

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December 29th, 2008

Required Reading: Introducing the “iPatient”

Many HIV/ID specialists first heard of Abraham Verghese from his book My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story, which was published in 1994.  He told us what it was like to be a newly-minted ID doctor, thrust into treating the first cases of HIV/AIDS in a remote town in Tennessee during the mid-1980s. Compelling stuff — I […]

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December 10th, 2008

Unintended Consequences of ART “Rollout”

According to this BBC article, teenagers in South Africa are grinding up antiretrovirals and then smoking them for their “hallucinogenic and relaxing effect”.  (Apologies for the pun on the title.) It’s impossible to tell with a report like this how widespread the practice is, but it’s potentially worrisome.  And no mention in the article which antivirals are being used, […]

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December 5th, 2008

New Case Definition for HIV Infection? Yawn …

The CDC has revised its case definition for HIV infection and AIDS, so that now laboratory evidence — a positive antibody test, or detectable HIV RNA or DNA – is required for the diagnosis. It’s not intended to guide clinical practice, but still — what took them so long?  A clinical diagnosis of AIDS was only necessary […]

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December 4th, 2008

More Support for HIV Screening

On Monday December 1 — World AIDS Day, if you’re keeping track — the American College of Physicians released a position paper supporting routine HIV screening for adolescents and adults in the United States.  (If you don’t want to read the whole thing, we’ll have a perfectly-executed summary by the inimitable Abbie Zuger on our AIDS Clinical […]

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