HIV and ID Observations

April 11th, 2025

Looking Back at a Defunct ID Meeting — and Ahead to a Thriving One

Back in prehistoric times, many ID doctors and microbiologists would gather each fall at a meeting to review the latest antimicrobial clinical trials and promising “bug-drug” studies of novel compounds in development. The meeting was called the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, abbreviated ICAAC. There were a bunch of problems with ICAAC. First, […]

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April 3rd, 2025

Gepotidacin — New Antibiotic or Rare Tropical Bird?

Imagine you’re birdwatching in the Costa Rican rainforest, Merlin app in hand. A flash of iridescent blue catches your eye. You scan the canopy and whisper excitedly: Look, it’s the elusive Blujepa! A rare sighting! No, not a real bird, but the brand name of gepotidacin, something rarer — and arguably more exciting — than […]

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March 5th, 2025

What Is the Future of Treatments for COVID-19?

In this raging flu season, where people with influenza-related illness outnumber those with COVID-19 for the first time since the pandemic hit in 2020, we might be fooled into thinking that we no longer need better treatments for COVID-19. This would be a mistake — this virus still causes much misery, peaking each winter but […]

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February 14th, 2025

This Year Influenza Came Back to Remind Us It’s Not Messing Around

If it seems like pretty much everyone you know either has the flu or is recovering from it, it’s because we’re in the middle of the worst flu season in over a decade. Take a look at this figure, from our state’s surveillance data, updated yesterday: The result of all this “influenza-like illness”? Patients are deluging outpatient […]

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January 25th, 2025

Let’s Hope the MMWR Resumes Publication Sooner Rather Than Later

To us specialists in Infectious Diseases, there are certain verities we hold near and dear to our hearts: Antibiotics are miracle drugs, but the bugs will become resistant if we don’t use them responsibly. Certain childhood vaccines (e.g., measles, polio, H flu type B) stand as some of the greatest scientific accomplishments in human history. To […]

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January 11th, 2025

Ten Interesting Things About Norovirus Worth Knowing

For reasons unclear to all, we’ve had quite the run (!) on norovirus cases in the United States this winter. Seems like everyone knows someone who’s been taken down by this nasty illness, and this crowd of miserable people includes one of my medical school classmates, a good friend who texted us about her experience. Thanks […]

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January 3rd, 2025

On the Inpatient ID Consult Service, Oral Antibiotics Have a Rocky Road to Acceptance

Having just completed a stint doing inpatient ID consults, I came away impressed with three things: Staph aureus remains the Ruler of Evil Invasive Pathogens in the hospital setting. You can “jinx” a holiday season by saying it’s usually quiet on Christmas. This year it sure wasn’t quiet, hoo boy. Some surgeons aren’t ready to accept […]

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December 28th, 2024

Notes from a Trip to China

Here are some observations from a recent trip to China, a country I’d never visited before. It was an 8-day trip related to my editor role at Clinical Infectious Diseases (there is a Chinese edition) and my particular area of focus within Infectious Diseases (HIV), so I’ll start with some epidemiology and medical stuff and […]

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December 12th, 2024

Dr. Thomas O’Brien — Expert in Antimicrobial Resistance and Giant in His Field (Literally)

Dr. Thomas (Tom) O’Brien was born in January 1929, in between the discovery of penicillin (September 1928) and the publication of the findings in a medical journal (May 1929). As noted by his longtime mentee Dr. John Stelling, Tom physically embodied the antibiotic era — quite appropriate for someone best known for his groundbreaking work […]

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December 8th, 2024

Who’s Going to Get Lenacapavir for HIV Prevention?

At the International AIDS Conference this past summer, Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker brought down the house presenting the results of the PURPOSE 1 trial of twice-yearly injectable lenacapavir for prevention of HIV in women. The results — zero infections out of over 2000 participants — demonstrated clear superiority over oral PrEP with TDF/FTC. The study simultaneously […]

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