HIV and ID Observations

June 25th, 2016

ID Cartoon Caption Contest Closed — Time to Vote

The response to our First Ever ID Cartoon Caption Contest was gratifyingly brisk, with hundreds of entries. Not going to lie about this — we were somewhat concerned the response would be silence … you know, as in <<crickets>> … but you readers proved very much up to the task, with numerous funny suggestions. Our sophisticated computer algorithm has […]

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June 19th, 2016

ID Cartoon Caption Contest

The New Yorker magazine is justifiably famous for its fine writing, with its contributors a veritable Who’s Who of famous authors and journalists of the past century. Truman Capote, Ann Beattie, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, John Updike, Dorothy Parker, E.B. White, Philip Roth, Alice Munro, John Hersey, Malcolm Gladwell, Roger Angell, James Thurber … you […]

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May 30th, 2016

The Sanford Guide — 46 Editions Later, Still Going Strong

I recently had a chance to visit Portland, Oregon, which for many will conjure up images of bicycles, hipsters, Mount Hood, roses, organic everything, and craft beers. It’s also the lifelong home of Dr. David Gilbert, the lead editor of The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy, an invaluable resource well-known to almost every clinician. Dave was kind […]

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May 8th, 2016

Zika, Baseball, and Waiting for a “New Normal”

I received an email from someone who’s known me a very long time. Hint:  She’s known me longer than anyone. Literally. Here’s the email: Baseball cancelled in Puerto Rico because of Zika. This story has you written all over it. (To use a cliche.) Mom I told you she knew me well! For those not obsessed with this silly game to […]

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April 2nd, 2016

You Too Can Have Fun with Academic Spam

Like most doctors who work at academic medical centers, I get a fair amount of “academic spam” — invitations to bogus meetings that take place in some exotic or at least warm place (China, Dubai, and Orlando are favorites), efforts to sell me monoclonal antibodies or, more recently, CRISPR-altered mice, and of course requests to contribute research papers or […]

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March 27th, 2016

One-Week-to-Baseball ID Link-o-Rama

(Important note:  Title has nothing to do with this post’s content. I just felt like writing something about baseball.) As some of us eagerly await the start of the 2016 baseball season — especially Cubs fans — here are some ID/HIV items yearning to shag flies, toss around the horsehide, and play some pepper: Famous anti-vaxxer — and notorious scientific fraud — […]

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March 15th, 2016

Dogs Again Are Brilliant Diagnosticians

The reputation of dogs in the ID world got a big boost when Dutch researchers published this remarkable study of Cliff — a beagle who was trained to “diagnose” C diff using his superior olfactory abilities. (A couple of entertaining videos here, if you can’t get enough of this stuff. I can’t.) Now, in the pages of Open Forum Infectious Diseases (IDSA’s […]

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March 9th, 2016

Approval of TAF/FTC/RPV, Another Single Pill HIV Treatment Option

The approval last week of TAF/FTC/RPV — that’s coformulated tenofovir alafenamide, emtricitabine, and rilpivirine — brings us another one-pill, once-daily option for HIV treatment. It’s essentially the same as the existing TDF/FTC/RPV, with similar pros/cons, but with three notable differences coming with the substitution of TAF for TDF. Specifically: Likely reduced renal and bone toxicity. Since approval was based on bioequivalnce, this hasn’t […]

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February 28th, 2016

Really Rapid Review — CROI 2016, Boston

The Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) returned to Boston last week, bringing together over 4000 HIV researchers and clinicians from all over the world. And note I put “researchers” first — this is certainly the only conference I attend where we are asked to list published papers as part of the registration process! You can […]

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February 7th, 2016

Twelve Zika Questions, One ID Doctor’s Answers (Sort Of)

Got a Zika question? Welcome to the club — once again, as with any “new” or “emerging” infection, this is uncharted territory, and there are plenty of answers to these questions that could be summarized with 3 words: We Don’t Know. But never mind that — ever-intrepid ID doctors are most assuredly called upon as experts, even […]

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