HIV and ID Observations

April 10th, 2013

Simeprevir and Sofosbuvir Submitted to FDA — Clock Ticking on Boceprevir, Telaprevir, Even Interferon

Two weeks, two companies, two press releases, two future HCV drugs that begin with “S”: March 28, 2013: Janssen Research & Development announced that it has submitted a New Drug Application to the FDA seeking approval for simeprevir (TMC435), an investigational NS3/4A protease inhibitor, administered as a 150 mg capsule once daily with pegylated interferon and ribavirin for the […]

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April 5th, 2013

Another “Important Advance” in HIV Vaccine Research?

On reading this other real news about a single patient and how it may shape the future of HIV vaccine research, I decided to write the following fake news, drawing liberally on many similar stories over the years: Scientists today reported a discovery that could finally pave the way for an effective AIDS vaccine. In the study, published […]

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April 2nd, 2013

Banner Day for ID on Physician’s First Watch, and a Big Pitch to Sign Up Now

Every weekday morning, right around the time the rest of my family gets up, the smart people at Physician’s First Watch send me an email listing the top medical news stories of the day. Imagine my delight yesterday when the following were deemed worthy for specific mention: Coccidioidomycosis! Valley fever cases on the rise in the USA. You […]

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March 28th, 2013

Poll: How Often Do You Measure CD4 Cell Counts?

Over in Clinical Infectious Diseases, a recent study pretty much nails the fact that routine measurement of CD4 cell counts in clinically stable patients is an all but useless exercise.  As summarized by Abbie Zuger in Journal Watch, here’s the key finding: When patients with an unrelated cause for an alteration in CD4-cell count such as […]

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March 23rd, 2013

ID Doctors, Pets in the Medical History, and a Cute Puppy

One of the things Infectious Disease doctors get teased about by our non-ID colleagues is our inclusion of pets in medical histories. It’s part of the social history, where we list a grab bag of  potential “exposures” that increase the risk of infection — where someone is from, what they do, plus travel, dietary practices, sex, […]

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March 15th, 2013

Tom Seaver Has Lyme Disease, and the Baseball, ID, and Wine Trifecta

In my never ending quest to link up various passions in life — especially baseball and Infectious Diseases — I bring you this news story: But for Seaver, after months of private denial, the scariest incident came when his head vineyard worker, who has been with him for seven years, came into the house one morning. […]

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March 5th, 2013

Exploring the Media Fascination with the Baby Cured of HIV

As undoubtedly you’ve heard by now, there’s another person cured of HIV out there — this time, it’s a baby born to an HIV-infected mother. Here’s the story: The mother didn’t know she was HIV positive until delivery, and the baby was found to be infected by both HIV DNA and RNA right at birth. […]

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March 3rd, 2013

It’s Not Safe Sex If You’ve Just Had the Smallpox Vaccine

One of my more memorable teachers used to love warning us about the hazards of sex. No, this wasn’t in my 8th grade health class — this was during my first year of Infectious Diseases fellowship, and the teacher was one of our highly experienced attending physicians, now retired. To him, sex carried limitless infectious risks. He […]

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February 24th, 2013

Solve This Problem Please — Microbiology Results in Electronic Medical Records

Our hospital and affiliated practices have had electronic medical record (EMRs) of some sort for decades, so I’ve had my chance to try my hand at multiple “platforms,” both commercial and home-brew. (Weirdly — and I kid you not on this — a version of the first iteration from the 1980s is still around, running parallel […]

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February 13th, 2013

Medication Adherence: The Final Frontier

Treatment of HIV has become so amazingly effective that when it fails, it’s no overstatement to say that it’s usually because the patient is not taking the medications.  There are all kinds of provider-related reasons for this — inadequate patient education, prescribing and dispensing errors, failure to address language or education deficits — but here […]

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