HIV and ID Observations

January 22nd, 2012

Generic Lamivudine Has Arrived

An e-mail from a patient last week: Just got refills. Epivir is now generic???  Refill is simply labeled Lamivudine Tablets by Aurobindo Pharma USA, Inc …but made in India.  Should I be concerned about that??? John I told John (not his real name) not to be concerned — he is merely substituting the generic for the […]

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January 18th, 2012

ID Case Conference Discussant Types

We specialists in Infectious Diseases love case conferences — especially those where the case is presented as an “unknown”, and we try to figure out the diagnosis from the history. I suppose this isn’t very surprising, since ID cases in general are already among the most interesting in all of medicine. Those that are case-conference-worthy are […]

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January 8th, 2012

Journal Club: In Early HIV Infection, Little Reason to Delay Therapy

Every experienced HIV clinician will recognize the following new-patient scenario: At least one, but often several negative HIV antibody tests in the past, generally due to being in a “high risk” group. Recent non-specific viral-type illness that, in hindsight, was undoubtedly acute HIV infection, undiagnosed. Now completely recovered, but found to be newly HIV antibody positive. […]

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January 4th, 2012

How Does Herpes Treatment Trigger a Positive Test for Performance-Enhancing Drugs?

Here’s my guess on how many of this blog’s readers know the following “facts”: Acyclovir and related drugs are used to treat herpes: nearly 100% Ryan Braun, superstar left fielder for the Milwaukee Brewers, is facing a 50 game suspension for testing positive for elevated levels of a “banned substance”, most likely testosterone: 10% Braun has […]

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January 3rd, 2012

Prevnar Now Approved for Adults — But Should We Start Using It?

From the FDA (and thanks to Physician’s First Watch for reporting the news): Prevnar 13, a pneumococcal 13-valent conjugate vaccine, was approved today by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for people ages 50 years and older to prevent pneumonia and invasive disease caused by the bacterium, Streptococcus pneumoniae. As shown in multiple studies, Prevnar has dramatically […]

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December 24th, 2011

Making a List and Checking it Twice, Then Making Sure 052 is On It

How big a news story was HPTN 052, which demonstrated that HIV treatment reduced transmission by at least 96%? (I like to emphasize that “at least” bit, since it’s likely that none of the study subjects with undetectable HIV RNA levels transmitted to their partners — the one case that did transmit did so before virologic suppression.) […]

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December 14th, 2011

No HIV in Pepsi? Now THAT’S a Relief

How reassuring to be treated with the following news: An SMS has been circulating that Pepsi products are contaminated with HIV but Permanis Sandilands Sdn Bhd has clarified that this is a hoax. Its marketing vice-president Hemalatha Ragavan said there was no truth to it. She urged people not to believe such claims. I have a couple of […]

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December 8th, 2011

Big TB Prevention Study Important, Highly Relevant — Even Here

As I’ve noted before, tuberculosis is disappearing from the United States — which means that the bulk of cutting-edge research in TB (both clinical and basic science) has little relevance to US-based practitioners. But over in NEJM, a much-anticipated TB study is published today that is highly relevant: We conducted an open-label, randomized noninferiority trial comparing 3 […]

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December 1st, 2011

World AIDS Day Wanderings

Some quick HIV and ID Observations (better blog title anyone?) for this 2011 World AIDS Day: Through meticulous, painstaking research that took me all of 10 seconds, I’ve learned that the first World AIDS Day was in 1988. What ever did we do before the internet? Looks like New York City’s health department  is following San […]

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November 29th, 2011

HIV Cure Makes the NY Times — Anything New to Report?

It’s right there, on page 1 of today’s Science Times: Medical researchers are again in pursuit of a goal they had all but abandoned: curing AIDS.  Until recently, the possibility seemed little more than wishful thinking. But the experiences of two patients now suggest to many scientists that it may be achievable. Two patients? What, did I […]

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