An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
February 12th, 2012
Impossible Curbside at Medical Grand Rounds
Scene: Medical Grand Rounds, 5 minutes before the start. Lecture is on coronary artery disease, which may have a link to Infectious Disease even if it isn’t actually caused by Chlamydia pneumoniae or CMV after all. A well-regarded, experienced primary care physician (PCP) approaches. PCP: Hi Paul, I have quick question*. [*Curbsiders often use this exact phrase — […]
January 29th, 2012
Pre-Super Sunday Scombroids
Some quick ID/HIV links while we await big guys playing the big game with a big (or at least bigger) ball. Did you see how this doctor cheated Medicaid out of more than $700,000 by prescribing HIV meds to people who didn’t have HIV? Not surprisingly, he’s going to jail. Proof that if there’s money behind […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Contributing Editor
NEJM Journal Watch
Infectious Diseases
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