HIV and ID Observations

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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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, […]

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November 25th, 2011

Childhood Meningitis Terrifying, Fortunately Very Rare

Back in fellowship, we used to discuss the various reasons why we’d be called back into the hospital at night when we were on call. Mind you, this was a fairly rare event, since unlike gastroenterology fellows doing emergency endoscopy for bleeding and cardiology fellows coming in to do the urgent cath, what were we […]

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November 14th, 2011

Here Are Two Things You Don’t Hear Together Very Often: Walmart and HIV

As the parent of teenagers (and having been one myself many years ago), I’m acutely aware that everyone wants to think that he or she is special in some way. And while that is literally true (that is, no two people are exactly alike), as anyone will tell you who looks up a Sunday Times crossword […]

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November 9th, 2011

HCV Treatment Studies at AASLD: Wow … and I Mean WOW!

I didn’t attend “The Liver Meeting” (the nickname for the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, AASLD), but the studies presented there this week on HCV treatment were absolutely mind-boggling. “Breathtaking!” said one of my HCV-oriented colleagues. “Hopeful is an understatement,” said another. An example: Dual Oral Combination Therapy […]

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November 7th, 2011

Can We All Agree That This Is Stupid? Thank You.

If this report isn’t an urban legend, then it’s pretty clear some people need a brain transplant: The Facebook group is called “Find a Pox Party in Your Area.” According to the group’s page, it is geared toward “parents who want their children to obtain natural immunity for the chicken pox.” …On the page, parents […]

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