HIV and ID Observations

December 6th, 2010

Tough Diagnoses: Neurosyphilis, Then and Now

During Thanksgiving, my brother-in-law — who is a professional musician and also a passionate history buff — gave me a scholarly paper to review on the strange death of the famous American explorer Meriwether Lewis, of “Lewis and Clark” fame. The bottom line?  Lewis may well have had neurosyphilis — at least that’s the premise of […]

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December 1st, 2010

World AIDS Day: See You in Kuala Lumpur

A few random thoughts on this 2010 World AIDS Day. Now you can mark your calendars for the next three International AIDS Society/World AIDS Meetings:  2011 in Rome, 2012 in Washington, DC — and now, 2013 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  And what do all 3 of these cities have in common?  Extreme summer heat!  (For Kuala Lumpur, it’s […]

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November 29th, 2010

Once-daily Raltegravir “Not Non-Inferior” to Twice-Daily

In your electronic in-box this AM, this press release from Merck: … although the treatment regimen that included ISENTRESS once daily enabled more than 80 percent of patients to achieve viral suppression, ISENTRESS once daily did not demonstrate non-inferiority to the treatment regimen that included ISENTRESS twice daily. Merck said that based on the initial […]

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November 17th, 2010

Ferlater Antibiotics

In this absolutely hysterical, laugh-out-loud comedy routine, Mal Z. Lawrence describes a woman at a Catskill hotel, piling danish into her handbag. She calls them “ferlater danish” — as opposed to the ones she’s eating at breakfast, those are “fernow.” Did you ever have one of your patients request “ferlater” antibiotics?  That is, ask that […]

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November 4th, 2010

XMRV and CFS: More Yay and Nay

Does XMRV cause Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?  Or more accurately, is it even associated with CFS? I’ve been putting off writing about this for a while, as I knew colleagues of mine had a paper in press on the topic, and I wanted the dust to settle a bit more on the controversy. But of course […]

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October 22nd, 2010

How to Figure Out the Length of Antibiotic Therapy

One thing we ID doctors know — that other clinicians simply don’t — is how long to treat a patient with antibiotics. I was reminded of this special power by these recent events: An excellent fellow from the hospital’s Critical Care program rotated through our division recently.  When asked about what she wanted learn from the […]

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October 12th, 2010

Worlds Collide: Roberto Alomar and HIV

Now that a second woman has accused Roberto Alomar of having HIV, it’s probably time to give this sad story a look-over.  After all, how often do these two worlds of mine — HIV/ID (work) and baseball (lifetime hobby — my wife would say that’s a collosal understatement) actually meet? For those unfamiliar with the basics:  Alomar […]

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October 7th, 2010

Post-Halladay Video Treat: Prospects for HIV Cure

For a little entertainment between playoff games — but how could anyone beat the guy in the picture? — you might want to check out this interview I did with Dan Kuritzkes about the prospects for an HIV cure. So which do you think we’ll see first — an HIV cure or a vaccine?  And I don’t mean […]

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October 1st, 2010

Five Friday Fasciolas

As we await either the start of the baseball playoffs (or Spring Training), here is some ID/HIV content to consider, in no particular order: Could adenovirus infection be the cause of obesity?  That would be the media take, especially from this highly-esteemed research journal, The New York Daily News. (Warning:  kind of ugly photo in […]

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September 17th, 2010

What Are These Conferences?

With ICAAC now completed — which took place in a city called Boston but seemed far, far, from home (see picture) — it seems timely to inquire about another form of “scientific” conference. Every so often, I’ll receive an email like this (slightly edited to protect the sender, whomever he or she may be): Dear […]

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