HIV and ID Observations

February 22nd, 2022

A Personal Tribute to Dr. Paul Farmer — Who Made Everyone Feel Important

Paul Farmer’s unexpected death this weekend has all of us who knew him reeling. This just should not happen to someone so generous, so important, and so visionary about helping others — especially others who, due to being born in impoverished life circumstances, can’t help themselves. This is not fair at all. We’re heartbroken. The tributes will […]

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February 12th, 2022

The Rise and Fall of Ivermectin — 1 Year Later

Here’s a confession few board-certified ID doctors will make — there was a brief period when I thought ivermectin could very well be an effective treatment for COVID-19. It wasn’t when the in vitro data first came out. Therapeutic concentrations were not achievable in humans. Nor when the anecdotal reports started pouring in, and sometimes making news. […]

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February 4th, 2022

Prior COVID-19 Is No Guarantee of Immunity

I’m no immunologist — a fact made vividly obvious to me several years ago when asked to teach a weekly medical student section that included cases and problem sets. The challenge was that the course combined immunology and microbiology. I was on much firmer ground with the microbiology than the immunology, the latter often a wonderfully […]

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January 12th, 2022

The Pandemic Life of an ID Doctor — in Graphic Form

Three works of art sit on my father’s desk in his office, gifts from his children from when we were in grade school. From my brother Ben, there’s a little bear, or perhaps it’s some other burly quadruped — easily a B+ in his art class from the 1960s, likely an A- now with grade inflation. A […]

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December 30th, 2021

Omicron and Reduced Severity of COVID-19 — Some Good News We Desperately Need

We’ve been burned so many times making predictions about COVID-19 that I should post this conspicuously by my computer: The famous pundit meant, of course, that “you don’t know anything” — we know his true intentions since he also said “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” The “know nothing” quotation is a reminder that COVID-19 is […]

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December 20th, 2021

Believe It or Not, We Already Have a Highly Effective Outpatient Antiviral Treatment for COVID-19

And that treatment is … (drum roll) … remdesivir. Yes, you heard me right. Remdesivir, the very same antiviral with a checkered history in COVID-19 clinical trials, with some studies showing efficacy (sort of), others not much of anything. What’s the truth here? For that, let’s turn to what gets my vote for the most unheralded highly favorable […]

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December 15th, 2021

Do We Need to Remind People that COVID-19 Is Truly Awful?

Last month, I read a deeply harrowing description of what it’s like to be hospitalized with severe COVID-19. I strongly urge you to read the full thread: https://twitter.com/CRStoli/status/1458600993621430272?s=20&t=km6XxJ5IDsQGQKsygjXfWg Something about the plain, direct language he uses to describe the patient experience hits home here like few other depictions I’ve read — it rings true in so […]

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December 13th, 2021

ID Learning Units from Inpatient ID Consults

Need a break from all-things COVID-19? Feeling OH-verwhelmed by OH-muh-kron? (I guess that’s how some pronounce it … or AWE-mee-kron… or oh-MIKE-ron … or who knows. Two things for sure — there’s no “n” after the “m”, and it’s a drag regardless of how it’s pronounced.) To cheer everyone up, here’s a palate cleanser of non-COVID-19 ID Learning Units […]

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December 6th, 2021

Omicron and the Quest for “Negative Capability”

Wow, that was quite the depressing post-holiday week in ID Land. For that, we can thank the new villainous variant, Omicron, which arrived ironically just as most of us here in the United States sat down to celebrate something approaching a “normal” Thanksgiving for the first time in two years. Oh yes indeed, thank you very much […]

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November 12th, 2021

Time to Simplify the COVID-19 Vaccine Policy — Authorize a Booster Dose for Anyone Who Wants One

At this point in the post-vaccine era of the pandemic, we all know people who have had COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated. Patients, coworkers, family, friends. The reason these breakthroughs are so common is now obvious — our initial vaccine strategies did not provide durable protection against infection. And recognition of this fact prompted the FDA […]

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