An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
August 22nd, 2008
We have met the enemy … and it is MRSA
In Jerry Groopman’s recent New Yorker piece on antibiotic-resistant bacteria, he quotes Dr. Louis Rice from the Cleveland VA, who uses the term “ESKAPE” bacteria: an acronym for Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumanni, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter. Nothing against the mostly gram-negative nasties in this list (and the focus of the New Yorker […]
August 8th, 2008
More from Mexico City
A bit more travelogue from the XVII International AIDS Conference: It’s impossible to see everything you want at such a large, sprawling conference, sometimes because of conflicting meetings, sometimes because the room is full, sometimes because of a feeling analagous to being in a giant museum for too many hours — fatigue just takes over. But […]
July 29th, 2008
Antiretroviral Rounds: Immediate ART After an OI — Are We There Yet?
A few things have been guaranteed to get widely divergent views among HIV specialists — and one of them was when to start antiretroviral therapy in someone presenting with an acute OI. However, in the latest Antiretroviral Rounds, our two experts (Raphy Landovitz and Phil Grant/Andrew Zolopa) kind of agreed. They’d start immediately. At least that’s […]
July 25th, 2008
Word salad: Jalapenos, abacavir, doripenem, and PAVE
Some miscellaneous recent items from the ID/HIV world jumbling around this Friday: Tomatoes are off the hook — it’s the jalapenos that likely caused the recent salmonella outbreak. Since this is the only time of year that tomatoes are even edible in this part of the world, I for one am quite relieved. I am sure […]
July 19th, 2008
“Floxins” and the black-box warning: Anyone notice? Anyone care?
Fluoroquinolones — the “floxins”, every medical house officer’s favorite antibiotic class — will carry a black-box warning about the risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture. We’ve known about this side effect for years, why now the change? In FDA speak: FDA’s recent evaluation of the medical literature and the post-marketing adverse event reports submitted to […]
July 11th, 2008
M184V: So many options, but does that include TDF/FTC/EFV?
Co-formulated TDF/FTC/EFV (Atripla) is a nifty bit of pharmacologic packaging (ever so much more so since it involves collaboration between two different pharmaceutical companies, ahem) — and our patients have noticed. All of us who practice HIV medicine have been asked for the “one pill” treatment; often these requests make sense, sometimes they don’t. It’s easy to […]
July 6th, 2008
HIV Testing: The Bronx is Up …
So the New York City Public Health Department would like to have every adult living in the Bronx tested for HIV. The Times coverage of the effort cites the best reason for reason for such a move — the high death rates from the disease, and the cause: Public health officials attribute this [the deaths] to […]
June 29th, 2008
And Now… The “Answer”
Last month, I wrote a post inviting responses to our Antiretroviral Rounds case in AIDS Clinical Care, and inviting you to respond. It was a case of someone with (mostly) undetectable HIV RNA levels, but lots of resistance detected when he had to stop meds due to pancreatitis. I also promised to tell you how […]
June 15th, 2008
Curbside Consults: What are They Worth?
Below is a friendly email exchange I had last week with with one of our hospital’s primary care providers: Dear Paul, do you know anything about whether pts should be given prophylactic antibiotics prior to dental procedures etc. if they have an indwelling IV catheter? I have a pt. who has a BardPort porta cath […]
June 2nd, 2008
Zoster Vaccine Guidelines — Official Answers, but Still Some Questions
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has just released the “official” guidelines for use of the zoster vaccine. And none too soon — if I had a dollar (or these days, make that a euro) for every curbside consult I’ve received about the zoster vaccine … The vaccine’s indications are simple — age over […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Contributing Editor
NEJM Journal Watch
Infectious Diseases
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