HIV and ID Observations

April 11th, 2011

Organ Transplants from HIV-Infected Donors

On the heels of last month’s report of HIV transmission from an organ donor — covered here in Journal Watch — comes this remarkable article in the New York Times about lifting the ban on organ donation from donors known to be HIV positive. Naturally, the first group of patients slated to receive these HIV positive […]

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March 18th, 2011

Friday Fosfomycins

Today’s ID/HIV comments and links are named after every ID specialist’s favorite new toy for UTIs. This HIV transmission from a kidney donor is getting quite a bit of media play, as such complications always do.  I was at a meeting this AM when one of my colleagues (an endocrinologist) commented how horrible she thought it […]

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March 1st, 2011

Like It or Not, PrEP Enters the Clinic

Since the publication of iPrEx, the hypothetical decision about whether to prescribe pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has become a practical reality. As a result, we’ve posted a case on the Journal Watch/AIDS Clinical Care site, describing someone who requests intermittent pre-exposure prophylaxis to prevent HIV. It’s a high-risk, HIV-negative man who’s been treated several times with post-exposure prophylaxis. The case […]

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February 14th, 2011

Pspring Training Pseudomonads

A few ID/HIV issues to ponder as we welcome back the most important sport in the universe: Interesting new Guidelines on UTIs from IDSA — especially their recommendations not to use fluoroquinolones for uncomplicated cystitis and to promote nitrofurantoin for 5 days to first-line for this indication. And welcome to fosfomycin — though this could eliminate one […]

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February 3rd, 2011

Disparities in HIV Diagnoses, and Interpreting CDC-ese

In anticipation of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (February 7), the CDC has issued a new report on the disparities in HIV diagnoses in the United States. During 2005–2008, blacks/African Americans accounted for 13.6% of the population in the 37 states and 50.3% of the 156,812 diagnoses of HIV infection during that period … HIV transmissions […]

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January 28th, 2011

Wow, That Was Fast: PrEP Guidelines Appear

With the ink barely dry on iPrEx — still tricky to type — along come “interim” guidelines from the CDC on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Based on the results [iPrEx], CDC and other U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) agencies have begun to develop PHS guidelines on the use of PrEP for MSM at high risk for HIV […]

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December 9th, 2010

Chronic Lyme Tough to Diagnose, Tough to Treat

Over at the Chicago Tribune, there is this superb review of the Chronic Lyme disease issue. Lyme disease is real. The bacterial infection, chiefly transmitted by deer ticks, can cause rashes, swollen joints and inflamed nerves, and usually is curable with a round of antibiotics. But doctors around the country are telling patients with common medical problems […]

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October 29th, 2010

With HIV Medication Adherence, It’s Not a Competition

There has been an irresistable urge for people — doctors, public health officers, politicians, journalists, the usual pundits — to compare adherence to HIV treatment in resource-rich vs. resource-limited setting.  I suspect this is because the whole issue got off to a famously bad start in 2001, when then-head of  the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Andrew Natsios […]

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August 3rd, 2010

HIV Testing: NY Makes Progress; Massachusetts … Not So Much

From the office of New York Governor David Paterson: The Governor signed into law S.8227/A.11487, which will allow patients to agree to HIV testing as part of a general signed consent to medical care that remains in effect until it is revoked or expires. The bill will also, among other things:  allow oral consent to an HIV […]

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June 2nd, 2010

Screening for Anal Cancer and the World’s Worst Job

In Journal Watch AIDS Clinical Care, we published a simple case:  Clinically stable HIV+ gay man, on HIV treatment; anal pap comes back with “atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance” (ASCUS). What to do with this result?  Two experts weighed in, Howard Libman and Joel Gallant.  In Howard’s thoughtful response, he acknowledges the limitations of the data thus […]

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