An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
March 8th, 2011
Really Rapid Review of CROI 2011 — and No CROI 2012 Dates
With CROI 2011 now officially over, I offer below the following Really Rapid Review™ for ID/HIV Specialists with limited time — or for those who said they went to the conference but spent the entire week shopping in the Prudential Mall and eating at Legal Seafood: Lots on PrEP. Bottom line — it works if you take […]
February 27th, 2011
CROI 2011 Starts Today
With a fresh 4 inches of snow on the ground in Boston, the 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) starts today. Pocket program is available here (PDF format). Based on a (very) quick perusal, we can expect the following: Progress (lots of it) in prevention, with more from CAPRISA and iPrEx and the whole “treatment […]
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 […]
January 20th, 2011
A New Antiretroviral Drug Class, and a Movie
In my email in-box today was a very odd press release, referring to this paper, just published in PLoS ONE. With the subject line, “Koronis – Clinical Trial Results Demonstrate Promise for First Non-suppressive HIV Drug,” it included the following information: Recently published Phase 2a clinical trial results show that the frequency of specific, drug-induced mutations in the […]
January 4th, 2011
HIV Year in Review Posted on Journal Watch
Want to catch up quickly in HIV clinical care? Forgive the bias, but the best strategy may well be to read our “Year in Review 2010” summary over on Journal Watch: AIDS Clinical Care. Always interesting to speculate what we’ll be choosing next year — I wouldn’t be surprised if progress in eradication (i.e., cure!) starts moving […]
December 22nd, 2010
Holiday Hafnias
Some items to consider in HIV/ID world as you dig into your salmonella-free holiday bird: Drug label change for stavudine (d4T): The label no longer has recommendations for dose-reduction in case of peripheral neuropathy, and cites data more strongly linking d4T use to lipoatrophy. The strategy of decreasing the dose to reduce d4T toxicity hasn’t made […]
December 17th, 2010
Update on Berlin Patient II: Still Cured of HIV
First, who was Berlin Patient I? Second, over in the journal Blood is the latest update on Berlin Patient II, the guy apparently cured of HIV by bone marrow transplantation: We have previously reported the case of an HIV-infected patient in whom viral replication remained absent despite discontinuation of antiretroviral therapy after transplantation with CCR5Δ32/Δ32 stem cells… In […]
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 an […]
July 19th, 2010
Vienna IAS: First (Really) Positive Microbicide Study
Big news from Vienna and Science, imminently: The CAPRISA 004 trial assessed effectiveness and safety of a 1% vaginal gel formulation of tenofovir, a nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor, for the prevention of HIV acquisition in women. A double-blind, randomized controlled trial was conducted comparing tenofovir gel (n = 445) with placebo gel (n = 444) in sexually active, HIV-uninfected 18- to 40-year-old women in […]
July 12th, 2010
Neutralizing AB and How to Interpret HIV Vaccine News
Lots of attention in the news media on the recent papers in Science that elucidate the structure and function of broadly neutralizing antibody to HIV. (Proof: a patient asked me about it today.) For example, here’s the take by the Wall Street Journal: HIV research is undergoing a renaissance that could lead to new ways to develop […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Contributing Editor
NEJM Journal Watch
Infectious Diseases
Biography | Disclosures | Summaries
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