An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
November 7th, 2009
A Career in Infectious Diseases and “The Next Big Thing”
I was working with a medical intern in clinic this past week who is potentially interested in ID. After seeing our 3rd consecutive stable HIV patient, he asked me what I thought the next big challenge would be in our field — especially since HIV treatment has been “solved.” “Solved” might be stating it a bit […]
January 29th, 2009
Too Many Options: What Actually Happened
We recently published a case in AIDS Clinical Care entitled “Too Many Options”, describing a patient with longstanding HIV infection, virologic failure, and resistance to NRTIs, NNRTIs, and PIs. Fortunately, resistance and tropism testing gave him several options for a new drug regimen — including darunavir, etravirine, maraviroc, enfuvirtide, and — if one believes phenotypic NRTI […]
December 10th, 2008
Unintended Consequences of ART “Rollout”
According to this BBC article, teenagers in South Africa are grinding up antiretrovirals and then smoking them for their “hallucinogenic and relaxing effect”. (Apologies for the pun on the title.) It’s impossible to tell with a report like this how widespread the practice is, but it’s potentially worrisome. And no mention in the article which antivirals are being used, […]
October 27th, 2008
Antibiotics as Placebos?
This article in the BMJ is geting lots of news: Out of 679 practicing physicians in the United States, about half admitted to prescribing placebos on a regular basis. A “small but notable proportion (13%) of physicians reported using antibiotics.” My first instinct was surprise that the rate was this low, but then I remembered that public […]
May 21st, 2008
When Expert Clinicians Disagree
Periodically, in AIDS Clinical Care, we publish a case in the “Antiretroviral Rounds” section and ask two clinical experts in our field how they would manage such a patient. The most recent case elicited responses that were 180 degrees different. (This is exactly what we’re after, by the way — why present a case in which […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Contributing Editor
NEJM Journal Watch
Infectious Diseases
Biography | Disclosures | Summaries
Learn more about HIV and ID Observations.
NEJM Journal Watch — Recent Infectious Disease Articles- Rising Rates of Perinatal HIV: Maryland, 2022
- Do Children Need a Booster of Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine?
- Infection with Tecovirimat-Resistant Mpox Virus Is on the Rise in the U.S.
- Kidney Transplantation: Offering HOPE for Those with HIV
- Observations from ID and Beyond: Brave New Name — How PCP Became PJP and Why It Matters