HIV and ID Observations

December 11th, 2016

You Want Guidelines? We Got Guidelines!

About a million years ago — in other words, probably sometime during my ID fellowship — I asked transplant ID guru Bob Rubin how various ID guidelines came together, including one on antifungal therapy he had just led. “You lock a bunch of experts in a hotel conference room,” he said. “Provide them plenty of food and coffee. […]

---

July 14th, 2016

Must-Read Item: This Year’s JAMA HIV/AIDS Issue

The folks over at the Journal of the American Medical Association have been doing a periodic HIV/AIDS themed issue for years, generally around the time of the International AIDS Conference. The latest issue is out this week, and it’s terrific. Here are some highlights: In serodiscordant couples practicing “condomless sex”, there were zero transmissions if the infected partner […]

---

March 1st, 2012

Post-Exposure Prophylaxis, the World’s Most Outdated HIV Guidelines, and What To Do About Them

Every time I cover HIV prevention in a lecture, it’s always kind of embarrassing to cite the “official” post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) guidelines, which are here (non-occupational) and here (occupational). That’s right, they were last updated in 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina. Yes — more than six years ago. The alternative choices seem particularly curious (read: don’t do […]

---

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 […]

---

December 2nd, 2009

So Much in Less than a Week!

First the updated WHO Guidelines.  Then the following: Updated DHHS Guidelines.  Agree?  Disagree?  Sensible or crazy?  Practical or ivory-tower academic? South Africa does the right thing.  Yes, it’s about time, but good news nonetheless. 2012 International AIDS Meeting in Washington, D.C. First time in USA in a long, long time — 1990, to be exact — […]

---

November 30th, 2009

WHO HIV Treatment Guidelines Updated

This just in: WHO is now recommending that ART be initiated at a higher CD4 threshold of 350 cells/mm3 for all HIV-positive patients, including pregnant women, regardless of symptoms. Which makes eminent sense, of course.  Because if starting HIV therapy might prolong survival in developed countries, why shouldn’t it do the same in the developing world? In fact, […]

---