HIV and ID Observations

January 26th, 2011

Insurance Company Cheese Shop Redux

I had an interesting exchange with one of our nurses this week about a long-term patient of ours. The e-mails went something like this: Got a fax from —-‘s insurance that his Lipitor won’t be covered anymore.  They will cover simvastatin, lovastatin, and pravastatin.  Let me know what you want to do. Charlie He’s on darunavir, and […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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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October 12th, 2010

Worlds Collide: Roberto Alomar and HIV

Now that a second woman has accused Roberto Alomar of having HIV, it’s probably time to give this sad story a look-over.  After all, how often do these two worlds of mine — HIV/ID (work) and baseball (lifetime hobby — my wife would say that’s a collosal understatement) actually meet? For those unfamiliar with the basics:  Alomar was […]

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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 […]

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August 30th, 2010

Required Reading: In Love and “Serodiscordant”

Being of a certain age, my wife and I still subscribe to the print version of the Sunday New York Times.  Since we also get the local rag, quite a bit of paper is deposited on our doorstep each week. Worth it?  You bet, especially since occasionally there’s a gem in there like this week’s Modern […]

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