An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
December 3rd, 2017
Why, Even with Depressing Predictions About Flu Vaccine Effectiveness, We Should Still Recommend and Get It
Each year, the print and broadcast media round up a bunch of experts on influenza and ask them to predict the severity of the upcoming flu season. Most of the time their responses are noncommittal — predicting how bad the flu season will be year to year is tricky business, akin to picking stocks, making 12-month […]
October 17th, 2015
Dear Flu Vaccine: Please Improve!
Dear Flu Vaccine, As the supply of you and your brethren have arrived in our clinics, on our hospital floors, and in pharmacies, I thought it would be a good time to reach out and tell you how to get better. That’s right — here, free of charge, is a to-do list for how you can improve. Understand, I’m one of your top […]
August 17th, 2015
Dog Days of Summer ID Link-o-Rama
A few ID/HIV items of note to consider as you gather up your sunscreen, flip flops, towels, and sand toys and head off to the beach: Interesting review of the impact of low socioeconomic status in the recent outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease in the South Bronx. It’s just like (almost) every infection — the combined effects of crowding, poor sanitation, and […]
January 28th, 2015
Quick Question: Should We Still Be Recommending This Year’s Flu Vaccine?
From a football-obsessed primary care provider, written to me on one very snowy day in New England: Hi Paul, I’ve been reading about this year’s flu vaccine, and how ineffective it is. Not surprisingly, my patients have been hearing this too, and it has only increased their reluctance to go through with it. Should I just […]
January 11th, 2013
How to Make the Flu Vaccine More Popular, Warts and All
In a week that saw both our hospital’s influenza-induced bed crunch make the New York Times, and my son, mother-in-law, and me succumb to this seasonal plague despite our receiving flu shots, I have been highly attuned to all things influenza. But the focus here will be on that perennial whipping boy of preventive Infectious Diseases, the […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Contributing Editor
NEJM Journal Watch
Infectious Diseases
Biography | Disclosures | Summaries
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