HIV and ID Observations

August 8th, 2012

Must-Read Piece: “Imagine a World Without AIDS”

With all the hoopla at last month’s International AIDS Conference about ending AIDS and curing AIDS and bringing us an AIDS-free generation, there was plenty of ink spilled on the topic. Ironically, the attention the meeting received was inversely proportional to its scientific content, which was actually fairly light on a content-per-day scale. The meeting probably […]

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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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September 30th, 2009

The Battle for Colonic Microflora

My two favorite newspapers (New York Times and Wall Street Journal — sorry, hometown paper) have just covered opposite ends of a topic on the edges of ID practice — namely, colonic micro-organisms. Too few? Too many? Wrong type? In the Times, a review of the probiotic debate: Probiotics are live micro-organisms that work by restoring the balance of intestinal […]

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September 25th, 2009

MRSA in Pets

As every card-carrying ID specialist knows, hardly anything is more common these days than patients with — and questions about — methcillin-resistant Staph aureus, or MRSA. And one question I’ve been hearing increasingly these days is “Could I be getting my recurrent infection from Rufus?” To which the answer is, unfortunately, yes. (I had a dog named Rufus.  […]

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June 20th, 2009

More HIV in the Adult Film Industry (Maybe)

From the New York Times last week: Health officials in Los Angeles said Friday that 22 actors in adult sex movies had contracted HIV since 2004, when a previous outbreak led to efforts to protect pornography industry employees. (snip) Occupational health officials have long argued that failing to require that performers wear condoms during intercourse and other […]

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