An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
May 18th, 2011
HIV Exceptionalism and the Department of Unintended Consequences
Quick question: If there were one piece of information — clinical or lab — that you would use to determine the quality of care in an HIV program, what would it be? (Choose one.) Rates of influenza vaccine administration Receiving PCP prophylaxis with CD4 < 200 Adherence counseling before starting antiretroviral therapy Baseline toxoplasmosis serology Proportion of […]
January 1st, 2010
Top 10 Stories of the Year
No end-of-year wrap-up is complete without a “Top 10” list, and Journal Watch: AIDS Clinical Care is no exception. This year we did two lists, one chosen by the Editors, the other a numeric tally of what’s read on line by the Readers. The “When to start” issue was the top story from the Editors. The big […]
October 31st, 2009
Would Changing Restrictive HIV Testing Laws Improve Survival?
Emphatically yes — to the tune of >600,000* years of life gained nationwide. So says a nifty paper being presented at the annual IDSA meeting today by Mike April, under the direction of Rochelle Walensky. (*Original abstract said 549,437, cited in the link; number at the actual presentation, though, was 609,656.) Bottom line is that laws that […]
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, […]
December 5th, 2008
New Case Definition for HIV Infection? Yawn …
The CDC has revised its case definition for HIV infection and AIDS, so that now laboratory evidence — a positive antibody test, or detectable HIV RNA or DNA – is required for the diagnosis. It’s not intended to guide clinical practice, but still — what took them so long? A clinical diagnosis of AIDS was only necessary […]
December 4th, 2008
More Support for HIV Screening
On Monday December 1 — World AIDS Day, if you’re keeping track — the American College of Physicians released a position paper supporting routine HIV screening for adolescents and adults in the United States. (If you don’t want to read the whole thing, we’ll have a perfectly-executed summary by the inimitable Abbie Zuger on our AIDS Clinical […]
November 30th, 2008
How to End the HIV Epidemic
Answer: Put everyone on treatment. Conspicuously absent for decades, the prevention part of the “when to start antiviral therapy?” question has now moved front and center in two recent papers: In this week’s Lancet, a group from the WHO estimated what would happen if there were annual universal HIV testing, and then immediate treatment for all […]
March 20th, 2008
How to Solve at Least One Part of the Healthcare Mess: ADAP for All
The presidential elections have once again made our Byzantine healthcare system a regular feature in the news. A recent film also made quite a splash, and though Michael Moore offered no plausible solutions (Cuba? c’mon!), he certainly made me wonder what I’d do if I had two severed fingers that needed to be reattached and only enough money […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Contributing Editor
NEJM Journal Watch
Infectious Diseases
Biography | Disclosures | Summaries
Learn more about HIV and ID Observations.
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