An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
March 28th, 2013
Poll: How Often Do You Measure CD4 Cell Counts?
Over in Clinical Infectious Diseases, a recent study pretty much nails the fact that routine measurement of CD4 cell counts in clinically stable patients is an all but useless exercise. As summarized by Abbie Zuger in Journal Watch, here’s the key finding: When patients with an unrelated cause for an alteration in CD4-cell count such […]
March 23rd, 2013
ID Doctors, Pets in the Medical History, and a Cute Puppy
One of the things Infectious Disease doctors get teased about by our non-ID colleagues is our inclusion of pets in medical histories. It’s part of the social history, where we list a grab bag of potential “exposures” that increase the risk of infection — where someone is from, what they do, plus travel, dietary practices, […]
March 15th, 2013
Tom Seaver Has Lyme Disease, and the Baseball, ID, and Wine Trifecta
In my never ending quest to link up various passions in life — especially baseball and Infectious Diseases — I bring you this news story: But for Seaver, after months of private denial, the scariest incident came when his head vineyard worker, who has been with him for seven years, came into the house one […]
March 10th, 2013
Really Rapid Review — CROI 2013, Atlanta
As noted previously by Carlos del Rio in his nice summary, the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) turned 20 this year. It also made it’s first-ever stop in Atlanta, home of many things that begin with “C” — CDC (note that insiders rarely say, “the CDC”), CNN, Coca Cola, and Carlos himself. I’ll […]
March 5th, 2013
Exploring the Media Fascination with the Baby Cured of HIV
As undoubtedly you’ve heard by now, there’s another person cured of HIV out there — this time, it’s a baby born to an HIV-infected mother. Here’s the story: The mother didn’t know she was HIV positive until delivery, and the baby was found to be infected by both HIV DNA and RNA right at birth. […]
March 3rd, 2013
It’s Not Safe Sex If You’ve Just Had the Smallpox Vaccine
One of my more memorable teachers used to love warning us about the hazards of sex. No, this wasn’t in my 8th grade health class — this was during my first year of Infectious Diseases fellowship, and the teacher was one of our highly experienced attending physicians, now retired. To him, sex carried limitless infectious […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Associate Editor
NEJM Clinician
Biography | Disclosures & Summaries
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