HIV and ID Observations

November 30th, 2013

Five ID/HIV Things to Be Grateful for This Holiday Season

I was speaking with a British colleague the other day, and she was remarking how jealous she was that we get a Thanksgiving holiday each year. Starting with a long whine (or moan, as they would say) about the pressures, commercialization, cost, and religious aspects of Christmas, she then went on about how perfect Thanksgiving […]

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November 27th, 2013

Gynecologists May Treat Men After All

Good news here for gynecologists who screen men for anal cancer: A professional group that certifies obstetrician-gynecologists reversed an earlier directive and said on Tuesday that its members were permitted to treat male patients for sexually transmitted infections and to screen men for anal cancer… It’s always impressive when a group swiftly reverses what is […]

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November 23rd, 2013

OB/GYN Board Says Their Docs May Only Treat Women

Here’s a surprising move:  The American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology has decreed that gynecologists may only treat women. From the New York Times coverage: In September, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology insisted that its members treat only women, with few exceptions, and identified the procedure [high-resolution anoscopy] in which Dr. Stier has expertise […]

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November 16th, 2013

Janssen to Stop Offering “Virtual Phenotype” Testing, and Musings on Progress

Head over to this page from Janssen Diagnostics, and you’ll receive this little pop-up message: Must say it’s in some ways sad to see it go — in my opinion the nifty work they did correlating genotype results with their database of phenotypes gave the clearest representation of what a genotype actually means. If you […]

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November 13th, 2013

How Doctors, Nurses, and Other Medical Providers Spend Their Free Time

More absurd paperwork follies, this time from our friends at a mail-order pharmacy: Here, confronted with the challenge of refilling a patient’s HIV medications — which for the record he has been receiving unchanged for over 3 years — the pharmacy decides for the first time to reject the request and send the prescription back […]

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November 6th, 2013

SINGLE Study Underscores Waning of the Efavirenz Era — But Probably Just in the USA

In today’s New England Journal of Medicine, the SINGLE study finally makes its appearance “in print.”  (The study results were first presented over a year ago.) The highlights: SINGLE was a double-blind, randomized clinical trial comparing abacavir/lamivudine plus dolutegravir to tenofovir/FTC/efavirenz in 833 treatment-naive study subjects. That’s right, three different drugs in each arm — […]

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November 5th, 2013

Sofosbuvir and Ledipasvir Phase II, and When Small Studies Make a Big Impact

Imagine for a moment the ideal medical future … there’s a vaccine that prevents the common cold … colon cancer screening no longer requires that horrendous “prep” … electronic medical records are easily accessible, intuitive, secure, and all communicate effortlessly with one another … your doctor’s office has an actual person who answers the phone […]

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