HIV and ID Observations

September 23rd, 2018

Picking Your Next ID Journal Club Paper? MERINO or POET Trial? Two ID Fellows Debate

Late afternoon/early evening at an academic medical center. Bright young doctors sit in a hospital workroom, putting the finishing touches on what are undoubtedly the most comprehensive and, yes, simply the best consult notes in their respective patient’s electronic medical records. Best ever. ID Fellow #1:  Hey, pretty soon we have to do Journal Club, […]

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September 16th, 2018

Supermarket Chain CEO Defends High Prices of Water, Salt, and Other Items as a “Moral” Requirement

Inspired by recent events in antibiotic pricing. SACRAMENTO, CA. The head of a national supermarket chain is defending a recent substantial increase in the price of water, salt, and other food and kitchen essentials, arguing that this change is the equivalent of a “moral” requirement. Last month, iFoods Plus Stores announced that common low-cost items […]

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September 9th, 2018

Doravirine Sets a New Standard for NNRTIs — But What Role in HIV Treatment Today?

The HIV drug class called “non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors,” or NNRTIs, must have something of an inferiority complex. First, anything defined by what it is not is already in trouble. Believe me, hepatitis C was thrilled when it could shed the “non-A, non-B hepatitis” label. Second, despite their high antiviral potency and good tolerability, the […]

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September 3rd, 2018

Eravacycline Approved by FDA — How Might It Be Used, Today and in the Future?

While last week the world was sunning on the beach, hiking in the woods, eating ice cream, and performing careful tick-checks, the hard workers at the Food and Drug Administration hunkered down in Silver Spring, Maryland to get three anti-infectives approved — eravacycline, doravirine, and doravirine/TDF/3TC. Maybe they saw the weather reports — hot and humid, […]

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