An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
December 8th, 2011
Big TB Prevention Study Important, Highly Relevant — Even Here
As I’ve noted before, tuberculosis is disappearing from the United States — which means that the bulk of cutting-edge research in TB (both clinical and basic science) has little relevance to US-based practitioners. But over in NEJM, a much-anticipated TB study is published today that is highly relevant: We conducted an open-label, randomized noninferiority trial […]
November 25th, 2011
Childhood Meningitis Terrifying, Fortunately Very Rare
Back in fellowship, we used to discuss the various reasons why we’d be called back into the hospital at night when we were on call. Mind you, this was a fairly rare event, since unlike gastroenterology fellows doing emergency endoscopy for bleeding and cardiology fellows coming in to do the urgent cath, what were we […]
November 20th, 2011
Who Should Care For The Aging HIV Patient? Everything Old is … Oh You Know
Over in Journal Watch AIDS Clinical Care, Carlos Del Rio reviews a couple of remarkable studies on HIV and aging. From one of them: Compared with the controls, the HIV-infected patients had a higher prevalence of renal failure, bone fracture, and diabetes in every age range evaluated, as well as a higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease […]
November 14th, 2011
Here Are Two Things You Don’t Hear Together Very Often: Walmart and HIV
As the parent of teenagers (and having been one myself many years ago), I’m acutely aware that everyone wants to think that he or she is special in some way. And while that is literally true (that is, no two people are exactly alike), as anyone will tell you who looks up a Sunday Times crossword […]
November 5th, 2011
A Mysteriosis about Listeriosis
For obvious reasons, listeriosis has been much in the news recently. The latest information from CDC on the Colorado cantaloupe outbreak cites 139 cases and 29 deaths. The recent outbreak aside, however, actual cases of listeriosis are pretty rare. We easily could go months in our hospital without seeing a single case, and we have the largest […]
October 26th, 2011
Xigris is Gone — Not That Many ID Docs Will Notice
From the FDA comes this news: FDA notified healthcare professionals and the public that on October 25, 2011, Eli Lilly and Company announced a worldwide voluntary market withdrawal of Xigris [drotrecogin alfa (activated)]. In a recently completed clinical trial (PROWESS-SHOCK trial), Xigris failed to show a survival benefit for patients with severe sepsis and septic […]
October 19th, 2011
Going, Going, Gone … HIV Treatment Failure Is Disappearing in People Who Take Their Meds
World Series time, hence the baseball reference in the title. (Doesn’t take much.) But over in Lancet Infectious Diseases — which has turned out to be a terrific journal, by the way — there’s a study reminding us that advances in HIV treatment in the late 2000s were truly spectacular. The goal of the paper […]
October 4th, 2011
Hormonal Contraception MAY Increase Risk of HIV
From the pages of Lancet Infectious Diseases, a study from Africa: We aimed to assess the association between hormonal contraceptive use and risk of HIV-1 acquisition by women and HIV-1 transmission from HIV-1-infected women to their male partners … Among 1314 couples in which the HIV-1-seronegative partner was female, rates of HIV-1 acquisition were 6·61 […]
October 4th, 2011
Spanish HIV Vaccine Story Gets Lots of Attention — Here’s Why
If you’re looking for a good way to pass the time while running errands, traveling, or walking to work, I highly recommend the Freakonomics podcasts, which have taught me all sorts of interesting things. Such as the fact that suicide is more common than murder in the USA, but gets way less attention. And how […]
October 3rd, 2011
CASCADE: When to Start, (Yet) Another Take
As we await the enrollment, analysis, and results of the START study — which is randomizing patients with CD4>500 to start HIV therapy vs waiting until the CD4 falls to 350 — much of the research on “when to start” ART in patients with high CD4’s comes from observational studies. Several have already been published […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Associate Editor
NEJM Clinician
Biography | Disclosures & Summaries
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FROM NEJM — Recent Infectious Disease Articles- Probable Japanese Encephalitis Virus Transmission through Organ Transplantation March 26, 2026Infection with Japanese encephalitis virus, a mosquito-borne flavivirus, was identified in a patient who received a liver transplant from a donor who resided in California.
- Brief Report: Prime Editing for p47phox-Deficient Chronic Granulomatous Disease March 26, 2026In this study, gene editing with a prime editor was used to treat two persons with chronic granulomatous disease caused by a small deletion in the gene NCF1.
- Communicating about Vaccines in a Politically Contentious Climate March 26, 2026Recent changes in U.S. vaccine policy are sowing confusion and threatening the health of children and the wider population. How should pediatric clinicians communicate with parents to stem the damage?
- Eczema Herpeticum March 26, 2026A 33-year-old pregnant woman with previously controlled atopic dermatitis presented with 3 days of fever and an itchy, painful rash. Erythematous vesiculopapular lesions were noted on the face, neck, chest, and arms.
- Genetic Medicine — Primed and Ready March 26, 2026Immunodeficiency chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) is a rare disorder characterized by defects in a multiprotein complex that generates superoxide in phagocytic cells.1 Recurrent infections and formation of granulomas are hallmarks of X-linked and autosomal-recessive CGD, which is caused by variants in genes encoding individual subunits. As a monogenic...
- Probable Japanese Encephalitis Virus Transmission through Organ Transplantation March 26, 2026