An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
October 7th, 2010
Post-Halladay Video Treat: Prospects for HIV Cure
For a little entertainment between playoff games — but how could anyone beat the guy in the picture? — you might want to check out this interview I did with Dan Kuritzkes about the prospects for an HIV cure. So which do you think we’ll see first — an HIV cure or a vaccine? And I don’t mean […]
October 1st, 2010
Five Friday Fasciolas
As we await either the start of the baseball playoffs (or Spring Training), here is some ID/HIV content to consider, in no particular order: Could adenovirus infection be the cause of obesity? That would be the media take, especially from this highly-esteemed research journal, The New York Daily News. (Warning: kind of ugly photo in […]
September 6th, 2010
Treating Cellulitis: Getting the Answer Wrong and Right
What’s the right antibiotic choice for cellulitis in the era of community-acquired MRSA? As astutely pointed out by Anne in her comment, the “correct” answer to the recertification question was #4, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, for the following reason: I am not a doctor, I am a test developer. Having exactly zero knowledge about the content here (could […]
August 30th, 2010
Required Reading: In Love and “Serodiscordant”
Being of a certain age, my wife and I still subscribe to the print version of the Sunday New York Times. Since we also get the local rag, quite a bit of paper is deposited on our doorstep each week. Worth it? You bet, especially since occasionally there’s a gem in there like this week’s […]
August 26th, 2010
Lyme Cases Up — Anecdotes, True Epidemiology, and More Anecdotes
All of us New England-based ID doctors (and internists and family practitioners and pediatricians and NPs/PAs in primary care) who have been in practice a while will tell you that Lyme cases have been increasing for years. And it’s not just the number of cases, it’s also where and when they are occurring. A few years […]
August 10th, 2010
Curbside Consults: The Yin and the Yang
One of the simultaneously most enjoyable and exasperating aspects of being an Infectious Disease specialist is the large volume of “curbside” consultations we get from colleagues. For example, here’s this week’s talley — and it’s only Tuesday — done from memory and without systematically keeping track of emails, pages, phone calls, etc.: Duration of antibiotics […]
August 3rd, 2010
HIV Testing: NY Makes Progress; Massachusetts … Not So Much
From the office of New York Governor David Paterson: The Governor signed into law S.8227/A.11487, which will allow patients to agree to HIV testing as part of a general signed consent to medical care that remains in effect until it is revoked or expires. The bill will also, among other things: allow oral consent to […]
July 30th, 2010
Perinatal Transmission of HIV “Solved” — Now How Do We Pay For It?
Conspicuously absent from this year’s International AIDS Conference were major studies on prevention of maternal-to-child transmission. It could be that I just missed them, so I emailed a colleague who specializes in the area, and she concurred: Nope, did not see or hear major PMTCT updates at IAS. The thing is, this problem has been […]
July 6th, 2010
Torrid Tuesday
Some ID/HIV-related items for a sweltering summer day: Are the AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs) in trouble? Certainly in some states they are, and this interview gives additional perspective. But I wonder — how much of this is HIV-specific, and how much is just the ongoing lousy economy. In other words, are other government-funded programs comparably stressed? […]
July 1st, 2010
RFA-AI-10-009, HIV Cure, and “Berlin Patient” Update
Interesting “RFA” (Request for Application, #RFA-AI-10-009) from Bethesda: The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institutes of Health (NIH), encourage grant applications from institutions/organizations to address the problem of HIV-1 persistence in HIV-1-infected persons treated with suppressive antiretroviral drug regimens… The goal of this […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Associate Editor
NEJM Clinician
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FROM NEJM — Recent Infectious Disease Articles- Pulmonary Mucormycosis February 12, 2026A 49-year-old man with acute myeloid leukemia was evaluated for prolonged neutropenic fever. On examination, there were crackles at the lung bases. CT of the chest revealed a reversed halo sign.
- Mucormycosis February 12, 2026Mucormycosis is a rapidly progressive, invasive fungal infection that causes severe disease. The latest epidemiologic data, risk factors, diagnostic strategies, and treatment approaches are reviewed.
- A Pediatrician’s Dilemma — Pushing Back against CDC Guidance in the Exam Room February 12, 2026When a mother cites the CDC as her source of dangerous misinformation about vaccines, her child’s pediatrician struggles: how hard can a doctor push back without destroying the trust built over a lifetime?
- Adenoviral Inciting Antigen and Somatic Hypermutation in VITT February 12, 2026VITT is caused by a somatic hypermutation of an anti–adenovirus pVII antibody that generates more avid binding of platelet factor 4 than of adenovirus pVII, its original target, which results in platelet activation.
- Dengue Suppression by Male Wolbachia-Infected Mosquitoes February 11, 2026In this report from Singapore, the release of wolbachia-infected, irradiated male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes resulted in a reduction in the vector population and in the risk of dengue infection.
- Pulmonary Mucormycosis February 12, 2026