HIV and ID Observations

March 3rd, 2019

A Few Thoughts on the Day Before CROI — Our Best (and Quirkiest) Scientific Meeting

As I’ve written here numerous times, the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections — or “CROI” (rhymes with “toy”) — is the best of the scientific meetings on HIV. It starts March 4 in Seattle. Bringing together the perfect blend of clinical, translational, and epidemiologic research, CROI consistently boasts the highest density of worthwhile content in […]

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September 4th, 2017

Meropenem-Vaborbactam, Zika Cases Decline, Gas Station Nachos, and More — An End-of-Summer ID Link-o-Rama

There’s so much interesting ID material out there. The only solution — an ID Link-o-Rama, especially curated for the long Labor Day weekend. (Actually, not really, but that sounded good.) Off we go! Even if it doesn’t provide 100% protection, the flu vaccine may reduce the severity of influenza. Good to have this paper handy […]

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February 13th, 2017

How to Make Preventing Heart Disease in HIV Fun and Exciting: The REPRIEVE Trial

The people researching cardiovascular disease in HIV have quite the challenge. Because when you think about it for a second, we HIV treaters are a pretty spoiled bunch when it comes to therapeutic success. We saw the transformation of a terrifying, incurable, and rapidly progressive disease (AIDS) into something that can be managed for decades — usually […]

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January 1st, 2017

Top Stories in HIV Medicine for 2016

A lot of these “Best of …” or “Top Stories in …” lists have already been published, as they seem to be appearing earlier and earlier each year. Pretty soon we’ll start reading them around the same time they sell Halloween Candy — and that’s just too early, sorry. Now this list, however, appears just as 2016 is […]

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December 11th, 2016

You Want Guidelines? We Got Guidelines!

About a million years ago — in other words, probably sometime during my ID fellowship — I asked transplant ID guru Bob Rubin how various ID guidelines came together, including one on antifungal therapy he had just led. “You lock a bunch of experts in a hotel conference room,” he said. “Provide them plenty of food and […]

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December 19th, 2015

Part 2, Now The Good News: Why ID Will Survive as a Specialty

Part 1 of this post, which highlighted the primary reason for declining applications to ID fellowship programs, could come across as something of a downer. “Moping about it won’t get us anywhere,” someone said to me, and it’s true nobody likes a whiner. But my point was to acknowledge the issue, and find a way forward. It […]

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November 26th, 2015

Five (OK, Six) ID/HIV Things to be Grateful for this Holiday Season, 2015 Edition

Some quick ID/HIV gratitude items for 2015, done rapidly as we’re hosting a big meal later today. I wonder what that might be. New Ebola virus disease cases and deaths have dramatically declined. I write that sentence with some trepidation, as cases continue to occur sporadically, and this late relapse in a nurse was a chilling […]

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May 4th, 2015

A Drug for Neck Fat, and Some Thoughts on Fat Accumulation Syndromes in HIV

It’s not often that a FDA drug approval for cosmetic dermatologists and plastic surgeons will get the attention of HIV/ID specialists, but this past week was an exception. From the FDA report: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Kybella (deoxycholic acid), a treatment for adults with moderate-to-severe fat below the chin, known as […]

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May 28th, 2014

Some ID Stuff We’re Talking About on Rounds

Just finished two weeks on the inpatient general medical service — hence the radio silence — giving me a chance to work with residents, interns, and medical students. Here’s a smattering of the ID topics we discussed, along with a comment or two: “Common” causes of gram negative soft tissue infection (at least for board exam purposes), […]

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May 8th, 2013

HIV Opportunistic Infection Guidelines Updated

Some very hard-working folks at the NIH, CDC, and IDSA have updated the Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Opportunistic Infections in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents, which are available for review here. As with the previous versions (the prior iteration is from 2009), the OI Guidelines are comprehensive, exhaustively referenced (184 references for TB alone!), […]

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