{"id":159,"date":"2008-11-17T07:11:47","date_gmt":"2008-11-17T12:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/?p=159"},"modified":"2008-11-17T07:11:47","modified_gmt":"2008-11-17T12:11:47","slug":"promising-c-diff-rx-and-google-as-surveillance-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/promising-c-diff-rx-and-google-as-surveillance-tool\/2008\/11\/17\/","title":{"rendered":"Promising C diff Rx, and Google as Surveillance Tool"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few items from recent ID\/HIV news:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bad enough when it happens once, relapsing C diff is one of the modern plagues for which our bag of tricks sometimes comes up woefully short. \u00a0(Anything that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/12594638?ordinalpos=4&amp;itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum\" target=\"_blank\">tests stool transplants<\/a> as a therapy is pretty desperate.) \u00a0Here was some bright news on the treatment front, however: \u00a0an experimental drug named <a href=\"http:\/\/www.optimerpharma.com\/news.asp\" target=\"_blank\">OPT-80 was just as effective as vancomycin, but with a lower rate of relapse<\/a> (13% vs 24%). \u00a0What kind of drug is OPT-80? \u00a0Why, it&#8217;s a &#8220;macrocycle&#8221; (first I&#8217;ve heard of them, I confess), and has shown <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/15504874?ordinalpos=20&amp;itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum\" target=\"_blank\">focused activity against gram positive anaerobes <\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/15504874?ordinalpos=20&amp;itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum\" target=\"_blank\">only<\/a><\/em> &#8212; including C diff. \u00a0Sounds ideal for this indication.<\/li>\n<li>Google has quietly convinced us it can do just about anything, so <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.google.org\/2008\/11\/tracking-flu-trends.html\">why not influenza surveillance?<\/a> \u00a0By the way, note how they switched from &#8220;google.com&#8221; to &#8220;google.org&#8221; for their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.org\/about.html\">philanthropic activities<\/a>. Does that not-for-profit designation mean they are the future Gates Foundation, ready to offer vast sums to solve global health problems? \u00a0Or is it just a subtle PR move? \u00a0Likely some combination, but I like the idea of their putting their technology skills to the public good.<\/li>\n<li>I guess Tony Fauci and Robert Gallo were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/11\/14\/health\/14hiv.html?scp=1&amp;sq=aids+cure&amp;st=nyt\" target=\"_blank\">none too impressed<\/a> with that <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/index.php\/2008\/11\/10\/yes-just-a-case-report-but-incredibly-cool\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;cured&#8221; case of HIV<\/a> recently in the news. \u00a0Oh well, I guess it takes a lot to impress you when you&#8217;ve been at this HIV\/AIDS game from the start. \u00a0Still &#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few items from recent ID\/HIV news: Bad enough when it happens once, relapsing C diff is one of the modern plagues for which our bag of tricks sometimes comes up woefully short. \u00a0(Anything that tests stool transplants as a therapy is pretty desperate.) \u00a0Here was some bright news on the treatment front, however: \u00a0an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5,7,8],"tags":[120,131,258,423,500],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care","category-hiv","category-infectious-diseases","category-misc","category-patient-care","tag-bone-marrow-transplant","tag-c-diff","tag-cure","tag-hiv","tag-influenza"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}