As the COVID-19 pandemic rages in our various cities, it is important to remember that as of today there are no proven effective therapies. Still it is very difficult to watch people die despite your care. With about a thousand lives already lost to SARS-CoV-2 in the United States, everybody is scrambling to find therapeutics […]
When Pneumonia Kills Healthy Adults
Christmas Eve this year brought news of ESPN reporter, Ed Aschoff, dying that day, also his 34th birthday, after being treated for pneumonia. I did not know of him, but soon I was reading his Twitter profile. Earlier in the month he had shared the following: It’s hauntingly sad to read that now. I can […]
Acute Kidney Injury with Concomitant Vancomycin & Pip/Tazo (Vancosyn, Vanczosyn, Vosyn)
Recently, a nephrologist I work with chased me down to ask my opinion of the new and interesting study that concludes concomitant vancomycin and piperacillin-tazobactam (hereforth to be called vancosyn) was more nephrotoxic than concomitant vancomycin and cefepime (vancopime). “Yes, indeed, I have heard the data but which study are you calling new?” I wondered. […]
Historic United Nations General Assembly Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance
Today at the United Nations General Assembly Meeting, all 193 member countries are set to agree to combat antimicrobial resistance, “the biggest threat to modern medicine”. I couldn’t be happier. Antimicrobial resistance has been well-known to scientists since the first antibiotic, penicillin, was created. But it has only been in the last few years that […]
Risky Fluoroquinolones
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a black box warning for the class of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones which includes the popularly prescribed Levaquin (levofloxacin), Avelox (moxifloxacin), and Cipro (ciprofloxacin). The warning advises that the serious side effects associated with this class of antibiotics “generally outweigh the benefits for patients with acute sinusitis, […]