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. […]
Vancomycin – Fools Gold or the Holy Grail?
I’ve meant to write a post about the antibiotic vancomycin for many years. It is an antibiotic that has become a work-horse in so many hospitals. Many patients refer to it as “the powerful stuff”. Included in the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, the most important medicines needed in a basic health system, it […]
When Religion Puts you at Risk for Infectious Diseases
There’s a letter to the editor in the June 15th, 2012 edition of Clinical Infectious Disease that speculates on a link between ritual cleansing and brain-eating amoebae fatal infections. It comes to us from Pakistan, where in 2010, a single small private hospital recorded the deaths of 20 devout Muslim men due to Naegleria fowleri […]
Occupational Syphilis
In true “infectious disease – nerd” fashion, I am overly excited about an article I’m reading. It is très cool, though maybe not for the sufferers. The March 20th, 2012 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine published a letter on Occupational Syphilis following Scalpel Injury. It immediately caught my eye as syphilis is not one […]
HIV in the Elderly Revisited
It is World AIDS Day and everywhere you look there’s an article touching upon some aspect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This summer, I wrote a post on HIV in the older age groups prompted by a study that showed that older men taking erectile dysfunction drugs (eg. Viagra) had twice the rate of sexually transmitted illnesses […]