Pre-Super Sunday Scombroids

Some quick ID/HIV links while we await big guys playing the big game with a big (or at least bigger ) ball.

• Did you see how this doctor  cheated Medicaid out of more than $700,000 by prescribing HIV meds to people who didn’t have HIV? Not surprisingly, he’s going to jail. Proof that if there’s money behind a program — no matter how beneficial — someone will figure out a way to scam it.
• Not only is there barely any winter this year, but there’s hardly any influenza. Not a single state is reporting widespread activity. But Google Flu doesn’t think it’s quite so remarkable, especially compared to last year where flu season peaked in mid-late February.
• What we’re not getting in flu, however, we’re definitely getting in norovirus activity , at least here in Boston. Last week someone in our office turned the color of a bedsheet, then disappeared home, only to returned a few days later weak, tired and 10 pounds lighter. And she didn’t even get to go on a cruise, though maybe that’s a good thing this year.
• Good brief  piece in the Times about men of a certain age getting HIV. As the author awaits the results of his test, he writes “I was feeling an incipient sense of . . . failure.”  That part particularly rang true, based on my clinical experience — these men lived through the horrible early years of the epidemic, and they feel like failures to get HIV now, after all these years. Lots of self blame.
• How about we all pick up one of these beauties for our hospitals before flu season kicks in? The Mold and Germ Destroying Air Purifier “eliminates up to 100% of airborne bacteria, mold, viruses, pet dander, dust mites, and pollen without making a sound or using a filter.” I guess the key is that “up to …” phrase. (Note to catalogue copy writers: doctors never use the word “germs” unless talking to non-medical people.)

For reference, today’s title was brought to you by the makers of the ABIM Recertification Exam, who truly have a thing for fish poisonings .