The New Disease

By Timothy Mott, MD  /  Posted 9/6/2023

Thank you Dr. Neher. That vividly took me back in time.

By Barry Saver  /  Posted 9/7/2023

My thanks as well, Jon, you also took me way back. Back to med school, when the first CDC report was published. The head of ID at a teaching hospital telling me when I interviewed him for a project on this new disease in my 4th year and asked him for his thoughts about the epidemiology suggesting a viral cause: "It can't be a virus. If it were, I should have it as I've had patients' blood all over me, and I'm healthy as a horse!" Back to internship, being blown off by the Pediatrics attending when I suggested this could be the cause of the pulmonary infiltrates and lymphadenopathy in the young girl I was admitting, even after telling him that her mother had told me she was scheduled for a biopsy for her lymphadenopathy and, while she did not use IV drugs, the girl's father did. Last call night of internship - lymphoma, pneumonia, and meningitis, all in one young man. Back to working at a public health clinic part-time early in my career, telling healthy-seeming young men in the Castro District that their test had come back positive and, as far as we knew, it was eventually fatal to everyone, but we'd do our best to treat their infections and cancers when they showed up. The transformation to a manageable, chronic disease is truly the most amazing thing I have seen in my career.