It is very disturbing how much individual variation there seems to be in how people respond to medications. Are there genetic databases of patients (hopefully confidential) that will allow comparisons over time of what characteristics will make one more or less likely to tolerate a particular medication.

Excellent point. Genetics do appear to play a major role in the metabolism and tolerability of many HIV drugs. For example it looks like the hypersensivity reaction to abacavir has an important genetic link. We are very early in our knowledge about how to apply this (pharmacogenomics). The ACTG and some other research groups are now incorporating sample collection for genomics into many of their studies so hopefully clinically useful discoveries will be made in the near future. KH