Letter From the Editor

Dear Corrections Colleagues,

One of the most exciting but challenging aspects of providing HIV care is the dizzying speed with which new developments in the field are reported and then incorporated into clinical practice. New drugs are developed, studied and fast-tracked for approval; meanwhile, clinical trial results are made public and before you can say "press release" are influencing treatment decisions in the clinic.

To keep up, clinicians caring for HIV-infected individuals must look to a number of sources of information. One such resource you are holding in your hands (to those of you online, my apologies). In addition, there are an array of conferences showcasing the latest data in advance of publication.

You would not know it from its longwinded and anachronistic name but the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) is the top U.S. HIV conference in this country. Held annually, CROI is jam-packed with information on treatment, complications and prevention. It is a tough meeting to cover. There are so many important presentations that it is difficult to distill the most significant into a single summary. But, in this issue we do just that. Our team of correctional experts was in Los Angeles and together have written a concise review of the meeting mindful of the types of information that would interest a readership of correctional health care providers. We supplement our conference coverage with actual clinical case studies that incorporate data presented at CROI. For more information about the conference and the data that were presented there, check out our Resource section for links to the conference and other sites containing conference summaries and analyses.

An old AIDS activist battle cry was, "Knowledge = Power." Many of those activists may be gone but with more to know, their words were never truer. We at IDCR are proud to be able to provide these kinds of reviews to our colleagues working along side us in our prisons and jails. We hope you value the newsletter as an objective source of information from clinicians who "walk the walk" of correctional health care. If you do, please let our sponsors' representatives know that their support is a worthwhile investment. Of course, also feel free to share your appreciation of IDCR with representatives of those who, as of yet, have not chosen to support our modest publication. It can't hurt.

Sincerely,

David A. Wohl, M.D.
Associate Professor of Medicine
Division of Infectious Diseases
AIDS Clinical Research Unit
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill