I dont think herpes will ever be cured/vaccinated

I know pharma scientists and researchers are really smart and when they really want to and have the backing of investors, they can figure stuff out and make it happen.

But why cure people of it if you can keep them on antivirals forever? oh they transmitted to someone else? another lifelong customer.

You see stories on here about doctors reluctant to give people daily antivirals, just like many voice opposition to the overprescription of antibiotics, probably because thy worry about the same thing. Body will become dependent on it, and weakened in the face of more consequential viruses. it seems a lot of the medical community realizes whats available isn't even that good. it only reduces the transmission by half. that's good, but not great, especially not compared to the efficacy of other medications for other conditions.

I have wondered before if the real reason the medical community (reluctantly under the control of pharma and insurance) doesn't even test for it is because though many people are carriers, but not all are symptomatic. and the symptomatic ones are the long term Valtrax buyers. Valtrax, just one of the 3 herpes treatments, is projected to bring in almost $3 billion in sales annually by 2030. and I'm not trying to fear monger, but the reality is, though HSV complications are rare, they can be pretty serious (meningitis, something about babies, and possible link to Alzheimer's.)

HPV is also a virus with skin to skin transmission, can evade immunity detection, lays dormat then reactivates, etc., but we have a vaccine for that. I mean we cant even test for HPV in males unless they have warts, for cryin' out loud. which is great because cancer sucks. the point is, if they cracked that one, a virus that has a lot in common with herpes when it comes to behavior, with enough funding, resources, and brainpower, they could figure out herpes too. to be clear: this isnt a neg on the HPV vaccine. hurray for gardasil.

...its more like...if pharma researchers (not the bad guy, obviously) can figure that out, they can figure hsv out too. but there's really no financial incentive to do it. but because herpes has this ugly and reoccurring presentation, people are way more likely to be proactive, get meds for it, than they were for HPV. yeah hpv can cause warts, but its really rare and most of the time doesnt reoccur.

why solve the problem when you can milk it for profit?

I understand its a tricky virus, but its also a virus that half the freaking world has. we have meds for things that are more trivial (considering the stigma/mental problems around HSV) and that far fewer people have. I think modern pharma is much less interested in cures and far more interested in long term "treatments"