Shingles vaccine? Why not herpes vaccine?

[felareed]

I was driving past Walgreen's yesterday and they had a sign out for getting a shingles vaccine shot. I thought to myself well if they have a vaccine shot for shingles than why can't they have a vaccine shot for other herpes strains? Anyone know why this is?

[HerryTheHerp]

It's a good question. I think Adrial's got it in his cue to pose to a medical professional. That said, there is some indication that taking the Shingles vaccine does help knock down recurrence rates of HSV1 and 2. It hasn't been really studied, but was an anecdotal finding of a study of the vaccine a few years ago.

 

Keep in mind that while each member of the HSV family is similar, they all have different attributes and make-up. Asking why a vaccine works for one, but not another is a little like asking why Uncle Bob is fat while Aunt Sally is skinny; they might share some of the same DNA, but they're just different enough that things affect them differently.

 

 

[felareed]

Thanks Herry, good information. Interesting though that the medical field developed a shingles vaccine and not a vaccine for hsv2 and 1

[HerryTheHerp]

Well, Shingles can be life threatening. And, honestly the Shingles vaccine is just the Chicken Pox vaccine readministered in adulthood.

 

You want interesting, pay attention to The Immunity Project. They're working on an HIV vaccine right now. If their approach works, and they do manage to develop a vaccine in the next year, you can bet the knowledge gained will be applied to every other virus on the planet. The scientific approach is fascinating, but what's really fascinating and game changing is they're attempting to take the control of vaccine development out of big pharma/government hands and put it back into the hands of private researchers. If they are successful it's going to be a brand new day in global healthcare.

[WCSDancer2010]

Honey - if you think having Herpes is bad, talk to anyone who has had Shingles.

 

People often think that their "condition" (and it can be ANY condition) is the WORST THING EVER and noone understands them and why did it happen to Me and I want MY condition cured first and... yada yada yada.

 

If you look around, and reeeeeallly think about it, Herpes is a pretty minor issue. Which is why the doctors and researchers have not made it a high priority...BUT in shoving it under the carpet they have actually created a stigma that is worse than the condition by keeping it silenced and allowing misinformation to abound.

 

This is one time I would say that researchers are "right" as far as priorities .... HIV and Shingles SHOULD get more funding. As Herry says, there are similar studies in the works for other viruses and we likely will profit from them in the long run...and until then, we need to work on educating people so we can reduce the stigma...

 

And BTW, I've read that a lot of young folks who got the Gardisil vaccine are ending up in the doctor's offices with Herpes because they misunderstood what the vaccine covered. Education will do more than anything else right now to slow the spread of Herpes :)

[ra1956]

Hi Felareed,

 

If you like some interesting reading try Dr Bill Halford blog. Seems like just some poor choices in the medical system has kept a vaccine from being developed.

 

There is also some suggestions that the shingles vaccine might be helpful in controlling extreme cases of both Hsv1/2.

 

http://herpesvaccine.scienceblog.com/author/herpesvaccine/

 

Take care - Ra

[CR_19]

Well shingles and herpes simplex aren't different strains but different members of the same family. So in essence it's like comparing a gorilla and a chimpanzee, yes they're both monkeys but they have different characteristics and DNA.

 

As for the Immunity Project, their method of creating the HIV vaccine seems interesting but we'll see how humans respond to it. However, I'm more impressed by them having it be an open source project and see more of a future in that, despite whether the HIV vaccine works or not.