> The HB vaccine unfortunately doesn't work that well, many people are still not fully immune even after several doses
This is incorrect. The HBV vaccine is one of the most effective vaccines available for any pathogen, providing full immunity to over 95% of healthy infants, children, and young adults, and with that immunity typical lasting for at least 30 years (and likely for life).
If someone is one of the rare exception, tthat's easy to detect with blood titers, and the response is either to give them additional doses or to deliver an adjuvanted version (which is the same thing regularly done for other vaccines which are either less effective or primarily targeted at the elderly, who have weaker immune responses).
I work in healthcare. As a requirement for employment, I had to get tested for immunity to HBV. Even though I got the vaccine as is generally recommended for everyone, the test says I'm not immue. So now I have to get 3 additional doses, and apparently even with that it's not guaranteed sufficient for full immunity. And I know my case is not unusual at all
One 20 is not unusual. That said, that does not mean that the vaccine is not effective at being a vaccine. A vaccine isnt just about your immunity, but about herd immunity. When you create an inability for a virus to spread among the herd, you protect those who are unable to acquire immunity by inhibiting the viruses ability to move between hosts and persist in a population.
Vaccines are not 100% effective for each individual.
> Yes, there is an effective vaccine but not everyone has access to it for tons of reasons.
Also, about 3.5% of the world's population already has it. That's about 300 million people for whom a vaccine is pointless, and who are at dramatically higher risk of liver cancer (somewhere between 15-50% lifetime risk of an extremely deadly type of cancer), and for whom a cure would literally be life-changing, if available.
It's estimated that 300 million people have HBV. HBV is currently incurable once acquired, at which point the vaccine is irrelevant.
The HBV virus is also carcinogenic, which makes it unique[0] among the three big hepatitis viruses. Liver cancer is extremely aggressive and fast-killing, often reaching terminal stages before it is even detectable at all. It is one of the top three causes of cancer deaths worldwide.
Aside from the sheer number of people affected by this, it is also a horrible thing to experience. I have watched someone die from liver cancer, and I would not wish it on anyone.
Contrast to HSV, which is widespread (approximately half the population has at least one HSV latent infection) and causes very few problems beyond occasional irritation in virtually all cases that do not involve other comorbidities or immunocompromised status. HSV is also suppressible through antiviral treatment, making it generally untransmittable (if treated and suppressed) and unlikely to cause symptoms. Most people with HSV do not even bother to do this, which is if anything a testament to how little HSV affects their lives (most don't even know they have it, and there is no clinical justification for routine testing in otherwise healthy patients).
Of all infections pathogens for which I could wish a cure into existence, HSV would be extremely low on my list.
[0] While HCV can cause cancer if left untreated for a long time and if it causes cirrhosis, approximately one third of people clear HCV infection in the acute stages without any lasting ill effect. Of the remainder, it takes a long time for cirrhosis to develop, leaving plenty of time for treatment. First-line treatments are approximately 95-99% effective. So there is no clinical reason HCV needs to increase a person's risk for cancer, as long as they have access to medical care. The same is not true for HBV.
Yep — if this is properly verified it means HSV is one of the most consequential virus families in public health.
For the same reason we should be hoping for a treatment that can rid the body of VZV (chickenpox/shingles) because it is absolutely clear that the shingles vaccine has some protective effect against dementia.
First, while you're correct that most people who have HSV have few symptoms (if any), you're discounting the fact that, because so many people are infected, there are millions upon millions who have highly-visible and highly-painful infections. Many of these people struggle with relationships and mental health as a result.
Second, HSV is associated with higher risk of HIV infection for obvious reasons.
Finally, discovering effective treatments for such a difficult virus would probably produce insights that have implications for other difficult-to-target viruses.
So I don't think we should dismiss HSV on the basis that it's so common and doesn't cause life-threatening symptoms. Medicine should pay adequate attention to infections that affect quality of life for large numbers of people.
Billions are spent on treatments for super rare diseases, many of which are terminal, and in the best cases the end result is often that pharmaceutical companies have drugs costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars that extend life by months (often with dubious quality of life).
Yeah HSV on its own would be awesome to find a good vaccine for but the insights it would give for vaccinations against the broader human herpes virus family would be massively impactful.
A successful HSV vaccine would also almost certainly lead to a vaccine for epstein-barr, cytomegalovirus, and roseolovirus.
Even ignoring the thousands of connections HSV is suspected to have to other diseases, getting insight towards the other 3 big "uncured" HHVs would be a massive deal.
EBV/mono is a silent but debilitating disease that infects a near majority of the population even in "developed countries" and is all but confirmed as a requirement for developing multiple sclerosis. EBV is also directly connected to a long list of cancers as well.
cytomegalovirus and roseolovirus while less common in the developed world are still far too common and globally are major sources of harm for infants and young children.
Any steps towards effective vaccination against the broader family of HHVs would be monumental.
I don't have any sort of HSV infection (that I'm aware of) but I subscribe to this subreddit and check on it every month or so:
www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/
It's interesting seeing what's going on in that field, and seeing how much effort afflicted people put into tracking possible treatments and cures.
From my reading it appears that there are many promising treatments in the pipeline with some of thek already available through official/unofficial means.
Ive been subscribed there for many years - progress is vanishingly slow. It has sped up since the alzheimers research cabal got busted up and it has become clearer that HSV is a very large contributor to dementia.
> That's certainly not true in many European countries
This suprised me. I’ve hunted for polling and can find plenty showing a plummeting opinion on Israel, but little on internal polling about a Palestinian state.
Polls are interesting. They depend exclusively on people willing to respond. Let me give you an example of how they don't tell the whole story:
In the USA, there are many, many firearms. And there's also a small but very vocal cadre of people who would like to disarm the people. In light of this, if a pollster calls and asks for your opinion on guns, and/or inquires if you have any, a common response is to hang up without answering the questions, due to the possibility that the information will be used against them.
The result? They call someone else, and don't count "declined to answer" in their results. So the poll simply is the prevailing opinion of those who wished to answer, and thus is skewed one direction. (BTW, this is why everyone says there are "at least XXX hundred million guns in America; the best they can get is a low estimate)
This happens quite a lot with controversial topics.
> wait, how many workers fall outside the 16-65 range??
A little less than 10% of the workforce.
GP is correct - basically there was a report making that claim about the decline in employment rates of US-born workers over a certain time period. It was almost immediately debunked because it excluded workers older than 65, who are almost exclusively US-born, and excluding them heavily skews the average. Many of these workers also aged out of that bucket during that time period, which makes the comparison misleading, since the actual size of the studied workforce varied, and the workers who were excluded from the studied cohort were strongly correlated with the effect they were trying to demonstrate.
Furthermore, that effect is also exacerbated because of the uneven distribution of baby boomers.
> This is wrong. There is no minimum time in the country for a green card. You are thinking of citizenship. That is different.
You are incorrect. What you said is technically true in that there is no statute that requires it, but in practice, OP is correct.
It varies depending on the country of origin, but in the case of immigrants who hold citizenship from India, which is the country OP mentioned, you can likely expect to have to wait that period or even much longer before becoming eligible, unless you have a way to otherwise jump the queue.
You absolutely have to wait several years, but the point they were making is, there is no requirement to have ever worked IN the US or held any nonimmigrant visa to get a green card. The way the law was originally written, both the employment and family green card categories are standalone. They require work/research accomplishments, but there is zero requirement that that work was ever done in the US or for a US company.
Because it takes so long, in practice the issue is that for anyone to sponsor you, they want you working for them during that time, and so that's why it often looks like someone gets an H1B and then "graduates" to a green card.
> This is not true, India has something called “Overseas Citizenship of India” which is technically not a citizenship even though the name says, but its a life time visa available for US citizens of Indian origin. And you don’t have to give up US citizenship
The OCI card is better thought of as a green card that you have to reapply for once at the age of 65.
It provides the ability to live and work, with some minor restrictions, but none of the typical benefits of citizenship that wouldn't come with permanent residency in the US.
In the first quarter of FY 2025 54% of all new permanent residents adjusted, including 70% of those who got green cards through employment (and 84% of the first preference employment category) and 69% of those who got green cards through marriage to US citizen spouses.
The only large category of immigrants that does not come primarily through adjustment are the "family preference" categories for more distant relative such as adult sons and daughters and siblings.
> That excludes all fans who don't live in big cities. A lot of people travel just to go to shows.
Not really. The place that sells the tickets doesn't have to be the performance venue itself.
This sort of distribution was quite common pre-Internet. In theory it's even easier now, because so many of the venues have (unfortunately) consolidated under vertically integrated ownership (e.g. directly owned by Live Nation). Which incidentally, after scalping, is the biggest reason that ticket prices are so high in the first place.
This is incorrect. The HBV vaccine is one of the most effective vaccines available for any pathogen, providing full immunity to over 95% of healthy infants, children, and young adults, and with that immunity typical lasting for at least 30 years (and likely for life).
If someone is one of the rare exception, tthat's easy to detect with blood titers, and the response is either to give them additional doses or to deliver an adjuvanted version (which is the same thing regularly done for other vaccines which are either less effective or primarily targeted at the elderly, who have weaker immune responses).
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