The Incurable Sex Scourge Of The Mid-1970s Now Afflicts One In Five U.S. Adults And Teenagers

.....Every morning as Larry Lake showers, he checks his genitals for evidence of herpes. A single, forty-six-yearold mechanical engineer in Houston, he hasn’t had an outbreak for more than a year, and the pinprick-sized red blisters he occasionally finds on the shaft of his...

....Unlike AIDS, genital herpes (a cousin of the virus that causes cold sores, or fever blisters, on the mouth) is not usually life-threatening to adults with intact immune systems. But it can be physically painful, and sometimes those who have it feel stigmatized....

...Further complicating matters, until recently, only one specialized test could distinguish between herpes simplex type 2 and its oral fever blister cousin, type 1 (which infects about 75 percent of the adult American population, or about 157 million people). That first test...

...For much of its history, it was held partly in check by herpes simplex type 1, its fever blister cousin. That virus, long a widespread pediatric infection, spawns antibodies, or immune defenses, that cross-react with (and therefore offer some protection against)...

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