I think it's really unlikely that HSV caused a lip cancer. But smoking sure can. My grandfather had lip cancer from a pipe. Denial is NOT a river in Eygpt. SCC has a nasty tendency to "shed" it is nothing to fool around with. It is one of the more aggressive cancers. Dana Farber is good - so is Mass General. He'd be well served at either one. Who knows, maybe radiation only could kill it and he wouldn't need a resection. Some of us here have have radiation only (and usually chemo also) and we have been cured. Tell him he needs to go to a place where he can be given ALL of his options. Tell him also to grow up and get over the blaming stuff - it's a little late for that anyway. Like Mark said earlier it could also have been sun exposure. They believe that there may be a connection between EBV and HPV and throat cancer but I haven't heard anything about Herpes.

I know how you feel about the "clean blood" issues - when I had my workup I tested positive for Hep C and my wife has been freaked out ever since. Never you mind that I have probably had it since I was misdiagnosed in the 70's with Hep A - and not one person has caught it from me. My doctor claims that Hep C is in the cutting edge of the frontier in medicine, that they estimate that 4-5 million Americans are walking around with it - undiagnosed. Sexual transmission of Hep C between spouses is extremely rare - less than 1% of all cases. My second wife had herpes so I've worn both hats there too. She had her first outbreak after we had been married a year. I've had numerous outbreaks of herpes zoster (from childhood chickenpox) myself so I am no stranger to Zovirax. Strangely enough I had no problems with it when my immune system tanked last year from treatment. I fully expected it to kill me!