Oral Sex may cause throat cancer.

[PrettyBoy]

I didn't make this up, nor did I type it so they are not my words. I got this info from another greekchat site I post on. Has anyone heard of this? Read below.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health announced last week that oral sex—blowjobs and cunnilingus—may cause throat cancer.
First the bad news—and you better sit down, because it’s really, really bad: If you and your girlfriend have had more than five oral-sex partners in your lives, PBA, you are both 250 percent more likely to develop throat cancer than some sad xxx who’s never had oral sex. Researchers are too polite to point this out, but I’m not: Most Americans xxx and xxx. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 90 percent of straight men and 88 percent of straight women report engaging in oral sex. Half of all American teenagers have had oral sex; by age 19, the number rises to 70 percent.
“Researchers believe,” reports New Scientist, “[that] oral sex may transmit human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus implicated in the majority of cervical cancers,” and the virus lodges in the throat, where it can cause cancer. Study subjects infected with HPV were 32 times more likely to develop throat cancer; folks who tested positive for one highly aggressive strain of the virus, HPV-16, were 58 times more likely to develop throat cancer. Smoking, previously believed to be the culprit behind most throat cancers, only triples a person’s risk. (A new slogan for the tobacco industry: “Smoke cigs, not xxx.”)
But before we panic—it’s just one study—let’s put throat cancer in perspective. Despite the fact that nearly all Americans engage in oral sex, throat cancer accounts for a tiny percentage of the roughly 1.5 million cases of cancer diagnosed every year. According to the Cancer Facts & Figures report released by the American Cancer Society in 2007, we will see 35,000 cases of oral cancer this year—that’s tongue, mouth, pharynx, and “other oral cavity.” That compares to 271,000 cases of digestive-system cancers, 229,000 cases of respiratory cancers, 220,000 cases of prostate cancer, 180,000 cases of breast cancer.
And let’s put HPV in perspective, too. While most sexually active adults are exposed to HPV at some point, our immune systems usually “clear” the virus on their own. So not every HPV exposure leads to infection, and not every HPV infection is lifelong. Clearly, men and women need to keep an eye on their throats—and researchers are, according to reports, working on a saliva test for HPV—because when it comes to cancer, early detection saves lives.
So while the news is alarming, and the mainstream media will doubtless go into full hysteria mode, last week’s report in the New England Journal of Medicine shouldn’t be read as, “Eat yourself some xxx, get yourself some throat cancer!” Engaging in oral sex puts you at a greater risk—*significantly greater, admittedly—of contracting a virus that, if your body doesn’t clear it, has a very small risk of causing throat cancer. It’s not a certainty; it’s a risk. As with any pleasurable activity, sexual or otherwise, we weigh risks against benefits and make decisions. Smart folks minimize their risks—by, say, using condoms for oral sex (har har)—but most sexually active adults are likely to conclude that the real and immediate pleasures of oral sex are worth risking a distant and unlikely case of throat cancer.
And now for the good news: There’s a vaccine that offers 100 percent protection against the strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer in women and, it now appears, throat cancer in men and women. The HPV vaccine has already been approved for women and is currently being tested in men. You may have already heard of this vaccine thanks to the controversy that surrounds it. The HPV vaccine is most effective when administered before a person becomes sexually active; doctors recommend that girls receive the vaccine at age 11 or 12. Religious conservatives believe that the HPV vaccine undermines abstinence education by making sex less risky. Never mind that numerous studies have shown that abstinence education does not work, HPV vaccine or no HPV vaccine. The right would rather see 4,000 American women die of cervical cancer every year than call off the idiotic, ineffective fraud that is abstinence education.
And up to now the mainstream media have refrained from calling the right’s opposition to the HPV vaccine what it is—delusional, psychotic, homicidal—because up to now only women’s lives were at stake.
That’s about to change.
Here’s the headline from my morning paper: “HPV Factors in Throat Cancer: Study Could Shift Debate About Vaccine.” You bet it will. Up to now the HPV vaccine—which, again, has proven 100 percent effective against the cancer-causing strains of the virus—could merely prevent 10,000 cases of cervical cancer in American women every year, along with 4,000 deaths. But now the debate could shift—it will shift, it already has shifted—because it’s no longer “just” the lives of 4,000 American women that are on the line, but the sex lives of 150 million American men.
“if men got pregnant,” goes the bumper sticker, “abortion would be a sacrament.” Now that straight men can get cancer from xxx, the HPV vaccine is going to go from controversial to sacramental faster than you can say, “xxx.”

Originally Posted by PrettyBoy

I didn't make this up, nor did I type it so they are not my words. I got this info from another greekchat site I post on. Has anyone heard of this? Read below.

Another GreekChat site? Please explain.

Minus 12 points for not following the proper article posting protocol.

And sorry, this "article" lost all its credibility once I saw the words that were obviously chosen to replace "penis" and "vagina".

[PrettyBoy]

I got it from Pledge Park.
I agree with OTW so Moderators if the words are too bad for this site please change them, but they are not my words.
Thanks.

[DolphinChicaDDD]

Reminds me of the school doctor at my undergrad back in the day. Go in with a sore throat and the first two questions would be
1. Are you pregnant?
2. Have you had oral sex recently?

[PrettyBoy]

Originally Posted by DolphinChicaDDD

Reminds me of the school doctor at my undergrad back in the day. Go in with a sore throat and the first two questions would be
1. Are you pregnant?
2. Have you had oral sex recently?

Really? I've never heard of that. So it must be true.

[AlethiaSi]

I find that incredibly hard to believe and according to this "piece of scientific evidence" I would/ should already have cancer.... ridiculous

[PrettyBoy]

Originally Posted by AlethiaSi

I find that incredibly hard to believe and according to this "piece of scientific evidence" I would/ should already have cancer.... ridiculous

LMAO.

Who knows? I met a guy who got throat cancer from drinking too much pop. He told me he had to get his stomach tube tied to the part of his throat that was cut out. It seems like everything causes cancer now. If I have throat cancer I know it's not from the above article. I haven't had many partners at all.

[ThetaLove]

Originally Posted by PrettyBoy

Really? I've never heard of that. So it must be true.

No, that doesn't prove anything.

A common cause of a sore throat in a sexually active young adult is gonococcal pharyngitis.

Although I learned today that the HPV vaccine is going to be pushed more for males as well as females. After all, the male is where the female gets it from.

[James]

And vice versa

As a side note: In the herpes commercial why is it always the guy that has herpes and some pretty girl is next to him saying she doesn't have it? Why must the guy always be the infected one?

Originally Posted by ThetaLove

No, that doesn't prove anything.

A common cause of a sore throat in a sexually active young adult is gonococcal pharyngitis.

Although I learned today that the HPV vaccine is going to be pushed more for males as well as females. After all, the male is where the female gets it from.

[christiangirl]

Originally Posted by ThetaLove

A common cause of a sore throat in a sexually active young adult is gonococcal pharyngitis.

Yeah, I was going to say this reminds me of that episode of Degrassi where Emma goes down on her boyfriend's best friend and her sore throat turns out to be gonorrhea. Watching her tell her parents that she needed to go to the clinic broke my heart and had me rolling at the same time.

And since HPV is a virus that can lead to cervical cancer (and males don't have a cervix), I didn't know males can have HPV. Learn somethin' new everyday.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by ThetaLove

No, that doesn't prove anything.

A common cause of a sore throat in a sexually active young adult is gonococcal pharyngitis.

Although I learned today that the HPV vaccine is going to be pushed more for males as well as females. After all, the male is where the female gets it from.

Yeah, it's still in testing for men though, and I doubt many guys will get it off label. It's too expensive. HPV can also cause Penile cancer and the vaccine protects from two major strains of genital warts as well. It's a win-win-win.

I know they're testing a Herpes vaccine too though I'm not sure where it is in the process.

[guardedbystars]

Originally Posted by OTW

Another GreekChat site? Please explain.

Minus 12 points for not following the proper article posting protocol.

And sorry, this "article" lost all its credibility once I saw the words that were obviously chosen to replace "penis" and "vagina".

Virus Spread by Oral Sex Is Linked to Throat Cancer

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 10, 2007; Page A13

The sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer also sharply increases the risk of certain types of throat cancer among people infected through oral sex, according to a study being published today.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...050902322.html

(I don't know if anyone had linked this yet... I totally thought this article was fake until I googled it!)

[Drolefille]

I have access to the abstract of the study (as well as the full article actually) would posting an abstract be w/in fair use or should I just post a citation for anyone who actually feels like reading the study.

[AKA_Monet]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

I have access to the abstract of the study (as well as the full article actually) would posting an abstract be w/in fair use or should I just post a citation for anyone who actually feels like reading the study.

Yeah, post the abstract with the full reference. I didn't say inconceivable, I said highly unlikely... It doesn't mean never, it means every now and then...

It also sounds like the virus mutated again as people got "creative"...

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by AKA_Monet

Yeah, post the abstract with the full reference. I didn't say inconceivable, I said highly unlikely... It doesn't mean never, it means every now and then...

It also sounds like the virus mutated again as people got "creative"...

I doubt it's a seperate mutation of HPV it appears that it's the same strains that cause cervical cancer. It's probably a quality of the virus and the infection that causes the cells in either mouth or cervix to mutate. The same strains can cause penile cancer as well which only supports that. (I'm not a virologist but if the same strain is doing this to multiple targets, I say it's the strain not the target)

ABSTRACT

Background Substantial molecular evidence suggests a role for human papillomavirus (HPV) in the pathogenesis of oropharyngeal squamous-cell carcinoma, but epidemiologic data have been inconsistent.

Methods We performed a hospital-based, case–control study of 100 patients with newly diagnosed oropharyngeal cancer and 200 control patients without cancer to evaluate associations between HPV infection and oropharyngeal cancer. Multivariate logistic-regression models were used for case–control comparisons.

Results A high lifetime number of vaginal-sex partners (26 or more) was associated with oropharyngeal cancer (odds ratio, 3.1; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.5 to 6.5), as was a high lifetime number of oral-sex partners (6 or more) (odds ratio, 3.4; 95% CI, 1.3 to 8.8). The degree of association increased with the number of vaginal-sex and oral-sex partners (P values for trend, 0.002 and 0.009, respectively). Oropharyngeal cancer was significantly associated with oral HPV type 16 (HPV-16) infection (odds ratio, 14.6; 95% CI, 6.3 to 36.6), oral infection with any of 37 types of HPV (odds ratio, 12.3; 95% CI, 5.4 to 26.4), and seropositivity for the HPV-16 L1 capsid protein (odds ratio, 32.2; 95% CI, 14.6 to 71.3). HPV-16 DNA was detected in 72% (95% CI, 62 to 81) of 100 paraffin-embedded tumor specimens, and 64% of patients with cancer were seropositive for the HPV-16 oncoprotein E6, E7, or both. HPV-16 L1 seropositivity was highly associated with oropharyngeal cancer among subjects with a history of heavy tobacco and alcohol use (odds ratio, 19.4; 95% CI, 3.3 to 113.9) and among those without such a history (odds ratio, 33.6; 95% CI, 13.3 to 84.8). The association was similarly increased among subjects with oral HPV-16 infection, regardless of their tobacco and alcohol use. By contrast, tobacco and alcohol use increased the association with oropharyngeal cancer primarily among subjects without exposure to HPV-16.

Conclusions Oral HPV infection is strongly associated with oropharyngeal cancer among subjects with or without the established risk factors of tobacco and alcohol use.

D'Souza, Gypsyamber, Kreimer, Aimee R., Viscidi, Raphael, Pawlita, Michael, Fakhry, Carole, Koch, Wayne M., Westra, William H., Gillison, Maura L.
Case-Control Study of Human Papillomavirus and Oropharyngeal Cancer
N Engl J Med 2007 356: 1944-1956