HPV and Oropharyngeal Cancer

https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/basic_info/hpv_oropharyngeal.htm
Last autumn and winter I took some Coursera free classes in the medical field.  One I finished—medical statistics, and one I didn’t—gut microbiome. It was just too gross.  So I continue to get announcements to entice me to try again, something in the medical field.  Today it was HPV and Oropharyngeal Cancer.  I knew only a little about it—with the increased acceptance of oral sex, it has put many in danger of a disease they couldn’t have imagined in the pre-Monica days of “it’s not really sex.”
Here’s what CDC says it is, without ever suggesting that oral sex not be practiced:
“HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. Of the more than 100 types of HPV, about 40 types can spread through direct sexual contact to genital areas, as well as the mouth and throat. Oral HPV is transmitted to the mouth by oral sex, or possibly in other ways. Many people are exposed to oral HPV in their life. About 10% of men and 3.6% of women have oral HPV, and oral HPV infection is more common with older age. Most people clear HPV within one to two years, but HPV infection persists in some people.”
Because it takes years for the problems to develop, CDC recommends that 11- to 12-year-old boys and girls get two doses of HPV vaccine, although there are no studies to show it actually prevents these cancers
This fact sheet is a little more graphic and explicit.  https://www.cdc.gov/std/healthcomm/stdfact-stdriskandoralsex.htm

STDs infect one in four teen girls

A CDC study released in March 2008 estimates that one in four (26 percent) young women between the ages of 14 and 19 in the United States – or 3.2 million teenage girls – is infected with at least one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus, and trichomoniasis).

Even though most of the young women had either received information/services on STDs or contraception, the recommendation was for more counseling, testing and treatment.  No mention of the obvious—chastity and celibacy to save their lives or fertility.

So I moved ahead to the 2012 study presented at the same conference. For some odd reason, the researchers were encouraged that there was more testing among African American women, those who had multiple sex partners, and those who received public insurance or were uninsured.  But all that showed them was there is a problem. I’m not sure why annual screenings are recommended as a solution when the retesting rates remain low.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/Newsroom/stdconference2012pressrelease.html

This could be bad news for poverty pimps

There could be biological reasons for racial disparities in health!

Doctors long have thought that less access to screening and follow-up health care were the reasons black women are 40 percent more likely to develop cervical cancer and twice as likely to die from it. The new study involving young college women suggests there might be a biological explanation for the racial disparity, too.

Link to AP story

Anal cancer

Before Michael Jackson's death wiped the topic clean, the media were preparing for another slow news day of not being honest about Obamacare with wall to wall coverage of Farrah Fawcett's death, a woman who had both insurance and personal wealth. From Michael's death we'll hear all about drugs (all speculation since the toxicology reports take a long time); from her death we might find out something we don't hear much about--anal cancer.

So I looked it up. This is a topic even the medical sites treat pretty delicately. I'm not sure, but they seem to be afraid of offending someone or some group. But what I gathered was, don't have anal sex. Gay guys don't have much choice. But women can say NO--there is an alternative.

Anal cancer is one of those cancers no one likes to talk about because it's, well, anal cancer. But we really should discuss it as much as, say, cervical cancer. Both are predominately caused by the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus. In fact, a 2004 study of 6,000 anal cancer patients (the majority of whom were women) found that 73 percent of the patients tested positive for the strain HPV-16, one of the strains that the Gardasil vaccine protects against.

What's worrisome is that unlike cervical cancer, which has dropped dramatically since the advent of the Pap smear, anal cancer is on the rise. Incidence rates over the past 30 years have jumped by 78 percent in women and 160 percent in men, probably because more people now have more sexual partners and more people have anal sex (both among heterosexuals and gay men), says Lisa Johnson, a cancer epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle who led the 2004 study. "What Farrah Fawcett can teach us about anal cancer"

It's not just a convenient way to avoid a pregnancy or some new experience to be talked into; it's just a way to have sex with a guy who'd probably prefer to be with another guy and you're the convenient cover and the repository for a sexually transmitted disease. That's just my opinion, of course. The anus is for waste removal, not sex. It's also rather delicate and tears easily.

The good news is this is treatable.

Treatment for most cases of anal cancer is very effective. There are 3 basic types of treatment used for anal cancer:
surgery – an operation to remove the cancer
radiation therapy – high-dose x-rays to kill cancer cells, and
chemotherapy – giving drugs to kill cancer cells. Link.

James Line at OSU on anal cancer.

Now here's a romantic slide to think on the next time.