Michael Douglas made waves recently when he (maybe) attributed his throat cancer to oral sex. The media kerfuffle around his statement highlighted two undeniable facts: strains of the HPV virus are a leading cause of head and neck cancers, and engaging in oral sex with multiple partners can increase one’s risk of contracting oral HPV.
The HPV vaccine has often been called “the cervical cancer vaccine”, but we’re learning more and more about HPV as we go. Certain strains of HPV have been linked to multiple types of cancer. This is one of the reasons why the HPV vaccine is now recommended for boys as well as girls. (Another being that if boys aren’t carrying HPV, they won’t give it to women they have sexual contact with.) Read full post »