Is Oral Sex Safe - poor report!

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Hello - the Oral Sex Safe show supposedly set out to find out why the stats for HPV related cancers are rising?? Did she check out who funds the research? There are two main companies competing for government contracts to vaccinate people against HPV - that's one hell of a lot of business - HPV does not cause all cervical cancers, so whilst screening picks them all up, vaccination doesn't.. so having vaccination won't protect you against cervical cancer - so screens are essential - and they will pick up HPV cervical cancers, and genital warts anyway.

The campaign by these companies to get the vaccination for girls has been successful. Soon afterwards the same companies were talking about oral cancers (when previously they were talking only about cervical cancers) because they are looking for the second half of the market. A tiny tiny amount of oral cancers only caused by HPV - there is normally other major risk factors - spirits drinking, smoking etc.

Journalists are now being pumped with oral cancer scare stories (when oral cancer is pretty small risk - even more so if HPV is vaccinated against in girls), in order to get a campaign going to try to vaccinate men too.

Another big contract that won't significantly affect the likelihood of catching or curing oral cancers.

Oh and hpv transmission is dramatically reduced by circumcision - so why is there no campaign there?

The concern is 'New research says oral cancer is five times mroe likely now (yes now the research is funded by drug companies wanting to make a sale'

I was also astonished that 1000 women dies of cervical cancer a year (ie. about 700 of HPV|-related (which is a lot less than the number of women who always miss their smear test) an yet we are going to spend £100 MILLION a year on the vaccine - that's nearly £150,000 per life saved, not including the smear test which would pick up the same cancer in the same way anyway.

It seems very expensive to me....

SOunds a bit harsh above, but I thought the same thing - it is playing right into those drug company hands - gettign boys steamed up about unfairness and spreading fear about oral cancers that is rare to be HPV as only risk factor. Its shocking really.

Its an even worse calculation for boys - only 600 cases a year and most cured by chemo - if 10% die ( a lot) then its 1.6 MILLION per life saved! No wonder there is not a vaccination programme for all children! - how naive is this presenter?! She even said that 'HPV causes cancer' as if every HPV infection generates throat cancer...
No wonder the media keeps getting things wrong there was an absence of any basic number-crunching in this - sure we can spend billions on every small risk, but we'd be better having giant inflatable cars travelling at 3 miles an hour - that would save lives but cost a lot..

I thought it was appalling journalism, scaremongering and full of half-facts.

The couple spoken to where the man had oral cancer, would the oncologist really have said "your wife gave you cancer through giving her oral sex"?
They had been together since 17, yet no-one mentioned if they had previous sexual partners, if they hadn't then hpv was obviously not transmitted sexually - which absolutely can happen, even the Macmillan cancer site states that non-sexual transmission is rare but possible.
He was a smoker, perhaps he would have got that cancer anyway?

I've read research that said smoking cannabis combined with hpv infection could treble the (v.small) risk for men.

I wonder how many gullible parents, with more money than sense, will be rushing out to have their teen sons vaccinated at £300 a pop?

If hpv is so prevalent in the population, it's got to be more easily transmitted than just via sexual contact - it would be interesting to know how common it is in young children for example.

If a man can get HPV infection from giving his female partner oral sex, doesn't that imply that he could almost as easily acquire it from french kissing someone who already has an HPV infection in their mouth or throat? Maybe there should be another programme, entitled, "Is Kissing Safe?" Or how about "Is Sharing Cutlery Safe?"? I'm sure there's an outside chance of passing HPV on via a spoon only seconds before inserted into the infected person's mouth. We live in a dangerous world... I feel a sore throat coming on. How reckless kissers and spoon sharers are.