The New York Post reported that oral sex is allegedly the reason behind the rise of throat cancer in the United States, which is ultimately causing an
“epidemic.”
A professor at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences at the University of Birmingham, Hisham Mehanna, says that the human papillomavirus is the cause behind it all. On Tuesday, he penned for the Conversation,
“For oropharyngeal cancer, the main risk factor is the number of lifetime sexual partners, especially oral sex.”
According to The Post,
“Cases of HPV-linked oropharyngeal cancer, a type of throat cancer, rose annually by 1.3% in women and 2.8% in men from 2015 to 2019,“
says the American Cancer Society.
The CDC calculates that 70% of oropharyngeal cancers, which affect the back of one’s throat, the base of one’s tongue, and one’s tonsils, are caused by HPV infection in the United States. Previous studies dictate that several sexual partners could inflate the threat of gaining HPV, which in turn, can cultivate mouth or throat cancer. 2021 research discovered that individuals with 10 or more oral sex partners were over four times more likely to gain HPV-related throat or mouth cancers, The Post reports.
If you’re unaware, HPV is a common sexually transmitted infection as 42 million Americans have already been affected by it. The CDC noted that
“nearly all sexually active men and women get the virus at some point in their lives.”
Although the infection is harmless, in some cases, the virus can provoke cervical or oropharyngeal cancers.
“However, a small number of people are not able to get rid of the infection, maybe due to a defect in a particular aspect of their immune system,”
Mehanna wrote.
Although there is an HPV vaccine, the CDC doesn’t recommend it for everyone older than age 26.
#Clique, what are your thoughts?
