While public health campaigns about STDs have helped to dramatically reduce HIV rates and improve condom usage, many Americans are still ignorant about the risks of HPV. It’s the most common STD in the country that will infect almost every sexually active person at some point in their lives — and the only STD that can cause cancer. [...]
To Tomlinson, the opportunity to prevent oral or genital cancers should be a no brainer for parents and young people. “There are parents who don’t inoculate their kids because they think it’ll make them more promiscuous. I ask them: ‘Would you rather your kids be sexually promiscuous or would you rather they be dead’?” Tomlinson said. “It’s a simple choice.” [...]
There are a couple of things we know about the people who get HPV-related cancers: They tend to have a high number of oral sex partners over their lifetime, and they also tend to be male and white. (Both HPV infection and related cancers are about three to five times more common in men than women.)
Researchers haven’t been able to figure out why men are more susceptible, but suspect it might be caused by the fact that women’s immune system seem to be able to ward off the virus’ cancer causing properties more readily.
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