If that article's headline reflected what the research it alludes to has actually found, it would indeed be pretty alarming. Fortunately, the research in question indicates no such thing.
What the research actually shows is that oral sex is among the leading causes of the transfer of human papilloma virus, which in turn
appears to be overtaking other risk factors as having the strongest
association with incidences of oropharyngeal cancer, but
only among those who do not smoke.
If a news outlet puts it that way, however, nobody will read the article. ;-)
This is what a representative of the Oral Cancer Foundation
said about the issue -- I've added emphasis to the quote to show where CBS pulled a little linguistic slight of hand in order to make their story sound more interesting:
Quote:
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"HPV has now been shown to be sexually transmitted between partners and is conclusively implicated in the increasing incidence of young nonsmoking oral cancer patients. HPV is the same virus identified as the causative agent in more than 90 percent of all cervical cancers. Based on recent data, it appears that in people under the age of 50, HPV-associated oral cancers may even be replacing tobacco as the primary causative agent in the initiation of the disease process.?
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So, within the medical/scientific community, the concern is about the increased incidence of HPV, and the role of oral sex in that increase. That is really nothing at all like saying "oral sex causes oral cancers."
Bottom line: within the context of epidemiology, establishing causality is much, much trickier than many members of the media like to pretend that it is.
