![\"File:Michael](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/f\/fa\/Michael_Douglas_VF_2012_Shankbone.JPG\")
<\/a>When news first broke, about three years ago,\u00a0that Michael Douglas had oral cancer, my gut instinct was that it had been caused by HPV, likely one of the same types of HPV that has been causally linked to cervical cancer. The mucus membrane tissue of mouth and throat are similar to those of genital skin, so researchers have known for some time that, like herpes, HPV could be transmitted oral to genital, as well as genital to oral.<\/p>\nBack in 2009<\/a>, the research\u00a0findings were already\u00a0clear:\u00a0oral transmission of cancer-causing HPV means that almost all of us are more likely at risk than we are safe from risk.\u00a0 For my 2010 feature article in Ms. Magazine<\/a>, I focused\u00a0on the importance of not only educating the public about HPV-related cancers in men but also about the HPV-oral cancer link. In addition, I advocated for\u00a0the need to\u00a0destigmatize\u00a0all STDs: my research and book<\/a>\u00a0have shown\u00a0that STD stigma makes it more likely for at-risk\/infected\u00a0 individuals\u00a0to put off getting tested and treated. STD stigma also makes it less likely for individuals to disclose their sexual health status to partners, placing those partners at greater risk for infection.\u00a0 In addition, negative stereotypes about the ‘types’ of women and men likely to be infected distort our ideas of\u00a0who is at risk.<\/p>\n I’ll wrap up this post with a call: for us to come together, to\u00a0learn the facts and not be swayed by incomplete media coverage<\/a>\u00a0and confusing pharmaceutical claims<\/a>.\u00a0 We must\u00a0support\u00a0significant funding increases to investigate\u00a0exactly how we can\u00a0prevent\u00a0HPV-related oral\/throat cancers, which research<\/a> shows to be steadily on the rise and\u00a0more fatal than cervical cancers in the U.S.<\/p>\n Update (6\/3\/13):<\/strong> I was not surprised to read\u00a0reports which broke today — that\u00a0the actor’s rep is correcting one aspect of\u00a0yesterday’s breaking news: “He did not say cunnilingus was the cause of his cancer<\/a>.” All any cancer survivor probably knows is that his\/her cancer was caused by HPV (viral tests and typing can be done\u00a0in lab tests of biopsied tissue samples). Researchers<\/a> have found that cancer-causing HPV can be transmitted to oral\/throat area via oral sex. The point remains: Michael Douglas did a good deed by helping raise awareness that serious (often fatal) oral cancers can be caused by sexually-transmitted HPV which is likely contracted by oral sex….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Having written\u00a0about\u00a0sexually transmitted HPV (human papillomavirus)\u00a0for 13 years,\u00a0I’ve been waiting for the day when\u00a0 celebrity would lend his or her fame to spotlight the realities of HPV infection, especially of\u00a0HPV-related oral cancers. My hopes were that big news could bring about big change.\u00a0 Today is that day, but\u00a0it remains to be seen if it can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1918,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21094,21111],"tags":[21377,2862,22443,21673,21821],"class_list":["post-6056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bedside-manners","category-quick-hits","tag-gardasil","tag-hpv","tag-michael-douglas","tag-oral-cancer","tag-std"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1918"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6056"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6065,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6056\/revisions\/6065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}