Fellatio can seriously damage your health

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Uh-oh:

The sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer also sharply increases the risk of certain types of throat cancer among people infected through oral sex, according to a study being published today.

The study, involving 100 people with throat cancer and 200 without it, found that those infected with the human papillomavirus were 32 times as likely to develop one form of oral cancer than those free of the virus. Although previous research had indicated HPV caused oral cancer, the new study is the first to definitively establish the link, researchers said.

"It makes it absolutely clear that oral HPV infection is a risk factor," said Maura L. Gillison, an assistant professor of oncology and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, who led the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The findings could help explain why rates of oral cancer have been increasing in recent years, particularly among younger people and those who are not smokers or heavy drinkers, which had long been the primary at-risk groups, experts said.

So, well, be careful out there. Seriously. Life sucks sometimes.

(And remember, masturbation isn't just sex with someone you love, as Woody Allen put it, it's sex with someone whose sexual and medical history you know, or are much more likely to know, depending on how well you know yourself.)