Apparently HPV is responsible for some ~70% of throat cancers and ~30% of penile cancers in men. Seems pretty significant to me.

If nobody knows a guy who knows a guy who had penile cancer, that's probably because people are very bad about talking about genital health. I'm sure some of the men in my life have issues with erectile dysfunction, enlarged prostates, hemmorrhoids, etc. But no one is talking about those issues.

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AnimalMuppet 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

70% of throat cancers? In a world with cigarettes and chewing tobacco? I find that a very surprising number - so surprising it's almost unbelievable.

Got a source?

	▲	tialaramex 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Think of it as shared responsibility. The tobacco and the virus are both reasons why you got cancer and died, prizes for all. So maybe 70% of throat cancer victims have HPV, and like 70% smoked - and if those were independent facts you'd expect that about 49% both smoked and had HPV, but it's actually more than half 'cos it turns out that if you have HPV then smoking is even worse. So that's nice.
	▲	tokai 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		"Currently, the estimated proportion of oropharyngeal cancers testing positive for HPV within the United States is 68%–70%"[0] [0] https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/head-an...

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potato3732842 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And how many men get throat and penile cancers vs other cancers and health issues? There's a reason old men crack jokes about prostate health, erectile dysfunction and incontinence rather than their dicks falling off and are way more worried about colon cancer than rectal cancer.

I didn't say it wasn't a significant source of cancer. I said that nobody knows a guy who knows a guy who's dick fell off or some other extreme outcome. Without enough of that to back up your messaging it just won't work. You need to be honest with people, not try and scare them like you're trying to keep school kids from smoking weed in 1990.

The public messaging you're trying to engage in could perhaps have skated by in a less critical time but in the current environment it will be counterproductive.

I don't want my kid or my grandkid to get measles or some other "of immediate consequence" disease because they go to school with a bunch of unvaccinated kids because you people sullied the reputation of public health via "just push the truth a little, it'll make them take the vaccine" type endeavors.

	▲	elric 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> "you people" JFC. I'm checking out of this conversation.