Which is why everyone—boys and girls—should be vaccinated against HPV.

Backing up: I wrote a column back in 2007 about a Johns Hopkins study that documented a link between oral sex, HPV infection, and throat cancer. A new study is out, this one conducted at Ohio University and published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology, and the results are grimish. NYT:

The researchers estimated that over all, throat cancers caused by the virus have increased to 2.6 per 100,000 people in 2004 from 0.8 cases per 100,000 people in 1988. If the trend continues, by 2020 the virus will be causing more throat cancer than cervical cancer, the study concluded.... Dr. Kevin J. Cullen, director of the Greenebaum Cancer Center at the University of Maryland, said the study was well done. “It’s very clear that this is becoming a major epidemic,” he added.

But before you panic: throat cancers are still rare (fewer than 10K cases a year), most people with HPV do not go on to develop throat cancer, and...

Throat cancers caused by HPV are more treatable than those not caused by the virus. Median survival in throat cancer patients with the virus is 131 months; without it, 20 months.

So smoking-related throat cancer is much deadlier and harder to treat than oral-sex-related throat cancer. And as I wrote back in 2007:

So while the news is alarming, and the mainstream media will doubtless go into full hysteria mode, last week's report in the New England Journal of Medicine shouldn't be read as, "Eat yourself some pussy, get yourself some throat cancer!" Engaging in oral sex puts you at a greater risk—significantly greater, admittedly—of contracting a virus that, if your body doesn't clear it, presents a very small risk of causing throat cancer. It's not a certainty; it's a risk. As with many pleasurable activities, sexual or otherwise, we weigh risks against benefits and make choices. Smart folks minimize their risks—by, say, using condoms for oral sex (har har)—but most sexually active adults are likely to conclude that the real and immediate pleasures of oral sex are worth risking a distant and unlikely case of throat cancer.

And now for the good news: There's a vaccine that offers 100 percent protection against the strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer in women and, it now appears, throat cancer in men and women.

Back to the NYT:

Two vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, protect against HPV Type 16 and other strains of the virus that cause cancers and genital warts. But medical groups now recommend them only for girls, to protect against cervical cancer. Researchers think the vaccines might also prevent some throat cancers, but cannot be sure unless the vaccines are specifically tested for that purpose. The manufacturers—Merck and GlaxoSmithKline—say they have no plans to study throat cancers. But Dr. Cullen said that the vaccines were likely to prevent the throat cancers, and should be given to boys too. He said he had no connection to vaccine companies.

Considering that HPV-related throat cancers are "far more common in men than in women, a difference that has not been explained," I'm thinking funds will be quickly found to study the effectiveness of the HPV vaccines against throat cancers. In the meantime, moms and dads, your sons should be vaccinated against HPV as well as your daughters.

And in other news: people are still eating cantaloupe.