Written: 13 March 2003 for English Writing 2 - Don't Plagiarize!
Silent, But Deadly Have you ever heard of HPV, human
papillomavirus? There are at least 70 known strains that are the
cause of common skin warts (plantar warts), genital warts, and
the number one type of cancer that kills thousands of women each
year internationally, cervical cancer, as well as other cancers.
Although researchers suspected cervical cancer was sexually
transmitted, HPV wasn't noticed until the 1970s. Since then,
there have been many improvements in diagnosis and treatment of
dangerous HPV strains, but there is still much to be learned
about this virus. According to the Story of Discovery,
researchers noticed a connection between sex and cervical cancer
"almost a hundred years ago." The introduction of the
Papanicolaou smear test ("Pap smear") in the 1950s by Dr. George
Papanicolaou was important in observing and detecting cancerous
and tumor-like growths. German researchers finally linked
cutaneous and genital warts to HPV in the