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" In an interview about his throat cancer, actor Michael Douglas recently that HPV as a result of oral sex can be one of the causes. We asked doctor and Esquire friend Harry Fisch what exactly that means \u2014 and what you can do about it. If a woman has human papillomavirus and you&amp;#039;re engaging in cunnilingus with her, there is, yes, a chance that you will get it. Whether that means you&amp;#039;re going to get throat cancer is a whole different story. It is still rare, but there has been a sharp rise in throat cancer linked to HPV: The National Cancer Institute expects it to be one of the highest increases in causes of cancer and deaths caused by cancer. Between 1988 and 2004, the instances of HPV-positive, oral pharynx cancer \u2014 the ones that affect the back of the tongue and tonsil area \u2014 increased by 222 percent. If HPV is really causing all of this throat cancer, then the question is, will we be seeing a change in the prevalence of oral sex? If you&amp;#039;re with someone you don&amp;#039;t know much about, then I would say use contraceptive or barrier methods when you&amp;#039;re having oral sex, like vaginal dams. The downside is that they take away from the spontaneity and sensation. But if you&amp;#039;re with a long-term partner and you know their medical status, that&amp;#039;s a different story. There is also the HPV vaccine, Gardasil. The reality is that you&amp;#039;re supposed to take it before you&amp;#039;re sexually active, but as long as you take it before you contract HPV, it will be effective. Unfortunately, it&amp;#039;s hard to know whether a man has HPV because there&amp;#039;s not a great test for it. If there&amp;#039;s a visible wart, we actually cut it off and see if it&amp;#039;s HPV. But we don&amp;#039;t have a blood test because the human papillomavirus comes and goes depending on the body&amp;#039;s immunity. If you have a wart on your finger, it will just disappear and come back years later. It&amp;#039;s the same thing with HPV in the genital area: It comes and it goes. If you do have a constant cough, sore throat, or ear infection, especially as you get older, you need to see your doctor, who will use a special little instrument to look into the throat. It took Michael Douglas a while to be diagnosed because very few people know about the risks of throat cancer. If you&amp;#039;re having oral sex, you&amp;#039;re at a higher risk because sex is a sport and you can get injured. This is just more like bull fighting than volleyball \u2014 but you can get a lot out of bull fighting. Certainly this will decrease the number of people having oral sex. Well, the romantic in me says I hope not, but the pragmatist says maybe that wouldn&amp;#039;t be a bad thing. \u2014Interviewed by Anna Peele "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/health/news/a22896/michael-douglas-throat-cancer-oral-sex/>