Oral Sex Linked To A Spike In American Throat Cancer Cases

Oral sex may have snatched your soul at some point in life, but did you know it can actually kill you?

Experts are sounding the alarm about the rise in throat cancer, and unfortunately, fellatio is to blame. U.K.’s University of Birmingham professor Hisham Mehanna has found through his extensive cancer research that 70% of throat cancers are caused by human papillomavirus, also known as HPV. Even more troubling, Mehanna says people who’ve had multiple oral sex partners are more likely to be diagnosed with this illness. 

His findings were also backed by 2021 research that found people with ten or more oral sex partners were more likely to develop HPV-related mouth and throat cancers, as reported by the New York Post. While there is an HPV vaccine, only 54% of Americans have taken it. Though the virus can be harmless in many cases, its cancer link goes back several years.

Dr. Mehanna documented these findings in The Conversation, pointing out that there has been a “rapid increase” in throat cancers throughout Western countries in the past two decades. The most common type of throat cancer being seen in connection to oral sex is Oropharyngeal. It affects the tonsils and back of the throat. HPV infection can typically go away on its own, but when in the back of the mouth, it can linger, and cancer can emerge. Over 50,000 cases of oral or Oropharyngeal cancer are diagnosed annually in America. More than 10,000 people succumb to the disease each year. In the U.K., these numbers are drastically lower, with only 12,000 cases of combined head and neck cancers yearly. They usually only see 4,000 yearly deaths as a result.

“Those with six or more lifetime oral-sex partners are 8.5 times more likely to develop Oropharyngeal cancer than those who do not practice oral sex,” Mehanna wrote.

In place of giving or receiving head during your next rendevous, maybe some good old-fashioned conversation to keep everyone safe is in order.