Chaw-Nah-Nah

We don’t normally use this space to post Alarming Health Alerts, but the news breaking today may doom civilization as we know it:

Blowjobs cause cancer.

No joke, alas. Swedish researchers have traced a sevenfold increase in tonsil cancer over the past thirty years among patients with the HPV virus in their mouths. And while smoking and drinking are also known risks for tonsil cancer, tobacco-related cancers have declined.

Not that we’re above snickering over an out-of-context quote:

“If they have a lump in their throat, especially if it’s on one side and it doesn’t go away with antibiotics, they should see a doctor,” [researcher Tina] Dalianis says.

Or you could, y’know, back away.

What makes this outbreak particularly nasty is that the tonsil cancer takes twenty or thirty years to develop — which means doctors are only now seeing cases from randy schoolgirls in the 1970s and ’80s.

The good news, at least for today’s randy schoolgirls — or to be honest, their guys — is that a vaccine against a couple of forms of HPV is now available, and about to be widely administered in Sweden. It’s not known yet whether the vaccine will prevent tonsil cancer as well, but the future of Catholicism depends on it.

Researchers suspect oral sex to blame for rise in tonsil cancer [USA Today]

Swedish study reveals sharp increase in HPV-positive tonsil cancer [Karolinska Institute]

14 Comments

is there anything left that doesn’t cause cancer?

Thank goodness I had my tonsils removed when I was a child. I know I’ll sleep easier tonight.

@Jamie Sommers: Old Joe Jackson song: “Everything Gives You Cancer.” And that was in the ’80s.

funny you should say that. I’m watching 100 greatest one hit wonders of the 80s and enjoying it more than I should really admit.

What makes this outbreak particularly nasty is that the tonsil cancer takes twenty or thirty years to develop — which means doctors are only now seeing cases from randy schoolgirls in the 1970s and ’80s

I am in HUGE trouble…

@Tommmcatt the Wet Sprocket: Yep, crap, I’m screwed. Oh well, it’s too late to quit now!

I think I will keep eating steak, binge drinking and giving BJs, thanks.

True homofascist story: One semester in college I was taking private voice lessons from a very elderly former opera singer who was a professor emeritus at my school. She had heard me sing a solo in Faure’s Requiem and agreed to take me as a student. And she was pretty old and clueless – she didn’t know that Samuel Barber and Cole Porter were gay, and she was so old she might have been hanging out with those guys. Anyhoo, some of the first things we did once lessons started was to work on the physical components of good singing – breath support, diaphragm control and of course opening ones throat. So she put her claws up to my neck and grabbed it and said “open your throat! Just pretend you have a garden hose going in your mouth and down your throat”. So I did, and she said “oh my, you are REALLY good at that!” It was all I could do to not roll around on the floor laughing, which my wonderful choir director did when I relayed to her the story.

Something’s gonna kill ya no matter what. Blowjobs seem to me a good way to go.

@homofascist: Corrected: “Just pretend you have Jason O’Mara’s hose going in your mouth and down your throat.”

Can’t believe I missed all of Life on Mars. Will Netflix it ASAP.

I had my tonsils removed as a young lad. Nasty case of tonsillitis, that left me without tonsils and adenoids (My mother said “While your there, take them out.”)

And don’t believe them when they say “You’ll get ice-cream and it’ll be alright”. It more like eating frozen glass shards with jelly.

Of course, because they were removed so young, the fuckers grew back. So not only have I had the joy of a tonsillectomy, I now get to experience tonsillitis all over again. Now, I get the added bonus of an extra risk for throat cancer.

On the bright side, at least I didn’t have my appendix removed needlessly like a certain younger brother that was experiencing severe abdominal pain. He was prepped, opened and found to have a healthy, un-inflamed appendix. When mother was informed of this she said “Oh take it out since your in there.”

Sometimes it sucks having a nurse for a mother.

@homofascist: @CheapBoy: I can’t decide which of your stories is funnier. Tie!

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