However cancer has also been around for a long time and it appears, as will be explained below, that oral sex can cause oral cancer. So the health of an entire generation of young Americans seems to be seriously at risk. That�s the situation that justifies the following frank discussion.
Below, left is a passage from Scientific American for January 1987, page 53. The author of the article from which the quote is taken was Dr. Robert Gallo. Gallo is regarded as a pioneer in AIDS research, and that article was primarily about AIDS.
The whole article may be found in bound copies of Scientific American in libraries.
Those wanting to read it should be warned that the terminology regarding AIDS has changed since the article was written and that may cause some initial confusion in reviewing the material.
Gallo wrote that people infected with HIV have, �an increased risk of at least three types of human tumor: Kaposi�s sarcoma, carcinomas (including skin cancers often seen in the mouth or rectum of infected homosexuals) and B-cell lymphomas �.�
Of interest, with respect to oral cancer are the skin cancers in the mouth which he described.
As mentioned Dr. Gallo wasn�t primarily focused, in his overall article, on whether or not oral sex is dangerous. However, the incidental information he provided does strongly suggest that oral sex can cause oral cancer.
During the �90s, following the publication of Gallo�s article, American sexual attitudes were liberalized in some respects. Although by that time most educated Americans had become fully aware of the danger of anal sex, oral sex was another matter. And, of course, oral sex also became a media issue during the Clinton administration. President Bill Clinton himself made an effort to depict his own indiscretions involving oral sex as inconsequential.
It�s partly because of his posture then that warnings about oral sex health risks aren't taken seriously now by teenagers. But in early 2008, with respect to a possible election scandal, the Clintons themselves had a serious residual political problem.
CONTINUE
Gaus Science Prize
My corporation has, at times, awarded a science prize.
The 2005 Gaus Science Prize was given to Dr. Robert Gallo for his work with AIDS in the '80s and for the current relevance of that work as is explained in this discussion.
"Whereas the neurological effects of HTLV-III [sic, "HTLV-III" was the prior term for "HIV"] are distinct from immune deficiency, the third main type of pathology�cancer�has a more ambiguous relation to the crippling of the immune system. People infected with the virus have an increased risk of at least three types of human tumor: Kaposi�s sarcoma, carcinomas (including skin cancers often seen in the mouth or rectum of infected homosexuals and B-cell lymphomas, which are tumors originating in B lymphocytes.
"In some instances the tumors appear to be independent of immune deficits, as is suggested by the fact that homosexuals may have an increased risk of developing Kaposi�s sarcoma even if they are not infected with the AIDS virus."