A RANT!!!!!!!!

I was on the phone with an old friend and she was venting about a commercial that really really ticks her off. I listened. And because I'm a jerk, I had to add on to the conversation... You know what commercial really ticks me off?

Well, I get mad every time I see it. No really. I get REALLY mad.

Tell Someone. The shots of different aged women finally revealing to the world that most types of cervical cancer are cause by a "common virus."

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

They tell you that virus is called HPV - human papillomavirus. They tell you that you need to get pap tests done.

AND HPV, BY THE WAY, IS AN STD!!!!!!!!!!!!! genital warts anyone?

okay, okay. There are like 100 strains of HPV - which basically cause warts on the skin. But the commercial is referring to some specific strains (30 are genital HPV's) - and the strains that cause genital warts are not the same strains that give you cancer...

Recently ANOTHER commercial about HPV has started airing - which say, by the way, a pap test might shows effects of HPV, but not HPV. That would actually require getting THE HPV Test with your pap smear (which tends to miss pre-cancerous cells 15-50% of the time).... great odds.

And conveniently - GlaxoKlineSmith has just passed an HPV Vaccine - to fight four particular strains - 2 that cause cancer and 2 that cause warts - the most... but acknowledge you should still get Pap tests annually or semiannually to be safe. Some vaccine, eh?

Oh yeah - and as far as "protection" and "safe sex" - "recent studies have concluded that condoms only offer partial protection, at best, against the transmission of genital HPVs (Holmes 2004; Winer 2006). This may be due to the fact that HPVs can infect genital skin areas that are not covered by condoms." So apparently, it's not so "safe" after all.

Wikipedia goes on to say "The fact that prostitutes have much higher rates of cervical cancer than nuns was a key early observation leading researchers to speculate about a causal link between sexually-transmitted HPVs and cervical cancer (zur Hausen 1994). It remains clear that people with greater numbers of sexual partners are at increased risk of developing genital HPV-related diseases."

Dude. I'm gonna tell someone. Geez oh man. Reason number 8,745 to wait til marriage. Good grief. Are we that dumb? No, really. Are we? Have we gone to scare tactic commercials that act as if they are laying it all out but really aren't... Well, now we both know the truth. You gonna tell someone?