The Cancer-Causing Sex Virus

The culprit: human papilloma virus.

Martin Duffy, a Boston consultant and economist, thought he just had a sore throat. When it persisted for months he went to the doctor and learned there was a tumor on his tonsils.
Duffy, now 70, had none of the traditional risk factors for throat cancer. He doesn't smoke, doesn't drink and has run 40 Boston Marathons. Instead, his cancer was caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is sexually transmitted and a common cause of throat and mouth cancer.
HPV tumors have a better prognosis than those caused by too many years of booze and cigarettes. But Duffy "is in the unlucky 20%" whose cancer comes back, despite rounds of chemotherapy and radiation that melted 20 more pounds off a lean 150-pound frame. Now the cancer has spread throughout his throat, making eating and talking difficult. "I made my living as a public speaker," he says. "Now I sound like Daffy Duck." Duffy believes he has only a few months left. "How do you tell the people you love you love them?" he asks.Most strains of the HPV virus are harmless, but persistent infections with two HPV strains cause 70% of the 12,000 cases of cervical cancers diagnosed annually in the U.S. Other forms of the sexually transmitted virus can cause penile and anal cancer, and genital warts. The HPV throat cancer connection has emerged in just the last few years and is so new that the U.S. government doesn't track its incidence. Researchers believe it is transmitted via oral sex. But top researchers estimate that there are 11,300 HPV throat cancers each year in America--and the numbers are growing fast as people have been having more sexual partners since the 1960s. By 2015 there could be 20,000 cases.These big numbers have some top researchers arguing that drugmakers should test whether HPV vaccines now used to prevent cervical cancer in women can also prevent throat infections in boys. Two vaccines, Gardasil from Merck ( MRK - news - people ) and Australia's CSL, and Cervarix from GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK - news - people ), are U.S. FDA-approved for preventing cervical cancer. Gardasil is approved for use in boys only to prevent genital warts.Vaccinating boys could stop this meteoric increase in throat cancer. "Clearly, boys need to be vaccinated," says Marshall Posner, the incoming medical director of head and neck cancer at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York. "I want my kids to be vaccinated. I don't see a downside to these vaccines."www.forbes.com