STD Awareness: Can the HPV Vaccine Prevent Head-and-Neck Cancer?
The HPV vaccine Gardasil protects against human papillomavirus, a prolific virus that causes many types of cancer. In fact, although it was initially approved to prevent cervical cancer, the most common HPV-associated cancer is head-and-neck cancer. Last month, Gardasil 9 was finally approved for the prevention of head-and-neck cancer.
STD Awareness: COVID-19 and Semen
You might have read the headlines earlier this month that the virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in semen. Is that true — and if it is, does that mean COVID-19 can be transmitted sexually?
The short answers to those questions are yes, and we don’t know yet.
STD Awareness: Can I Get Gonorrhea from Kissing?
Some pretty depressing news hit a couple of months ago, when headlines proclaimed kissing could allow gonorrhea to jump from one person to another.
STD Awareness: Can I Use Plastic Wrap as a Dental Dam During Oral Sex?
If you read this blog — or any sexual health website, really — you’ll probably see dental dams getting a lot of props. A dental dam (not to be confused with a female condom) is a square piece of latex that can cover the vaginal opening or the anus. Anyone wishing to avoid the oral transmission of STDs like herpes, gonorrhea, HPV, syphilis, chlamydia, and intestinal parasites, dental-dam advocates say, should use a latex barrier. Most people, however, have probably never even seen a dental dam, and they are not widely used. Perhaps their unpopularity is related to myths about oral sex being safe sex (it’s not!); perhaps it’s due to dental dams being expensive or difficult to find.
STD Awareness: Is Bacterial Vaginosis a Sexually Transmitted Disease?
Bacterial vaginosis, or BV, is the most common vaginal infection among people 15 to 44 years of age. It’s caused by an overgrowth of harmful bacteria, such as Gardnerella vaginalis. A healthy vagina hosts thriving populations of Lactobacillus bacteria species, but when these “good” bacteria are crowded out by certain types of “bad” bacteria, the vaginal ecosystem can be shifted, causing BV.
STD Awareness: Why Should You Care About Oral Gonorrhea?
When I say “gonorrhea,” you might think of genitals that feel as though they have been set ablaze, or perhaps a viscous fluid oozing from the urethra. But gonococci, the bacteria that cause gonorrhea, can also set up camp in the pharynx after being transmitted into a mouth and down a throat when its new host gave oral sex to its old host. Indeed, performing oral sex on multiple partners has been found to increase risk for an oral gonorrhea infection (more properly called pharyngeal gonorrhea).
Can Oral Herpes Be Spread to Genitals?
Herpes simplex virus is mystifying, fascinating, and sneaky. Mystifying because we have yet to unravel all of its secrets; fascinating because when we do uncover one of its mysteries, we are amazed by the capabilities of such a tiny, microscopic object; and sneaky because it enters our bodies by stealth and conceals itself in our cells, taking us by surprise when it comes out of hiding and causes outbreaks of blisters and other lesions.
STD Awareness: Gonorrhea of the Throat
My fellow Generation Xers might remember an episode of Chicago Hope in which a very young Jessica Alba portrays a teenage girl with a gonorrhea infection in her throat — also called pharyngeal gonorrhea. The actress later reported being shunned by members of her church, disillusioning her from the religion she grew up with. It is a testament to the power of taboo that even a fictional association with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) can elicit such negative reactions.
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