Hi Don

I am going to place my spin on the prevalence of male dominated HPV+ cancer on this forum vs the rest of the country/world. It strikes me that we have more than our fair share of young and non-smoking survivors too and I have put it down to the fact this forum is web-based, therefore attracting a younger crowd less likely to be the stereotypical smoking, drinking oral cancer victim. I hadn't noticed this preponderance of male HPV+ve survivors but will pay attention from now on.

I have also noticed nearly all carers are women - which means their carees are often men (not all the time). Surely there are male carers out there but for some reason this forum doesn't appeal to them (silly buggers).

Re the gay community comment/question: Yes there is an epidemic of HPV+ cancers in gay men. Part of the push for free vaccinations for boys comes from the gay community who are surviving HIV only to be struck down with anal cancer. Anal transmission is not uncommon amongst the gay community and likely overshadows the oral cancer transmission as the most stigmatised of the two.

There is a lot written about this in Australia (although rarely in the mainstream press), maybe because we have an epidemiologist who has taken to riding this as his new high horse.