Gail, while you have obviously boned up to some extent on this topic, the point that I disagreed with in your original post was this. There is no different treatment protocol for someone who is HPV positive and those that are not. To suggest otherwise is misleading. The other information about this research, at this point in time, is not of any usable value to the posters on this board. Actually there are several other articles out there that elucidate the oncogene issue. They help determine if the HPV is a causative agent or a co-factor / facilitator. But again, is there any practical application for this knowledge to patients right now? No. Also you can test positive for HPV and not have any visible lesions, as a matter of fact most individuals do not. So the article that stated that refers to the obvious. Unlike other viral agents, such as herpes simplex 1 or 2, which routinely have distinct lesions associated with them, HPV does not. When it does the lesion is flat, barely visible to the naked eye, not painful, and the positive person would have no indications that they have it. You can test positive for HPV and have no lesion associated with that positive result. All this information is interesting but not usable. Since it will invariably come up, there is no safe sex with HPV. Because it is an epithelial to epithelial transfer and not a fluid transfer, condoms do not protect you from it. There is also no evidence that with a positive HPV individual that the virus is transferred via the blood from the cervix to the oral cavity or any other definable location in that individual at this time. It appears to stay localized, unlike herpes simplex which lives on the ganglia and can unilaterally disseminate itself to multiple locations in the same person.

There is no practical way of testing males at this time.