HPV comes and goes in people's bodies, and only a handful of the over 100 strains of it are known to cause malignancies. It is estimated that 40% of the American population has some form of HPV at any given time; no one can guess how many have a malignancy causing strain. Because of the uniqueness of each individual's genetics, there is no clue as to why HPV 16 and 18 will cause oral cancer in some people, and not in others, ditto cervical cancer. This whole area is in its infancy as far as research, even though it has been explored for a long time period. I would not be considering changing my lifestyle over any of this at this time. The whole thing about the new cervical cancer (HPV) vaccine that is exciting, is that in developing countries, which for the most part do not have annual pap test/cervical examinations for women, and where cervical cancer (98% caused by HPV) examinations do not take place routinely - and the cancer is still a very big killer of women, this can now be prevented by vaccinating young women before they become sexually active. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated millions to begin this vaccination program in developing countries. The by product of those vaccinations over the years will likely impact the head and neck cancer world as well, but it will be many years before we know to what extent. An interesting side note is that the extreme religious right in the US, that has taken so much stage lately, is against the use of the vaccine, since they believe that it will encourage young people to engage in sex. This is the same group that is against condoms for the same reasons, and believes that young people will just say no. I don't know about others, but when I was a teenager, my hormones said something other than no