This article appeared in The Washington Post today. I believe it is related to the study in the New England Journal of Medicine that Leslie B posted here yesterday.

HERE IS THE LINK:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/09/AR2007050902322.html?nav=hcmodule

I am ashamed to say that when i opened my daily paper yesterday i was greeted by the sensationalised headline ORAL SEX CAUSES THROAT CANCER!!!Although i strongly agree HPV links need to be brought to the attention of the public,i cant help feeling that this sort of headline doesnt help anyone.On the other hand maybe the headline made a lot more people read the article ,which touched briefly on research done,and ended with the advice that men should wear condoms.Does any body else feel that endless sensationlist press releases quoting dubious research information about danger in just about everything we eat or do doesnt help the cause at all.The Sun Newspaper are running a campaign called "War on Cancer" but it seems so shallow that i am not sure it will help
Liz in the UK

Letterman actually used that headline in a sort of "throwaway" laugh line about Paris Hilton in his monologue last night -- talk about poor taste and not getting the point!

Cathy

Liz,

Sounds like your print media over there works about the same way as it does here.

Bill D.

Let's hope that neither Letterman or any other "Hollywood liberal" is ever touched by this horrible disease. It would be amazing I'm sure to see how their tunes would change to such things.

Bill D.

The evil side of me wishes Letterman would wake up one day with a honker of a tumor blocking his throat.............then a huge headline in ever newspaper stating, "Hey Dave, we know what YOU'VE been doing!"
The reasonable side of me, the one that always wins, knows that unless one has oral cancer or is involved with someone that is suffering from it.........then they most likely will find humor in what Letterman said.

Hello All
I first read the article in the Palm Beach Post. It was titled: ("HPV increases throat cancer risk, study shows") Under this heading it reads: The Washington Post, to give them credit for the article. (I guess?)

When I looked up the article in the Washington Post online, I was AMAZED at the extent of which The Palm Beach Post EDITED the article, including the headline itself.("Virus Spread by Oral Sex Is Linked to Throat Cancer")

Here is the Palm Beach Post VERSION:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/search/content/nation/epaper/2007/05/10/a18a_hpv_0510.html

This is the ORIGINAL article from The Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/09/AR2007050902322.html?nav=hcmodule

Is there an ULTERIOR MOTIVE here, or did they just need the "print space"?

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS?

Petey --

Take a deep breath; there's no big conspiracy here.

Here's some sausage-making information:

Newspapers across the country subscribe to various wire services, including Associated Press and Reuters (the two main providers of basic coverage), the Los Angeles Times/Washington Post service, the New York Times service, Bloomberg, McClatchy, etc. Almost every paper subscribes to AP and/or Reuters; the others (LATWP. NYT, etc.) are considered "supplemental" services, meaning that they do not have the breadth of coverage that AP or Reuters does (but they often delve into topics on a more analytical or deeper level).

Headlines are written by copy editors at each individual newspaper, so the headline on a story in the Washington Post will be different from the headlines in other newspapers that pick up that same story from the LATWP wire. Headlines are written to fit the column width alloted to each story, and that is different in each newspaper. Often stories will be sent out on the wire with "suggested" headlines, but that's all they are -- suggestions -- and they are most often not the same headlines that appear in the paper. In addition, each paper has its own standards of propriety -- it may be OK to use the words "oral sex" in a headline in the Washington Post, but not OK in Palm Beach.

Editing is a matter of individual judgment at each newspaper. Often it has to do with the amount of space available, and that depends on the number of ads sold and the size of those ads. (On the inside pages, news fills in the space around the ads.)

Sometimes, as in the case of this Palm Beach Post article, the editors will take what they consider to be the most relevant information from the wire services they subscribe to and combine it into one story -- you'll note that the credit line for the article you linked to is "Palm Beach Post wire services".

There is no "rule" requiring that stories sent out on the wire be run by every subscribing paper at the full length; as a national news wire editor in the early 1980s, I would often take a few graphs from AP, a few from LATWP, maybe some from Reuters, some background from previous stories we had run on a similar topic and put it all together under the credit line "From [paper's name] wire services." That's perfectly legitimate (though if one story had exclusive quotes, I'd attribute those along the lines of ".... Sen. Blowhard told Associated Press").

It may be that because of the recent story about your circumstances, the editors in Palm Beach thought that just a short story noting the Hopkins study was sufficient. The important thing is that information about this study is being published in newspapers across the country, and that is good news for all of us.

-- Leslie

cookey - opinions aside, this is NOT dubious research, and validates much work done over the last decade and longer by many prestigious institutions and researchers. Gillison, who is an OCF board member, is held in the highest regard by her peers, and I can assure you that this data is beyond reproach. It is not a casual observation but a valuable insight into the mechanisms by which the increasing rate of oral cancer incidence is happening. This story made the FRONT page of the LA Times yesterday.

Brian i think you misunderstood me.I was refferring to an article published in the Sun Newspaper in England and it didn't quote any source that i am aware of.
If it did i apologise but like most people in the UK i was blinded by the rather sensationalised headlines which i am sure a lot of people never got beyond.
I have read all the posts about HPV on this site and particularly Davids and i am very aware that a great deal of thorough and painstaking research has been done into the links with Oral Cancer,but i also know that as a result of the article published in the Sun,the topic of conversation in the local pub is rather less serious and mostly consists of cheap shots at humour on the subject.
I take all research and advances into any type of cancer very seriously particularly Oral Cancer as it affects me so personally.
I do not feel it is ever a subject that should be the butt of bar room jokes and as far as i am concerned THIS ARTICAL is making HPV just another amusing subject to be laughed about and forgotten just like so many other surveys we read about in the press almost daily in this country

If offence was taken at my post i am sorry ,but my question was "What do you think of the subject being sensationalised?"and i am glad to see other like minded people who deplore such valuable research being turned into a subject of feeble minded humour particularly when my husband is on the receiving end of it.