In re: "My so-called life: Touring local pregnancy-prevention centers incognito
leaves our correspondent more than a bit tattered", Sacramento News & Review, 1/24/08.
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=615858
Dear Liz,
Thank you for your article on going incognito to local pregnancy prevention centers, and for bringing up the point about Chlamydia not causing HPV.
On googling the phrase Chlamydia causes HPV, your very article seems to be the only thing on the net bringing this up - the fact that a bacterium can't directly "cause" a viral infection..
On removing quotes and the word "causes", and so just using the terms Chlamydia and HPV http://www.google.com/search?q=Chlamydia+HPV , the 2nd hit http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2998147?dopt=Abstract "Chlamydial cervicitis in women followed-up for human papillomavirus (HPV) lesions of the uterine cervix" (Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand. 1985;64(6):467-71) seems to yield support for your findings:
"The results are discussed in terms of ... the possible synergism between Chlamydia and HPV in cervical oncogenesis. Chlamydia and HPV are covariables of sexual behavior, their concomitant appearance in the uterine cervix most probably being ascribable to sexual promiscuity."
So, truly, Chlamydia doesn't "cause" HPV. This may be useful to you in answering any further questions your readers may have for you.
Also of interest is whether Gardasil protects against developing cervical cancers in the full range of variants of HPV. The top hit on the simple term Gardasil http://www.google.com/search?q=Gardasil, the Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardasil returns the finding that:
"Gardasil is designed to prevent infection with HPV types 16, 18, 6, and 11. HPV types 16 and 18 cause about 70% of HPV-related cervical cancer cases. ...."
It might be wondered, according to the natural rules of epidemiology as shown with bacterial mutations in the environment of over-use of antibiotics, once certain strains of HPV are suppressed, whether HPV is able to mutate over the long term and so "fill the vacuum" as it were?
This is of interest in consideration of the fact of the new field of epigenetics [ http://www.google.com/search?q=Ghost+Genes+PBS+Nova ] that:
"[w]hen you have sex with someone, you are having sex with everyone they have had sex with for the last ten years, and everyone they and their partners have had sex with for the last ten years"[i].
Thus, according to the formula, where 'n' equals number of partners, net exposure = (2^n)-1 (two to the 'nth' power, minus one)[ii], the result is that for a person with a nearly-average direct exposure to 6 partners, the net epigenetic outcome is exposure to 63 persons. And this has such noteworthy potential effects upon one's descendants.
Of course, if a person should presently fail to enjoy protection in the 30% of other cases not enjoying prophylaxis through Gardisil, she only has one cervix which may be lost, so affecting her ability even to have a daughter at all, not to mention the heightened mortality issue.
Thank you, Liz, for taking on the responsibility for informing your readers on these issues. I hope there will be continuing occasions for you to update readers on your findings, as these are not casual, peripheral issues but vitally affect readers for the full course of their lives.
Sincerely yours,
WK96
[i] http://www.pureloveclub.com/chastity/index.php?id=7&entryid=69
[ii] http://www.pureloveclub.com/chastity/index.php?id=7&entryid=200