[Nurgle] While there may be a correlation between contracting HPV and developing cerivical cancer, it doesn't actually mean that HPV causes the cancer. HPV could, for example, have a greater chance of affecting women who also have a high chance of developing the cancer.
[Nurgle] Unless you can demonstrate the mechanisms involved in how the virus causes the cancer, I'm not going to jump to any conclusions.
[Nurgle] Statistics can be used to prove anything (Wu, '95).
[Hermit] I don't think that the article claimed anything else. They claim that statistically significant correlation has been shown (and this is confirmatory - we have known about the linkage, although not the extremely high risk multiplier, for years). So causation is not asserted in the article, although I consider the low incidence of cervical cancer in people not infected by the HPV suggestive. Certainly, if a person has HPV I would advocate that they should be having pap smears every three months to monitor the situation. Particularly if they have other indicators suggesting that they are at risk. This is because cervical cancer has a very low mortality rate when discovered early - and high when discovered too late. Pap smears are cheap insurance.
Regards
Hermit
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25841>
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