Moralizing ‘science’?

After recently the Pope has been going around telling people condoms actually help spread AIDS, now some US scientists come up with the breaking news that, oops, oral sex can lead to throat cancer. Science and the church may be formally separate these days, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t fool around with the same discourses once in a while. As BBC gracefully informs us in an article titled “Oral sex linked to throat cancer” (don’t bring out your moral panic repellent yet),

“The New England Journal of Medicine study said the risk [of HPV infection] was almost nine times higher for people who reported oral sex with more than six partners.



I know what you’re thinking. Shit.
But it gets even more serious...or does it?

“The Johns Hopkins study took blood and saliva from 100 men and women newly diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer which affects the throat, tonsils and back of the tongue. They also asked questions about sex practices and other risk factors for the disease, such as family history. Those who had evidence of prior oral HPV infection had a 32-fold increased risk of throat cancer.”

So…how does this work exactly? After all the questions on risk factors, disease and family history on the impressively representative sample of 100 people already diagnosed with cancer, the logical and scientific conclusion is …that oral sex is the culprit. Uhuh. While at it, why not throw in some questions about films they watched or religious beliefs? Then we could scientifically establish the fact that oral sex, Titanic (insert any other movie you personally hate) and believing in god (or not) have been linked to throat cancer. Duh.