4-8-98
Human papillomavirus and bladder cancer. Lopez-Beltran A, Escudero AL.
Biomed & Pharmacother 1997;51(6-7):252-257.
Disregard the lead statement of this report that "human papillomavirus (HPVs)
have not been proven to exhibit a causative role in human cancers,..." This statement
is now false, since both the IARC and NIH have declared HPV to be a cause of cancer in
humans.
-
- With state of the art detection techniques, HPV is now found in nearly 100% of cervical
cancers. HPV infection is more common among smokers due to riskier sexual behavior, which
resulted in confounding in older studies that falsely implicated smoking.
-
- Human papillomaviruses were originally known merely as the cause of genital warts, a
venereal disease. Now, studies of the role of HPV in cancer of organs other than the
anogenital region are appearing. More than 27 studies of the role of HPV in bladder cancer
are reviewed in this work.
-
- "...Studies from the general population showed a variable incidence of high risk
HPV DNA which ranged from 2.5% to 81%, with HPV 16 DNA occurring more frequently. HPV was
detected in both papillary and invasive cancers, although in our experience the overall
incidence was low.... In addition, molecular studies suggest that the HPV related
oncoproteins E6 and E7 play a role in bladder carcinogenesism via inactivation and/or
degradation of p53 and pRb suppressor gene-associated proteins."
-
- Overexpression of the p53 suppressor gene is the most common event in bladder cancer.
Mutagens from cigarette smoke have been claimed to cause this; however, this is what the
E6 and E7 oncoproteins of HPV do.
-
- HPV may be the key to part or all of the supposed smoking-related risk of bladder
cancer, just as it was the key to the false smoking risk of cervical cancer. The relative
risk for cervical cancer in the CDC's SAMMEC is around 2, similar to the relative risk for
bladder cancer of 2.5 to 3 (Shultz et al. Public Health Reports 1991
May-Jun;106(3):326-333).
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- There is now no excuse for the health establishment to trumpet studies of smoking and
bladder cancer which lack the HPV risk factor. If they do so, they are committing a
scientific fraud, and deceiving the public about the risks of smoking.
-
- To date, there have evidently been no epidemiological studies examining HPV as a risk
factor, as opposed to laboratory and clinical outcome studies such as these. Also, the
health establishment has a record of refusing to be forthright on the question of
"How much of the ostensible smoking risk is actually due to confounding by the other
risk factor?" Concealing this type of data is reprehensible.
Courtesy of Carol Thompson
Smokers' Rights Action Group
P.O. Box 259575
Madison, WI 53725-9575
Phone: 608-249-4568
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