Cancer is rising in Central Florida’s young adults, doctors warn

What is worse news here is that generally speaking the younger the patient, the more aggressive the cancer is.

 

Maybe due to increased awareness and early screening?

 

My wife and I just lost a 31 year old friend to cancer. The ordeal was terrible for her family which had to raise $150,000 for travel and out-of-network expenses.

Honestly, I don’t know which was worse, the cancer or the treatment.

 

The rise in teen cancers is from the human papilloma virus (HPV). In teen males, it's throat cancers (tonsils and/or back of tongue). In females it's cervical.HPV cancers are also driving increased cancer rates in older males & females.

 

No such thing as viruses. So cancer necessarily stems from other causes. And I consider it an open questions how many cancer deaths can be attributed to treatments.

 

Is this unique to central Florida or is it happening everywhere?

 

If I recall the right was against HPV vaccinations for teens long before they were against the Covid vaccines. Their logic was that because HPV is sexually transmitted, vaccinations would encourage sexual activity or similarly abstinence the preferred behavior would effectively prevent transmission of HPV.
Conservatives' HPV vaccine dilemma: are they anti-cancer, or just anti-sex? | Jill Filipovic

 

The left were anti-vaxxers before the right was. Recall when they were outraged, at then TX Governor, Rick Perry, when he signed an executive order requiring 11-12 year old girls to get the HPV vaccine.

And then of course, some years later, the left was wringing its hands over Trump’s vaccine moving too fast.

 

There certainly was a fear, in 2020, that deferring screenings, due to preoccupation with ‘Covid’, would result in more cancers, not that that would fully explain an uptick in cancer among young people.

 

One of the links from the OP went to a publication (Casey DeSantis touched on Breast Cancer, Colorectal Cancer, Melanoma, Prostate and Lung Cancers, those that typically get the major push for screening.

From the publication: Cancer deaths in Florida have decreased over the past 20 years, but there is still significant progress that needs to be made by increasing cancer screening among Floridians to detect cancer in earlier stages and support treatment efforts.

 

I wonder if it’s connected to smartphone usage at all. Young people are addicted to their phones nowadays and I know some of them have off a decent amount of radiation exposure last I checked. In fact I remember reading somewhere that the iPhone 12 was banned from being sold somewhere in Europe due to this.

 

Not at all surprised about the illogic. As we've just witnessed since 2020, illogic abounds. Thing about hpv is that the vaccine doesn't work if one is already infected. So the religious right's objections because of some irrational fear of encouraging sexual activity is one where they literally increase the risk for teens and down the road when those teens become adults.

 

This. To add…oral cancer has been on the rise and HPV is the likely reason. It is not common to send a patient for an evaluation. But there has been a clear observational increase in our office that has led to more confirmed cases of cancer than we have seen before. Thankfully still not common.

 

Just to be clear....

HPV vaxes increased in youths in central Florida for several recent years...incidence in cancers increase in central Florida...respected science guy Poster in this thread chimes in saying increase in cancers might be due to HPV....and you think conservatives are dumbasses for being leery of HPV vax?

See, I'm kinda wondering--"did I get my kids poisoned with that shit, out of some insanely low probability concern that they might get HPV?"

 

Yeah, I don’t know how that comports with increase in incidence and severity among the younger.

 

Vaccines are essentially a religious belief.

 

Directly?

Ignoring your ignorant BS opinion on viruses. Some cancers are attributable to environmental factors, others are not. The one I had - in remission for 4 years and 5 months now - started from abnormalities in the endometrial lining of my uterus. Over the course of 25 years, 1990, 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2016 - I had 5 D and C's that revealed and removed benign polyps and fibroid tissue. If the doctors treating me at Shands had been more diligent with my request - my plea - for a hysterectomy, rather than delaying the last D and C in 2017 far too long, it might not have turned cancerous. The standard reply to my request was, "your condition does not warrant a hysterectomy."

I heard this even after an uncomfortable procedure in the doctor's office to extract a small amount of endometrial tissue extracted for a biopsy indicated the lining was showing early stage abnormalities. Still they waited, putting me off for 6 more months to align the surgical schedules of two Shands physicians while I continued to hemorrhage. Six months after the biopsy when my hemoglobin was hovering just below 6, they decided it was past time to do that long delayed D and C. I was transported by ambulance from the gynecologists office on NW 39th Ave to Shands, received 2 units of blood overnight and had the emergency D and C in the only available O.R. ( a plastic surgery unit) the following morning.

The endometrial tissue that was removed was biopsied and found to be cancerous. The hysterectomy I had pleaded for since my last previous D and C 18 months before, was finally found 'warranted' and my uterus was removed 3 days later.

The recounting of what happened after that is a story found on the cancer thread pinned in the Pub. In short, the pathology report indicated the cancer was found only in the endometrium and completely contained within the uterus. Nearby lymph nodes were found to be cancer free. Shands doctor said the cancer was gone and "no post surgical cancer treatment was needed."

I should have listened then and there for the echoes of "your condition does not warrant a hysterectormy," I had been hearing for years. Thank God my son, a surgeon here in Colorado did not like what he was hearing and insisted we move to Colorado to escape Shands incompetency. Yes, I had grounds for a malpractice suit, but I'm not a suing sort of gal. For years I've hesitated to write or speak of the substandard and incompetent care I received from Shands physicians, but think it needs to be said. I've heard other stories too similar to mine.