Justine Almada lost her mother to anal cancer. Her death came as quite a shock, especially since her mother had been healthy and up-to-date on all of her cancer screenings before the diagnosis. Unfortunately, as with many cancers that may be embarrassing to talk about, there isn’t a whole lot of awareness around anal cancer. After their mom’s death, Justine and her siblings set out to change that.
One of the ways they spread awareness, is by sharing the message about HPV and cancer risk. A lot of people don’t realize that HPV, or the human papillomavirus, can actually lead to cancer — and that both men and women are at risk.
Read More “Human papillomavirus is not called female papillomarvirus,” Justine said. “It’s called human papillomavirus for a reason … The National Cancer Institute finds that men are increasing in HPV-related diagnoses of cancer faster than women are.” During an interview with SurvivorNet, Justine stressed a really sobering statistic — that HPV causes 5% of cancer cases in the world. “And it’s completely preventable with the vaccine,” Justine said. “It’s really important that we all understand that we are at risk with this virus, and that there’s actually something that we can do about it. Just making sure that our children are vaccinated against this carcinogenic virus.” For more information on HPV and the vaccine, see SurvivorNet’s HPV prevention series.
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