We're not told. I know I had the vaccine when I was in year eight.
I wasn't told what HPV was. I didn't know what it can cause.
We can't tell you what safe oral sex looks like.
What does that look like?
Clearly, you're not going to be able to ban people
if they want to engage in oral sex.
Even if you warn them about HPV positive oropharyngeal cancer.
So, he was very energetic, working full-time,
was all good and then he started to get sleepy.
When Carley's partner, Jake, started feeling unwell
Doctors thought it was a toothache.
By the time he was diagnosed with head and neck cancer
it was too late.
Is that Daddy?
We were at Tangalooma, weren't we?
From first diagnosis in July, and then he passed in April,
which was only the eight months.
I had to pick him up, like physically carry him,
into a shower or to the toilet.
Now, it's going to make me teary, cos I think of that.
We had to move out of that house, cos I couldn't handle it.
To, to see your loved one, pretty much,
disappear in front of you.
Um, and to still try and sleep in the same bed.
I was there when he took his last breath.
Jake was just 22 at the time,
which seems just way too young to die of head and neck cancer.
These oropharyngeal cancers
are at the back of the tongue and the tonsils.
But increasingly, medical professionals say...
So, Jake wasn't tested for HPV
because it was too aggressive from the day one.
But the age bracket that he fell in,
more than likely, the cause was HPV.
Human Papillomavirus or HPV
has been dubbed the "common cold of STDs".
..at one point in their lives.
Doctors believe the reason
it's increasingly showing up as head and neck cancer
is due to oral sex.
And I guess one of the questions early on,
when the doctor established or articulated the link with HPV,
the first questions are who and how?
Shane Summers was a fit guy in his 40s
when he was diagnosed with HPV positive head and neck cancer.
So, you're racking your brain,
and the doctor made it quite clear
that, you know, it could have been 20-30 years ago.
It could be your first girlfriend, second to third.
It could have been any of the people in your life
that you've been intimate with.
Couple of big breaths for me. (SHANE INHALES)
Unfortunately oropharyngeal cancers
are actually now the most common HPV related cancer in Australia,
so it's now trumped cervical cancer.
Numbers of sufferers have risen significantly
over the past decade
and Medical Oncologist, Brett Hughes, expects that rise to continue.
So, it's predicted for Australia, I think,
you know, it may even be as late as into the 20-30s,
that we might see the peak incidents, which is a little bit scary
considering how common this cancer is becoming.
Worldwide oral sex is far more practised now
than it might have been, maybe, 100 years ago.
We know the more oral sex is practised, the greater the burden.
Radiation Oncologist, Lizbeth Kenny,
treats HPV positive cancer patients every week.
We talk about protected sexual intercourse.
We don't even know what advice to give
in terms of oral sex.
It's quite likely this could be transmitted
through, you know, deep kissing.
Which means the best defence is vaccination.
We would like to think that as the impact of the Gardasil vaccine
comes into play
that we will see less cancer in the oropharynx,
but knowing that it's something
that develops over, potentially, decades,
it's going to be a very long lag time
in that benefit.
Australian of the year, Professor Ian Frazer,
was one of the brains behind the now worldwide vaccine preventing HPV,
Gardasil.
We have very few cases of cervical cancer in this country already
because of the screening program.
In Australia,
Gardasil was given to girls in high school after 2007.
Then boys in 2013,
after it became clear HPV was affecting them as well.
But women over around 30, and men over 24,
still aren't protected.
The big challenge now
is to get something for oropharyngeal cancer.
All the vaccines that we currently use
are vaccines to prevent infection.
A vaccine to cure an infection
is a different beast altogether.
Jake had just missed out on receiving the vaccine at school.
I wouldn't want to see anyone
go through what I've had to go through.
Or to lay there when my son goes,
"Oh, I want to lay on your chest like I did for Daddy."
Jake very generously left $20,000.
He just left a message to me to pretty much give it to research,
for more so under 25s.
I picked the saliva test as the donation to pick it up earlier
than having to wait until it's stage three or four.
Professor Chamindie Punyadeera
is the person developing that test.
So, literally, we give a patient 20 ml of saline,
they do a swish and gargle, we bring the sample to our lab
and within one and a half hours
we can say whether a patient
is HPV positive or HPV negative.
So, a positive result means patients can monitor the virus.
It might clear on its own, if not, they can be on the lookout
for symptoms of head and neck cancer.
What we want to do
is early intervention, early detection.
Because if you detect early, 80% of patients survive.
Good to see you again. You take care. See you next time.
Shane is one of them.
This week is the one year anniversary of starting treatment.
I've started to approach what most people would consider normal,
as in being able to eat through my mouth.
We've started exercise,
I've been taking the dog for a walk
but have been known to break into a run.
Does it affect the majority?
Oh, my goodness, no.
We're still talking about a very small number of people
in Australia.
The far more important message
is that people in the community probably have no idea
that HPV can live in our mouths and throats
and that persistent HPV can lead to cancers.