HPV was traced back to 1842 in Italy. Scientists were trying to find things that cause cervical cancer. Scientists started observing women’s lifestyles with and without cervical cancer. Observed how married women were developing cervical cancer more exclusively than women of the convent. The interesting difference led researchers to believe that since the main difference between married women and nuns was sex; it was theorized that whatever was causing cervical cancer might be a sexually transmitted disease. Even their own theory seemed odd to them since cancer is not usually contagious. Italian researchers were correct in their theorization of a sexually transmitted disease being a culprit but did not link it to HPV. In 1930’s when U.S …show more content…
Zur Hausen received doctor reports that showed women with genital warts to develop cervical cancer. Zur Hausen was curious of Richard Shope previous work in the 1930’s that linked warts and cancers, Zur Hausen theorized that warts and cancers in humans were linked to a similar virus that Shope worked with. Zur Hausen began his research looking for viruses in genital warts. Through his quest Zur Hausen discovered HPV-6, but couldn’t link it to cervical cancer. Through his continued research in 1983 Zur Hausen found HPV-11 present in 1/24 cervical cancer patients. With the discovery of HPV-11 Zur Hausen and his team continued their research and continued to discover new strands of HPV, one of which being HPV-18 found in 1/5 cervical cancer patients. Zur Hausen was able to clearly link the sexually transmitted disease to being key source of developing cancer in patients. With this resulted in Zur Hausen winning a Nobel Prize for his discovery of HPV-18.
In today’s world HPV is one of the leading sexually transmitted diseases, according to plannedparenthood.com “Approximately 6.2 million new HPV infections occur every year in the united states.”(). Sexual activity is the spreading factor for HPV infections, and condoms which are usually able to prevent the spread of other sexually transmitted diseases; it’s not always the case with HPV. Condoms do offer some protection