Seven Questions

All sex facts / Health

A vaccine that prevents a cancer, with the numbers in

1.7 million women followed. The effect is not subtle.

A vaccine that prevents a cancer, with the numbers in

Almost all cervical cancer is caused by human papillomavirus, which makes it one of very few cancers with a vaccine. The question was never the mechanism but the size of the effect in a real population, and that took a generation to answer.

A Swedish study followed 1.7 million women and found that those vaccinated before the age of 17 had an 88 per cent lower rate of invasive cervical cancer than the unvaccinated. Those vaccinated between 17 and 30 had a 53 per cent lower rate. The difference between the two figures is the point: the vaccine works best before exposure.

Sources

Lei et al., New England Journal of Medicine (2020); Falcaro et al., The Lancet (2021)

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The sex-toy guide

A shop has two hundred of them. One of them is right for you.

Seven questions: who it is for, what sounds appealing, how quiet it has to be, what it may cost. Out comes one type — with what to look for, what it costs, and what nobody prints on the box.

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Start the seven questions For the two of you

Find out what you both want — without either of you saying it first.

You each answer twenty questions on your own, and neither of you ever sees the other’s answers. Only what you both said yes or maybe to comes back. A no and a maybe look identical from outside, so saying no costs nothing — which is what makes the answers honest.

  • Six sets of twenty questions — three by depth, three by subject
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General information, not medical advice. Anything persistent or painful belongs with a doctor, who has heard it before.