Music

Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson thinks his tongue cancer came from oral sex

by Richard Howard

Comedians and chronic complainers alike have long lamented the woes of turning 40. Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson just amped it way up, though: recent brush with the disease he’s warning men that their chances of being diagnosed with oral cancer caused by the sexually transmitted infection HPV increases exponentially over the age of 40.

Now while Dickinson is a bit of a renaissance man (commercial pilot, Radio/TV personality, brewmaster), a doctor he ain’t. However, we looked at the science and apparently the claims made by the cunning linguist (he’s an author too!) check out. Studies have confirmed that oral HPV can indeed cause cancers, with researchers blaming an increase in this type of oral cancer on the prevalence of oral sex. They also noted that it’s far more prevalent in men. HPV is expected to replace tobacco as the main cause of oral cancer in the U.S.

Still, Dickinson could have eased up on the  Paul Revere-esque intensity of the warning. Dude went for full Fox News-level fear when he spoke about it in an interview:

“It’s…HPV — human papilloma virus. They all are. I’m almost willing to bet, anytime you hear about somebody who gets tonsil cancer, throat cancer, lung cancer, whatever it is, if they’re not heavy smokers and they’re not massive, heavy drinkers, it’s almost inevitably [HPV]. There’s a five hundred percent increase in this type of cancer in men over forty — five hundred percent increase. It’s massive.”

Reminding us of the Michael Douglas debacle that almost got the guy divorced, he then added: “…everybody makes the jokes about Michael Douglas, [who claimed that cunnilingus could have caused his throat cancer,] ’cause he was having oral sex, and it’s just, like, okay, we need to get over that one, guys, because this is kind of serious. There’s hundreds of thousands of people at risk for this.”