The Nation - News from June 1, 1989

Scientists reported strong new evidence linking an increasingly common sexually transmitted virus to cervical cancer. A study involving more than 2,000 women in Latin America found that infection with the papilloma virus increased the risk for developing cervical cancer by as much as nine times. “This has established a very strong association between . . . the virus and occurrence of invasive cervical cancer,” said Louise Brinton, a National Cancer Institute researcher who helped conduct the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Previous studies suggested there may be a link between the virus and several forms of cancer, but the new study is the largest of its kind and the first to take other risk factors into account, Brinton said.