To my 5 female readers,
Just curious. If you watched a movie in the last 4 months you may have come across this really depressing ad:
So have you? It gets the point across though and yeah, I was all set to watch a really funny comedy when all of a sudden, bummer! I’d turn my head to ask my movie buddy, “hey have you been to the OB lately?” but I was watching with my dad. Anyway…
It turns out that the ad forms part of a cervic cancer awareness advocacy and HPV prevention being spearheaded by Dr. Manalastas and the PGH. I found this out after being contacted by the good doctor – he’s the head of OB in PGH and a faculty member at the UP College of Medicine.
On the Internets
So BlogBank is helping out PGH and Dr. Manalastas in the cervic cancer awareness campaign. It is, apparently, the second most lethal death by cancer cause in the Philippines for women (the first is breast cancer). What makes it sad is that the awareness isn’t so huge because of a social stigma of visiting your OB for reasons other than pregnancy causes people to stare. Is this true?? Sorry, I’ve never been to an OB.
I learned that HPV can be easily prevented by regular check ups and a vaccine – even sadder the fact that not a lot of women know this. As for what the vaccine is – well consult your OB! We launched a series of ads for this month on the awareness campaign, and also held a small dinner (Peter Juan wrote about this).
Truth is, I feel really uncomfortable talking about such a topic because needles make me weak (I literally lose my grip) and well, I can’t relate. The campaign’s message to women is to please visit your OB and have yourself checked up. I hear a papsmear is like, what, P50.00 in a government hospital?
So there. To my 5 female readers, please ask your doctors about cervical cancer prevention. By the way, to my 7 male readers, guys can also be carriers of HPV. Eek!