 Last year, I talked about butchers' warts, a condition that afflicts those who handle fresh meat for living because of the viruses in meat, but it's more than just a cosmetic issue. Earlier this year, a landmark study of cancer mortality in poultry workers was released. We've known that people who handle a lot of fresh chicken get a lot of warts on their hands, but the concern is that some of the ward viruses are oncogenic or cancer-causing. Poultry workers and poultry slaughtering and processing are exposed to these cancer-causing viruses, some of which are the most potent cancer-causing agents known in animals. But what does that mean for people? Well, compared to the general population, poultry workers appear to have excess cancers of the mouth, nasal cavities, throat, cancer of the tongue, the tonsils, the inner ear, then down the esophagus, rectal anal cancer, and liver, bone marrow, and blood cancers as well. The reason it's so important to study this group is because it's possible that the cancer-causing viruses present in poultry and poultry products could be transmitted to anyone handling raw poultry. Proper cooking will kill any and all chicken wart and cancer viruses, but the problem is that meat may come into our homes fresh or frozen and contaminate our hands or kitchen surfaces before it gets into the pot. Same concern with other meat. There's a fascinating case report about pork intake in human papillomavirus, an HPV, which can cause cancerous anal and genital warts. Poor guy. 19 years old, giant warty tumor, nearly an inch in diameter protruding from the tip of his penis. They cut it off, but it just grew right back. And so they asked for a dietary history. He was eating more than a pound of pork a day. They told him to stop the pork, and the tumor completely regressed on its own, totally disappeared. The doctors were so blown away, they even went as far as to suggest that the low cervical cancer rates in Israel could be because they eat so little pork.