"...getting really mad at a painting or any work of art makes about as much sense as getting really mad at a banana split." - Kurt Vonnegut (Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, Baldur's Gate, Starfield, Ben Whishaw, your mom. Also the occasional Celtic or medievalist thing.)
Women can use a wand to collect a vaginal sample, then mail it to a lab that will screen for cervical cancer. The device will be available b
"The Food and Drug administration has approved the U.S.'s first at-home alternative to the Pap smear, a procedure generations of women [and nonbinary and trans people with uteruses] have dreaded and often found painful.
The new device by Teal Health will offer a "much preferred experience," the company said in its announcement, and also aims to increase screening rates by making the procedure more convenient.
Traditionally, gynecologists have inserted a cold metal speculum deep into a woman's vagina to scrape cells from the cervix.
The Teal Wand â "built with empathy," the company said â uses a swab to collect a vaginal sample. Women will then mail the sample to a lab that will screen for HPV (human papillomavirus), the virus that causes nearly all cervical cancers. A growing body of research has found HPV testing to be highly accurate.
The FDA approval Friday [May 9, 2025] follows a U.S.-based study that found at-home screening was just as effective as that done in a doctor's office. The study also found women overwhelmingly preferred selfâscreening at home, and said they'd be more likely to stay up to date with cervical cancer screenings that way.
Every year, about 13,000 cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed, and more than 4,000 women die from the disease. Rates are down dramatically since Dr. Georgios Papanicolaou published a 1943 paper on how to use the Pap smear for screening, and it then became common.
But about a quarter of women in the U.S. are behind on such screenings, and medical experts say reducing that is key to the ultimate goal of eliminating cervical cancer. There's also a racial gap, with Black and Native American women far more likely to die from cervical cancer than white women. The HPV vaccine for teen and preteen girls, introduced in 2007, has also led to a global push to tackle the disease that way.
At-home cervical cancer screenings are already available in several other countries, including Australia and Sweden.
Teal Health says its self-testing device will be available starting next month [June 2025], in California first and then expanding. It will be by prescription, through a telehealth service, for women 25-65 years old who are "at average risk." The company says it's working with insurance companies to provide coverage."
If you're in BC you can already do this, and you only need to do it every 5 years if nothing's found. Also, HPV testing looks like it will be able to indentify people who are at increased risk of cervical cancer because it catches it earlier and can result in a lower likeihood of developing cancer. So not only is this more comfortable, it's better.
HPV tests (not at home) are also replacing pap smears in Ontario, along with Quebec making the move, PEI, and Nova Scota planning to move. PEI looks like they'll also be doing self-screening kits.
This might be something we get in Saskatchewan next, because it's one of the big promises the Saskatchewan Party made in their campaigns.
This is honestly really amazing news, because it is very likely that a lot more people will get screened, and get screened in a way that is much more accurate and more likely to catch early problems.
This post reminded me to schedule my 3rd Gardasil shot. While we're talking HPV detection and prevention, if you weren't vaccinated as a young teen, you can still get the shot series up to age 45, and it will benefit you, though it's best to get it younger.
"Everybody knows that everybody dies, and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark, if he ever, for one moment, accepts it."
Silence in the Library/Forest of the dead is probably my favorite DW story đâ€ïž
Sometimes I think it's crazy coincidence that my fave Solas artist became a David Tennant artist but then I remember Solas and the Tenth Doctor are clones
Yall i love how much for everyone else murderbot just shows up, is awkward and offputting, saves everyone's ass, pulls some big damn hero shit, then fucks off into the sunset
Straight up some man from nowhere space cowboy bullshit
Due to my weird childhood and my weird brain, I have this very unhelpful compulsion to conceal Everything I do from Everyone. I Cannot be observed performing any action, no matter how mundane. My nervous system is convinced I'm gonna, like, Get In Trouble for eating food at dinnertime or sleeping in my bed at bedtime.
I've taken to asking myself, "Okay does this task actually require subterfuge or am I stealing a balloon on Free Balloon Day"
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