The health of our military service members and our Veterans is always a top line issue. Many suffer from illness and injury as a result of their service; and most are believed to be at higher risk for chronic sickness. Some of which is fortunately preventable. 

Cancer is a top concern for much of the military community. To dig into the increased risk cancer poses to our Veterans, Fran Racioppi sat down with Team Maureen; an organization focused on bringing attention and prevention of HPV and HPV-related cancers to our Veterans. 

Daniel Linskey, Kelly Welch and Dr. Emily Penick lead Team Maureen and founded the organization after the loss of their family and friend Maureen Russo. 

Worldwide, a woman dies of cervical cancer every two minutes. It is the second-most frequent cancer in the world. The military community is twice as likely to develop HPV, yet immunization rates among our servicemembers are 50% of the civilian community. 90% of HPV-related cancers are preventable through immunization.

We broke down the facts of HPV, why it’s rising exponentially in our military, how it’s affecting both our women and men service-members, and what every single person, military and civilian, can do to prevent one of the deadliest, and preventable, cancers in society today.

Check out our conversation over-looking Plymouth Harbor and with Cardinals in the air. Follow us on social media, read the full episode on our website, then head over to our YouTube channel or your favorite podcast platform to catch this conversation and our follow-up with Danny as he shares how he led the Boston Police Department during the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

HIGHLIGHTS

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:50 Welcome to the South Shore
• 4:44 What is Cervical Cancer?
• 8:09 How do you get Cervical Cancer?
• 9:49 What is the effect on men?
• 11:38 Screening for HPV
• 12:55 Oral Health importance
• 14:23 Low vaccination rates
• 17:40 Why are military at risk?
• 19:58 Vaccination process
• 24:57 Who was Maureen?
• 29:17 How are you educating people?
• 33:20 How do you get involved?

QUOTES

• “Making sure that people know about the importance of prevention of HPV and early detection for cervical cancer is our mission.”
• “Nobody should die of cervical cancer. It’s completely preventable.” 
• “Why not be at the forefront of HPV prevention?” 
• “This is something that can help your kids not get cancer.” 
• “Active duty military and Veterans are 2x as likely as civilians to develop cancers associated with HPV.” 
• “We should be able to get to that point where no one loses a loved one to cervical cancer.”
• “You think you’re a badass. Cancer doesn’t care if you’re a badass.” 

The Jedburgh Podcast and the Jedburgh Media Channel are an official program of Green Beret Foundation, supporting US Army Special Forces of all generations.