'Go on love, it might cheer you up...'

The Daily Mail has been criticised by the NHS for running a story which claimed "oral sex is good for women's health and helps fight depression".

Now, if you loved the Mail you'd swallow that, but the NHS has been quick to take the Mail to task over the claims which the paper billed as "the news all men have been waiting for" (or at least any men who are trying to cajole or trick someone with depression into giving them a blow job).

This from the NHS news website:

"The "news" is based on research that is more than 10 years old. The facts used to support the ...claims come from a small study looking at depression scores of women students who used condoms during sexual activity compared with those who did not. It found that sexually active women who did not use condoms reported fewer depressive symptoms than those who did. From this the researchers seem to assume that semen may have antidepressant qualities.

"The Mail's introduction claiming that oral sex is good for women's health confused the issue further, since the study did not look at oral sex."

The Sun has also been criticised for it own misrepresentation of the decade-old flimsy findings. You can read the full NHS criticism of the stories and the research, here.

Comments

[Rob Finch]

It's also worth noting that neither paper wanted to frighten their traditional readers by having it in their print editions. Both, however, were happy to have the story on their somewhat more salacious websites.