Is kissing dangerous?
By Robert H. Shmerling, M.D. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center “You’d better be careful whom you kiss,” I was told. I was in high school and infectious mononucleosis (also called mono) was “going around.” Kids missed school for a month; and everyone was told it was because “too many people were kissing too many people.” As it turns out, there were only two or three kids who had mono, and they didn’t even know each other. The rest of it was hysteria, rumor or myth. But I always wondered about “kissing disease,” as many called it. Was it really dangerous? Was kissing really so risky? Infectious Mononucleosis: A Viral Infection Mono is caused by infection with Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV). After exposure to EBV, there are usually no symptoms at all in fact, up to 95% of adults have antibody evidence of past EBV infection even though the vast majority recalled no related illness; for many, this occurs during early childhood. For reasons that remain unknown, only some people develop mono aft
