Air pollution: a smoking gun for cancer

Once considered a taboo topic or stigma, cancer is the number one public health enemy in the world. Once a product of an almost untouchable industry, tobacco is indisputably recognized as a major cause of cancer and a target for anticancer efforts. With the emergence of new economic powers in the world, especially in highly populated countries such as China, air pollution has rapidly emerged as a smoking gun for cancer and has become a hot topic for public health debate because of the complex political, economic, scientific, and technologic issues surrounding the air pollution problem. This editorial and the referred articles published in this special issue of the Chinese Journal of Cancer discuss these fundamental questions. Does air pollution cause a wide spectrum of cancers? Should air pollution be considered a necessary evil accompanying economic transformation in developing countries? Is an explosion of cancer incidence coming to China and how soon will it arrive? What must be done to prevent this possible human catastrophe? Finally, the approaches for air pollution control are also discussed.