Sins of the father. Parental smoking and childhood cancer.

Sins of the Father ParentalSmoking and Childhood Cancer Exposure to passive (or environmental) tobacco smoke has been implicated in numerous childhood ailments ranging from low birth weight to middle ear disease. Passive smoke has also been suspected, but not proven, to increase the risk of childhood cancer. Clarifying this issue is crucial not only for the protection of children's health but also for the fashioning of policy concerning smoking in public and private facilities. In this month's issue, Paolo Boffetta and colleagues present their meta-analysis of the results of more than 30 studies on the association between exposure to tobacco smoke from parental smoking during pregnancy and cancer in childhood [EHP 108:73-82]. The biological plausibility of the association between passive tobacco smoke and childhood cancer is based on studies that show that children do take in tobacco components-including carcinogens and mutagens-when exposed to tobacco smoke during both gestation and childhood. Activation of procarcinogens in human fetal and placental tissues has been demonstrated, as has smokeinduced damage to DNA in human placenta. In conducting their meta-analysis, the authors searched the medical literature for epidemiological studies on childhood cancer where