EVEN before a baby is a twinkle in its father’s eye, its future health
could be harmed if he lights up a cigarette.
Tom Sorohan and his colleague at the University of Birmingham compared the
smoking habits of the parents of 1549 children who died from cancer with a
sample of healthy children, matched for age and socioeconomic status. The
children with cancer were more likely to have fathers who smoked heavily, the
researchers report in a paper to appear in the January issue of the British
Journal of Cancer.
Mothers’ smoking habits had little influence on the likelihood of children
developing cancer. This suggests that the problem is not passive smoking by
children, but genetic damage to the sperm of heavy smokers. This could lie
behind 15 per cent of all childhood cancers, the researchers say.
“The evidence for a link between smoking and childhood cancer is mounting
up,” says Sorahan.
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