Parents' smoking increases risks of leukemia in their children

Professor PATRICIA A. BUFFLER, director of the Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Leukemia and the Environment and Professor at the University of California Berkeley, presents data from the California Childhood Leukemia Study showing that children whose parents smoked are more likely to develop leukemia in early childhood. Risks vary by the time period of smoking (preconception, prenatal, and early childhood), type and subtype of leukemia, and which parents smoked.

This was part of a symposium organized by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment http://oehha.ca.gov/index.html, the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit at UCSF http://coeh.berkeley.edu/ucpehsu, and the Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Leukemia and the Environment at the University of California Berkeley http://circle.berkeley.edu. Research funding is from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and US EPA. Views expressed are not those of these agencies