Childhood nervous system tumours: an assessment of risk associated with paternal occupations involving use, repair or manufacture of electrical and electronic equipment.

Parental occupational exposures to chemical carcinogens have been associated with malignancies in offspring. Recent studies have raised the issue that electromagnetic fields may play a role in carcinogenesis. We conducted a population-based case-control study testing for an association between the occurrence of a nervous system tumour in a child and paternal employment at the time of the child's birth in occupations involving potential exposure to low frequency electromagnetic fields, primarily in the electrical and electronics industries. Birth certificate data, including parental occupation information, of 499 children who died in Texas from intracranial and spinal cord tumours were compared with 998 controls randomly selected from Texas livebirths. The odds ratio for paternal employment in industries involving potential electromagnetic field exposure was 1.6 (p less than 0.07). A risk of 3.5 (p less than 0.05) was detected for fathers who were electricians. The additional presence of chemical exposures in these diverse occupations and industries must also be considered.