The Wall Street Journal-20080126-Smoking- To the Second Generation and Beyond-

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Smoking: To the Second Generation and Beyond?

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The excerpt from Journal editor Steve McKee's "My Father's Heart" (Personal Journal, Jan. 22) reminded me of similar unsettling family memories. As the son of a Type A, two-to-three pack a day father who succumbed at age 48 to a massive heart attack in 1968, like Mr. McKee, I also grew up submerged in the toxic gray haze of a two-parent smoker household.

As a non-smoker, watching my diet through my adult life, and an inveterate exerciser, doctors can only blame my serious heart attack five years ago and resulting implanted defibrillator on "family history." I've often wondered if family history includes parental smokers.

Michael Charles

Long Beach, N.Y.