Land of Fires, the hidden emergency:the data from the tumor registry are scary

Following great pressure and public demonstrations, the citizens of Acerra have finally obtained the data, updated to 2018, from the ASL Napoli 2 Nord Tumor Registry, which outline an absolutely alarming picture.Confirming that the inhabitants of the province of the Campania capital record the lowest life expectancy at birth, the report - referring to the period between 2010 and 2018 - specifically highlights a statistically very significant incidence of neoplastic pathologies in the Acerra District (Naples).The data released certifies, in particular, an excess of incidence and mortality from cancer almost all known tumors, i.e. that of the lung, breast, bladder, colorectal, liver and biliary tract, lymph nodes, thyroid, stomach and pancreas.Casting macroscopic shadows, which increasingly seem to thin out into clear certainties, on the role played in this scenario by crime andenvironmental pollution.

Within the Register referring to the territory covered by the ASL Napoli 2 nord yes show Tumor incidence rates, divided by sex, statistically significantly higher than the registers of the Southern Italy macro-area as a whole.Indeed, as regards the statistics referring to the male population, the incidence of tumors found is higher than any other terms of comparison (Italian average, Campania Region, Northern Italy Macroarea, Central Italy Macroarea and Southern Italy Macroarea).In addition to the frightening quantitative factor, there is another indicator which, at first glance, might appear contradictory, but which probably represents the key to trying to give some answers.This explains it Antonio Marfella, President of the Association of Doctors for the Environment of Naples, who speaks expressly of a «epidemiological paradox», since there is «an excess of cancer not in the most “anthropized” and/or “economically deprived” municipalities», but rather «in the municipalities with greater availability of state-owned green areas or ASI (Industrial Development Area)».Suffice it to say that Acerra is the center with the largest municipal ASI in the entire province.«The incidence and mortality from cancer in the districts examined – continues the Professor – is therefore parallel not to the simple demographic concentration and/or deprivation of the individual municipalities in the districts but to the vastness and availability of state-owned areas (spill of toxic waste) and industrial ASI (on-site spillage of industrial waste produced under tax evasion regime)".

This environmental hell, which began about forty years ago, when the Camorra began to spill industrial and hospital toxic waste of half of Italy in the suburbs of Naples and Caserta, he saw alternate numerous stages, but never definitive solutions:an environmental emergency declared in 1994 and formally continued until the 1910s (but never actually concluded), a commission of inquiry into the failed cycle of waste management, the progressive increase in landfills and incinerators in Campania and, at at the same time, the sending of rubbish to other regions or foreign states with dramatic increases in costs, toxic fires.And then the infinities judicial proceedings, very often "broken" by the "trap" of the statute of limitations, in which administrators, entrepreneurs, criminals and politicians ended up involved.«For the precautionary principle – ha declared upon the release of the new data the mayor of Acerra, Tito d'Errico – and based on the general criteria established by the Campania Region, it is a priority that the Metropolitan City urgently identifies the city of Acerra as an unsuitable area for the establishment of new special waste treatment plants.Because Acerra is a saturated area, it has already given."According to d'Errico, the data referring to the tumor incidence in the area «necessarily needs to be explored further with further studies especially regarding the causal link».On which, however, there seems to be very little doubt.

[Stefano Baudino]