2023-05-05 19:56:30
Italy with 59,641 premature deaths, after France and Germany, is the country with the highest number of deaths in Europe attributable to environmental pollution, according to the latest Eionet and Eea report (2022, 2020 data). In addition, 400,000 new cases of cancer and 180,000 premature deaths due to cancer are recorded in our country every year, but not in a uniform and random manner across the territory: the concentration is higher in contaminated areas. The ‘Sixth Sentieri report – National epidemiological study of territories and settlements exposed to risk from pollution promoted by the Higher Institute of Health (ISS)which photographs the state of health, hospitalization and mortality of the population present on the Italian territory in relation to 46 contaminated sites of national and regional interest – records 1,409 deaths in pediatric-adolescent age and 999 among young adults in the 46 sites analysed.
It’s the data at the heart of the National conference ‘Healing is taking care’ organized by Ail (Italian Association against Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma) entitled ‘Environmental impact and health risk’ which, this year in its third edition, was held today in Rome. The meeting – explains Ail in a note – explored the existing correlations between exposure to environmental pollutants and the possible consequences on citizens’ health.
The three sessions of the conference addressed the issue of health and the environment from different perspectives: environmental risk, environmental effects on health and well-being and quality of life. After the opening speech by Pino Toro, national president of Ail, and institutional greetings by Franco Locatelli, president of the Higher Health Council, the first session, dedicated to the relationship between health and environmental risk, opened with a speech by Massimo Scalia , physicist-mathematician of the Department of Mathematics of the Sapienza University of Rome on the long-term effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields.
The day continued with speeches by: Emanuela Piervitali, head of the operational climatology section of Ispra (Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) on the state and trend of the climate in Italy; Ivano Iavarone of the ISS Department of Environment and Health on the health profile of children, adolescents and young people residing in contaminated sites, with a focus on the ‘VI Sentieri Report’; Nino Tarantino, Sub-Commissioner for the implementation of the interventions necessary for the adaptation to current legislation of the illegal landfills present on the national territory on the role of environmental remediation; Giorgio Cattani, Head of the Ispra air quality monitoring section on the historical analysis of air pollution in Italy, with a focus on airborne benzene and, in closing, Maria Lodovica Gullino, Full Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Turin who reported on food safety and the climatic effects on plant health from a circular health perspective.
The first part of the conference – according to the law in the note – ended with the testimony of three Ail provincial sections from some of the Italian territories particularly exposed to environmental risk. In particular, Giuseppe Navoni from AIL Brescia, Valeria Rotoli for AIL Naples and Patrizia Casarotti from AIL Taranto gave their testimony.
The afternoon session was dedicated to environmental effects on health. Paolo Corradini, Director of the Hematology Division, Irccs Foundation National Cancer Institute of Milan – Chair of Hematology, University of Milan and president of the Italian Society of Hematology, gave a speech in April on the possible correlations between pollution, pesticides and lymphomas. It was then the turn of: Adriano Venditti, director of UOC Hematology at the Tor Vergata Polyclinic Foundation in Rome on acute leukemia and the environment; Vincenzo Pavone, director of the UOC of Hematology and Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation at the Cardinale Panico Hospital of Tricase, on the relationship between work activity and the environment as an additional risk for onco-haematological pathologies; Elena Campione, Doctor of the Italian Environmental Medicine Society (Sima) and Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Rome Tor Vergata on the challenges for human and planetary health and for a better integration between health and the environment. In conclusion, Lucia Bisceglia, President of AIE (Epidemiology and care intelligence area) of Aress, Puglia’s Regional Strategic Agency for Health and Social Affairs, took stock of the evidence of the ‘VI Sentieri report’.
The last session opened with a speech by Marco Vignetti, Gimema president and national vice president of Ail who dealt with the topic of strategies for quality of life and the prevention of relapses of the disease. The following speakers then took place: Andrea Pezzana, director of Sc Clinical Nutrition, Asl City of Turin on food, environment and health, and the promotion of a healthy and sustainable lifestyle; Giuseppe Onufrio, executive director of Greenpeace Italy on the role of environmental associations in environmental protection; Paolo Guarnaccia, professor of Organic Agriculture at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Environment of the University of Catania on the sustainable agri-food system for human health and the planet; Franco Andaloro, Sicily coordinator Blue Italian Growth national technological cluster on environmental sustainability of fish production, healthiness of fish and food safety. In closing, Andrea Minutolo, Legambiente Scientific Manager spoke about air quality and the role of associations.
The Conference is sponsored by Roma Capitale, AIEOP (Italian Association of Pediatric Hematology Oncology), Gimema Foundation (Adult Hematological Diseases Group), Fil (Italian Lymphoma Foundation), Gitmo (Italian Bone Marrow Transplant Group), Sie (Italian Society of Hematology ) and Sies (Italian Society of Experimental Hematology).
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