Approfondimenti- Rapporto Osservasalute 2013- Amianto

[Autom. eng. transl.] Asbestos-related diseases are, still today, an important public health problem. All types of asbestos cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, cancer of the larynx and ovary, asbestosis (fibrosis of the lung) and pleuropathies, as well as various related diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated in 2004 that approximately 107,000 people die globally each year from mesothelioma, lung cancer and asbestosis following occupational exposure to asbestos, with an impact in terms of years of life adjusted for disability (Disability-Adjusted Life Years-DALYs) of over 1.5 million. To these numbers must be added the several thousand deaths attributed to other asbestos-related diseases, even those not linked to occupational exposure. For an overall estimate, a recent work that analyzed, globally, all the causes of death from mesothelioma and asbestosis reported to the WHO from 1994 to 2010, more than 128,000 people died from mesothelioma and about 14,000 from asbestosis, with a loss of potential years of life (Potential Years of Life Lost-PILL) of 2.18 million for mesothelioma and 180 thousand years for asbestosis or, respectively, 17 and 13 potential years of life per deceased. Although asbestos consumption is globally decreasing, the opposite could be said for some developing countries where not only consumption, but potentially exposure, seem to remain high: according to the WHO, about 125 million people in the world they are currently exposed to asbestos in the workplace. On the other hand, several European countries, as well as Japan, are still experiencing an increase in the incidence rate of mesothelioma, while this has peaked in the United States and Sweden. This is fundamentally attributable to the large latency time existing between the exposure and the occurrence of asbestos-related diseases which, given the reduction in exposure, does not likewise lead to a reduction in the incidence of pathologies. Italy has always been one of the most involved countries, in various ways, in the asbestos phenomenon: in fact, until the end of the 1980s it was one of the largest producers and importers of raw asbestos (over 3.5 million tons produced and over 1.9 million tons imported from the second post-war period to the call for tenders) and, starting from the call for tenders with the issuing of Law no. 257 of 1992 (prohibition of extraction, import, export, marketing, production of asbestos and products containing it), the Italian legislation on asbestos is recognized among the most advanced in Europe and in the world. Considering the intensive use of the material from the second post-war period in the sectors of industrial production of asbestos-cement products, of textiles containing asbestos, of shipbuilding, of repair and demolition of railway rolling stock and of building, exhibition, professional and not, it was noteworthy and, even today, on the national territory, even if not completely known and mapped, several million tons of compact materials containing this substance and many tons of friable asbestos in numerous contaminated industrial sites and not, both public and private, partly identified as "Sites of National Interest" (SIN). In the archive of the National Mesothelioma Registry, whose data are updated in December 2011, 15,845 cases of malignant mesothelioma diagnosed in Italy from 1993 to 2008 were recorded: the disease, which is diagnosed on average at 69.2 years, arises in 93% of cases against the pleura and, in 71.6% of cases, it concerns the male gender. From the Notebook on Health of the Ministry of Health on asbestos, it is possible to draw many information