Black Blood - Land of Poisons

Campania, Italy’s region, in recent years has been under the spotlight for the problem known as the Land of Fire, a term that makes the problem very simplistic. It would be correct to speak of Land of Poisons because the problem is not only due to the waste's fires but also to burial of toxic waste that have made this corner of Italy a bloodbath black color as color of the leachate, poison, flowing under the land. The territory covered by this issue goes from Naples's province to outskirts of Caserta's province. An area of about 1,700 square kilometers, which includes about 88 cities, and affects more than 2 millions of people who have to deal with one of the greatest hardships and environmental disasters of Italy. From the second half of the 80's in several areas, particularly in areas from north of Naples to south of Caserta, were buried on land and in quarries about 10 million tons of industrial waste, toxic and even radioactive in legal and illegal landfills, though the complicity of politics leaders and crimes organization. Environmental disaster caused is of unprecedented proportions, it affect soil, subsoil, air and activities related to them, with a irreversible pollution risk of the aquifer. This environmental disaster hit related areas to the local activities, such as agriculture and breeding. The environmental disaster is then associated with conseguences on human health. In several areas it was noted an increase of tumors, a large number of cancer deaths and develops of rare diseases; among those most affected, unfortunately, include children. In the cities of Land of Fires childrens in the first year of life shown an excess of 51% of admissions for all cancers and 45% for leukemia and incidence of tumors of the central nervous system has more than doubled. In children (0-14 years), there was an excess of 42% for central nervous system tumors, which persists, although attenuated (29%), including the adolescent age (0-19). These are preliminary data that need further study and for which further investigation to assess the causal related with environmental contamination have been provided. In addition, individual municipalities may show localized excesses of malignant disease, for example in Casalnuovo di Napoli (in the first year of life doubled the incidence of total cancer and five times the incidence of central nervous system tumors; doubled the mortality rate for all cancers in the 0-14 and 0-19 age groups) and Terzigno (excess of hospitalizations for all cancers by 79% and 55% in the age group of 0-14 and 0-19 respectively, and tripling the incidence of tumors central nervous system). . I decided to investigate this issue , documenting the problems of environmental pollution, an invisible monster hidden under ground, all without neglecting the consequences of this environmental stress on the man who gets sick more and more and not see future in this land. [...] Here, in this land, somebody decided to take off our right to lives"