In Italy we continue to die of asbestos. The victims are not only the former Eternit workers, but also hundreds of our soldiers. The figures given by the Minister of Defence, Roberta Pinotti, speak for themselves: between January 1996 and the first quarter of 2015 there were 405 cases of "asbestos-related disease" with 211 deaths in the same period.
The case was raised by a question from the pentastellato deputy and vice president of the Chamber Luigi Di Maio who underlines the silence - at least the difficulties in finding data - on the victims of asbestos (or even asbestos) among the Armed Forces. It must be said that the most striking clinical manifestations of asbestosis (respiratory or cardiorespiratory insufficiency) take years to appear and appear even thirty years after the initial exposure to asbestos.
In Italy, with law 257 of 1992, the trade and production of asbestos was prohibited and a reclamation work was undertaken in areas considered to be at high risk. And asbestos continues to hit the military. It is the minister who provides the details, responding to the clarifications requested by Di Maio: 45 deaths in the Air Force, 50 in the Carabinieri, 39 in the Army and 77 in the Navy between 1996 and April of this year. Note: 211 dead.
But Minister Pinotti himself points out that precisely because of the long latency of the consequences of exposure to asbestos "any pathologies are not reported to the military health service". And this would suggest (even if the minister does not say it) that the number of cases and therefore of the victims could be even higher.
In any case, as of April 30 of this year, 602 applications had been presented by military personnel (or their survivors) who fell ill from related asbestos-related pathologies and applied for equality with victims of duty. Well, of these over a third (243) have been defined and with a positive outcome, 3 are in the preliminary investigation phase and 256 rejected.
Pinotti reassures us about the possibility that even today our soldiers may be exposed to asbestos. In the Navy "there are no sources of asbestos contamination on naval units built after 1992" and those possibly present in ships built before that date "have been confined and made safe". In the Army context "with reference to vehicles/missile systems there are no parts containing asbestos".
As for the Carabinieri, "about 100 internal seals used on board aircraft are being replaced". finally, "the replacement of contaminating parts was started in the Air Force in 1991 and is still ongoing for some aircraft lines". And in any case, Pinotti points out, the data is easily available through bulletins and articles published in the "military medicine journal" or other scientific journals.
