Triangle of death (Italy)

The annual death rate per 100,000 inhabitants from liver cancer is approximately 38.4 for men and 20.8 for women in this area, as compared to the national average of 14.

[5] The high death rates from cancers pointed towards the presence of illegal and improper hazardous waste disposal by various organized crime groups including the Camorra.

[11] Reports in 2008 stated that the crisis was caused at least in part by the Camorra, the powerful Campania-based mafia, which created a lucrative business in the municipal waste disposal sector, mostly in the triangle of death.

"[11] The boss of the Casalesi clan, Gaetano Vassallo, admitted to systematically working for 20 years to bribe local politicians and officials to gain their acquiescence to dumping toxic waste.

[14][15] Giorgio Napolitano, then President of Italian Republic, said in June 2008:[16][17] It is certain, not only to citizens but to the government as well, that the systematic transfer of toxic waste from industries in Northern Italy to Campania, was committed by the Camorra.

Such fires are easily hidden among legitimate incineration resulting from the more general waste disposal problem, and the illegal burning of hazardous materials was particularly noted during 2007 and 2008.

The presence of fires in the north area of Naples led author Roberto Saviano to use Terra dei fuochi ("Land of pyres") as a chapter title in his book Gomorrah.

[37] Between 2007 and 2008, the waste commissioner Guido Bertolaso, (the head of the civil protection department), planned to open a landfill but this was opposed by residents of Chiaiano.

However, this work also highlighted the difficulty in determining causality and in establishing a link between increased death and malformation rates and waste disposal.

Statistically significant excess relative risks were found for several cancer types in the triangle of death, however, methods often struggle to account for lifestyle confounders such as tobacco consumption and occupation which could skew the results.

[55][56][57] A chain reaction followed, in which several countries including Japan, China, Russia and Germany took various measures ranging from the mere raising of the attention threshold to the suspension of imports.

[58] The Italian institutions activated almost immediately, even in response to pressing requests from the European Union, a series of checks and suspended, in some cases, the sale of dairy products from the incriminated provinces.

[59] On 19 April, China definitively removed the ban on mozzarella, originally activated on 28 March 2008, and tests held in December 2013 in Germany on behalf of four Italian consumer associations have highlighted dioxin and heavy metal levels at least five times lower than the legal limit.