CRITICAL RETROSPECTIVE EVALUATION OF A STUDY CONDUCTED ON CLEAN-UP WORKERS IN SEVESO ZONE A AND MODERN DIOXIN RISK MANAGEMENT IN AREAS WITH STRONG INDUSTRIAL PRESENCE AS THE AREA OF TARANTO

Abstract

The present paper is intended to provide a critical assessment of the actions carried out for the health surveillance of workers engaged in the reclamation of the Zone A of Seveso in comparison to actions enforced to protect the resident population and the workers employed in the Taranto industrial area from the potential exposure to dioxin, a pollutant that affected, and still affects, both sites. Those two events have highlighted the fact that even 30 years since the disaster at Seveso, the Authorities that are confronted with unexpected events still react to the best of possibilities at the time of the emergence of the disaster, facing the risk of partiality and incompleteness of monitoring, but still in the absence of alternatives. We describe the study aimed at the evaluation of the appropriateness of what implemented in protection of clean-up workers active in the reclamation of sub-areas A1-A5 in zone A of Seveso, the areas that showed the most significant TCDD contamination. This resulted in a two-year controlled prospective study, with multiple comparisons between reclaimers and a control group, consisting in non-exposed workers. In parallel, we present the response by ARPA Puglia to the events of contamination by dioxin of environment, workplace and food samples of animal origin and following the determination of very high dioxin emissions from local steelworks.