“In the capital of asbestos I lost my brother Piercarlo, he was just 33 years old and didn’t even work at Eternit. He loved running through the streets of Casale Monferrato. An innocent victim.” Giuliana Busto, Piercarlo’s sisterpresident of the Asbestos Victims’ Family Association (Afeva) since 2016, still lives in Casale Monferratoa city in the Alessandria area where the asbestos cement, a material that has become indispensable in construction due to its extraordinary properties, so much so that it can be used everywhere, even on asphalt. It took decades for the risks came to light in all their gravity linked to exposure to the fibers used in the factory and that it was discovered that the tumors that quickly caused many citizens to become ill and die were due to those fibres. The same mesothelioma that Franco Di Mare, 68, a Rai journalist for years, is fighting against today.
«Although I got a very bad tumor – explains Di Mare – you get it because you breathe in asbestos particles without knowing it and once the fiber is released into the air, it has a very long self-preservation time and when it manifests itself it is too late. To say that this is where hope ends is not true, because science always moves forward. I have a tumor that leaves no way out. I have little left to live, how long I don’t know. But I don’t give up.”
«A story that repeats itself – comments Giuliana Busto -. It’s always very painful to get into these topics that never seem to be a part of life until you are not personally involved. These are painful stories that unfortunately we we live every day and it is even more terrible when you have no prospects. It is even more disappointing when the protagonists are people we know well for their commitment in the world of work and everyday life such as Di Mare who finds himself fighting this terrible battle. I tell him not to give up. Our association can support him too».
A story that the president knows well and has always tried to change, asking for justice for those deaths, more than 3 thousand in Casale aloneremembered on «World Asbestos Victims Day» al Eternot park, built on the ashes of the death factory. In 2023 alone the National Asbestos Observatory recorded approximately 2 thousand cases of mesothelioma, with a mortality rate, compared to the previous 5 years, of approximately 93% of cases. In the same year there were approx 4 thousand new diagnoses of lung cancer due to exposure to asbestos (net of smoking and other carcinogens), with an estimated survival rate (5 years) of 12% for a calculation of approximately 3500 deaths. Every year there are 10 thousand new diagnoses, predominantly men, for reasons of their professional commitment. The cases are mostly concentrated in the high-risk regions which, with an annual average of diagnosed cases of between 1,500 and 1,800, are Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria and Lazio, representing over 56% of reported cases.
“Today Piercarlo Busto, known to everyone as “Pica”, would still run for his Casale – says Giuliana -. He was a health fanatic, he had nothing to do with Eternit. He worked in a bank. Yet his name appears in the long list of asbestos deaths in Casale Monferrato. He was only 33 years old. As soon as he returned from work he put on a tracksuit and shoes and went to train along the Po embankment. Not far from there was the Eternit factory, which closed in 1986.” Then he discovered the disease. A pain in the chest. The fever. «In five months he died. It was 1988, almost no one knew that word. I had to look up the meaning in a medical encyclopedia: “Cancer due to asbestos”. The evening he died he ate sitting at the table. It was December 23rd: around us people were buying Christmas presents, we were choosing the coffin. But on his funeral poster we wrote “his death was caused by asbestos”. There I began my battle».
A battle that doesn’t stop and that is also passed down to young people, going to schools. «We are close to families, let’s help those who have suffered a bereavement – says the president -. Let’s go to schools. In the courts to request reclamations. I listen to sick people’s stories every day.” Like that of Pietro Condello, 76 years old. For more than twenty years you worked in the most dangerous department, what they called “Raw Materials”. His colleagues “are all dead”he is the only one alive and fighting against 70% diagnosed asbestosis and asks for justice for all those who died, even the youngest, and for those who continue to die today.
