Point of view of Italian regions

Masi M.

Regional General Directorate of the Right of the Health, Region of Tuscany, Italy.

Abstract

The tragic chain of mortal events, that have happened to workers and people who have been exposed to asbestos, proposes clearly an accentuation of the efforts that have been undertaken up to now, even in absence of precise national directives, in order to give an answer to worries and, sometimes, to real consequences of citizens’ and workers’ asbestos exposure. Region of Tuscany, following the initiatives which have been carried out in national and regional field for the formerly asbestos-exposed or other carcinogenic agents workers, performed a guideline that was just titled “Guidelines on sanitary surveillance of formerly exposed to occupational carcinogens workers”. The debate, which had risen around the sanitary surveillance of the formerly-exposed to occupational carcinogenic agents workers, had induced indeed many institutions to take decisions on issues which were not yet explicitly regulated by the national law. For example the guidelines provided suggestions regarding what bodies–either public or private–should be appointed to this task, or the kind of protocols should be adopted with all the related collective and individual consequences.