missouri ghost town poisoned by toxic waste

But he believes they are only just beginning to see the full scale of health problems.

Now an established heart consultant who has published further studies into the consequences of hazardous waste, Mazza admits it is impossible to prove precise links between toxic materials, tumours and congenital malformations. The article provoked a furore, fuelling local protests over a planned new incinerator, yet led to little real action from the authorities – although Mazza told me he learnt later from a friend that Italian intelligence began monitoring him as a ‘troublemaker’. So he wrote to The Lancet, which published his landmark work in September 2004. The pugnacious young doctor took the data to a local prosecutor, demanding action, but was fobbed off. ‘Cancer is usually found in older people but these were younger people dying.’ Soon farmers began to notice that the new liquid fertiliser they had been given was so strong that it corroded metal tanks, leaked from lorries and stunted plants.Īnd while improved diagnosis and treatment were boosting survival rates elsewhere, local medics were seeing not only rising mortality but younger patients. So in the late 1980s, the Mafia moved into a lucrative new business. Then an enterprising businessman with gangland links who owned several waste dumps realised big money could be made hiding industrial waste amid domestic detritus. Rebuilding the ruined roads and buildings boosted Mafia profits, since they dominated construction in the region – a handy way to launder profits from drugs and prostitution.Īs cash flowed in, the clans expanded interests into areas such as quarrying, which provided raw materials for their work. The saga’s roots can be traced back to a devastating Italian earthquake that left almost 3,000 people dead and 280,000 homeless in November 1980.īillions of pounds in aid poured in, although most ended up in the wrong pockets. Catalyst for catastropheĭoctors and scientists believe this polluted Italian landscape provides a perfect experiment in ‘exposomics’ – the evolving study of health damage caused by exposure to harmful chemicals in environmental contamination. One Mafia kingpin even claimed trucks drove from Germany carrying nuclear waste to dumps in Campania.

Missouri ghost town poisoned by toxic waste