Venice rewards the work of the Italian-American scientist of Neapolitan origins Antonio Giordano, president and founder of the Sbarro Health Research Organization (SHRO) at Temple University USA and professor of Pathological Anatomy and Histology at the University of Siena, for demonstrating the correlation between health and pollution, especially in Campania with the Land of Fires. The Golden Lion for legality was awarded to the father of studies that demonstrated the connection between the illegal dumping of waste and tumor diseases in Campania.
The award represents a recognition for cancer research and for the courage to have revealed the links between waste management, controlled by the Camorra, and the incidence of tumors in the Campania territories. The award ceremony takes place just hours after the Cassation's verdict that unfroze the entire assets confiscated from the Pellini family, convicted of environmental crimes and deemed responsible for the environmental disaster that Professor Giordano has fought and continues to fight against.
Proposing the recognition to the jury of the Venice grand prize was the anti-mafia magistrate Catello Maresca, today president of the legality section of the Golden Lion award in Venice. He is credited with many investigations against the Casalesi clan that poisoned the lands between Naples and Caserta.
"Just as the assets of the Pellinis, the entrepreneurs involved in the illicit waste trafficking, are unfrozen, the recognition appears as a significant gesture, a stance of legality and justice, a cry that still keeps the focus on an ever-relevant issue. My team and I will never lower our guard to continue protecting a land tormented like Campania from environmental criminals. Even in a very difficult moment for the fight against the Camorra, in which procedural delays throw away years of investigations and successes of the State against the clans, we must not lose hope and continue the battle for legality also in schools to spread the culture of anti-mafia," state Giordano and Maresca.
The Italian-American scientist at the center of the news for his substantial contribution to the emergence of the phenomenon of the Land of Fires with a scientific study that also flowed into the book "Munnezza di Stato" and that has brought to the attention of the Prosecutor's Office many unlawful Campanian realities, now receives an award dedicated to Italian excellences which therefore allows to continue operating in the direction of good, keeping public attention high on a deeply rooted issue that emerges even more clearly as the world seeks to recover environmentally and to assume a sustainable identity.
The award ceremony in Venice at the Palazzo della Regione Veneto, chaired by Sileno Candelaresi, brings together each year among the awardees a mix of Italian and international excellences in the field of entrepreneurship, sports, and culture.
Guests of honor, the knight Gianfranco Sciscione twice Golden Lion for professional merits who presents the collaboration with the starred chef Luigi Ciciriello and the producer of Euroasia Yimei Heng who receive the prestigious Institutional Plaque of Venice of the Lion of San Marco.
Outstanding guests: Amedeo Bianchi, Michele Bauli, Paolo Agnelli, and Angelo Simonetti who will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, the singer-songwriter Shara, the sports director of Juventus Cristiano Giuntoli, Adolfo De Angelis, the chef Graziano Press, the rector of the University of Naples Federico II celebrating its 800th anniversary Matteo Lorito, the scientist Annamaria Colao, the president of Promovetro Murano Luciano Gambaro, and Simona Tardani, principal of the "Sacro Cuore" Private Institute in Rome who also receive the Golden Lion for professional merits.