I'm from that area, in the suburbs of Naples, and left 25 years ago, but my family is still there. Yes, there is a higher incidence of cancer in the region and, most likely, chemicals play a central part in that, but a good chunk of cases is for lungs and bladder, which also correlate with the sadly large number of smokers. (The smoke and the utter lack of consideration for others makes any visit home an exercise in frustration from day one or two.)<p>This has been going on for a long time. At some point in the early 90s, a cousin and her friends went biking away from town, passing through an industrial area. Even though the weather had been dry, there was a big puddle on the side of the road and she tried to make her way through it anyway. It turned out to be some toxic smelling and sticky substance. She had to get rid of her clothing AND the entire bike, whose gears and chain had become unusable. Even then, the assumption was that pollutants were being hauled mostly from factories in the North, not just from the South, and dumped in the region.<p>Most deaths I hear of are due to cancer. There might be a bit of selection bias at play, though. A case that was in the news recently was a seven year old girl that lost her year-long battle. Then there was the 17 year old who looked pregnant, but turned out to have a very large benign tumor. Those are shocking and heavily discussed, but I don't think rates in that age range are actually much different from the national average. It's from 60 on that the real numbers look very bad.