Il nesso causale nella valutazione del rapporto tra patologie neoplastiche ed esposizioni professionali ed ambientali in ambito giudiziario

IARC evaluations of the carcinogenic risk to humans, although based on epidemiological and experimental studies, derive their value from the consensus among committee members on a decision based on the current status of knowledge, not from the studies themselves, nor from their summary evaluation. A judiciary setting, based on the opinion of an individual expert, or on the evaluation of the most updated state of the knowledge by a group of experts selected in non scientific settings, or even worse on the evaluation of a specific case with ad hoc epidemiological studies, cannot confute such decisions. Therefore, causal links already defined within the scientific community, such as between exposures in the IARC category I and specific cancer sites, should be accepted also in legal trials to establish individual responsibility in case of excess exposures for the general and/or the working population resulting from violation or omission of preventive duties, when those diseases follow such excess exposures. If no violation or omission occurred, a civil responsibility has to be defined when either a disease with established link with the given exposure occurs, or a disease for which no such a level of consensus exists in the scientific community, but for which the legal trial has reached a positive decision. In such instances, if omissions or law violations occurred, the legal trial carries the burden of establishing a causal link between such omissions and violations and the damage for the individual worker or citizen.