Italian vets outraged by the attack on a public health colleague
The act of intimidation may be related to your work in official livestock control within the regional task force for the fight against brucellosis.
The Italian veterinary sector is outraged after it was learned that last weekend Marco Di Franco, a public health veterinarian who works in the Caserta area, in Italian Campania, suffered an attack to blow up the building where he lives. According to local press reports, unknown individuals forced the door of his house and set the furniture on fire, but they had also left a gas cylinder with the safety valve open so that it could explode. The vet was not home at the time, but the house caught fire.
The Piedimonte Matese police are working to identify those responsible and clarify what happened while looking for the reasons for the attack on the veterinarian, which could be related to his professional activity. In fact, it is not the first time that Marco Di Franco has been the victim of intimidation and even death threats when dealing with the official control of livestock, within the regional working group for the fight against brucellosis and tuberculosis.
"We are afraid"
In statements collected by the newspaper Il Mattino, Di Franco recalled that two years ago they had already threatened to shoot him. "Now it has been the fire, but it does not affect me, it is an attack on the healthy part of the institutions that I represent and that in Campania exist and function seriously, but we are afraid." In the same way, he affirmed that his group is dedicated to monitoring the anomalies found in his work and reporting them to the Prosecutor's Office. "All of this has exposed us to continuous attack," he added.
The reactions of the Italian veterinary sector have not been long in coming. The National Association of Italian Veterinary Doctors (ANMVI) has shown its solidarity with his colleague Marcello Di Franco, and described the attack he had suffered as "an offense for the entire veterinary sector". The ANMVI also recalled that this is not an isolated event and that this attack had occurred a few days after another on a public health veterinarian in Foggia, whose car was set on fire.
Bullying has increased
The manifestations of rejection and indignation for this act of criminal violence have been unanimous, although Italian veterinarians have also expressed their great concern at the resurgence of intimidating events that for decades have affected, throughout Italy, especially the Veterinarians of the National Service of Health, due to its official functions of protecting public health and food safety.
Similarly, fellow veterinarians from the Campania region stated that the group "continues with a greater commitment, with the aim of always pursuing greater consumer protection, public health, animal welfare, and legality", although they also warned that actions such as that suffered by Marcello Di Franco "should not be underestimated."
The Italian Union of Public Medicine Veterinarians (Sivemp) described the attack as "a cowardly gesture that wants to be an intimidating message for all the veterinarians of the National Health System", and demanded greater support for them from the State "with measures exceptional to preserve their functions ".
More specifically, in his statements to the local press, Antonio Limone, director of the South Italy Zooprophylactic Institute, stated that "after this umpteenth intimidating episode, the magistrates must ask themselves who has an interest in hiding brucellosis instead of eradicating it."
The Italian political class has also shown its solidarity with the attacked veterinarian, but goes further: the president of the Agriculture Commission Filippo Gallinella announced that he had "urged the Ministries of Health and Agricultural Policies, competent in the matter, asking for an action decisive to eradicate outbreaks of brucellosis in the Campania region, especially in the Caserta area ", and that he planned to invite Marcello Di Franco to the audience in the Chamber" to officially tell what is happening ".
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