In northeastern Italy, women who have lived in contaminated soil for decades were found to have toxic chemicals in their blood unknowingly. These chemicals were passed on to children during pregnancy and breastfeeding. One of those women, Elisabetta Donadello, said, “I ate the vegetables grown here for 40 years,” describing how their paradise turned into a wasteland.

Elisabetta Donadello, a 50-year-old woman living in northeastern Italy, is one of thousands of mothers who discovered that they ingested “permanently persistent chemicals” known as PFAS in the region, passing them on to their babies both in the womb and through breastfeeding.

Some are plaintiffs in a criminal case against the chemical company Miteni, accused of causing one of Europe’s largest environmental disasters by releasing hormone-disrupting substances into water sources, affecting 350,000 people.

Donadello, who grew up in the contaminated household, mentioned, “For 40 years, I ate the vegetables grown here and passed them on to my children during pregnancy… In short, I poisoned my children.”

Donadello told AFP that both of her children, aged 8 and 10, have high levels of chemicals in their blood. Even exposure to PFAS at low levels is linked to liver damage, high cholesterol, decreased immune responses, low birth weight, and various types of cancer.

She mentioned that although her children seem fine, she monitors them closely in case of illness. Donadello expressed, “I am scared. Even for insignificant symptoms, I do not respond normally… because the fear that something might always be due to pollutants.”

Fifteen managers of the Miteni factory are on trial in Vicenza, accused of deliberately leaking PFAS into a waterway that contaminated a wide area between Vicenza, Verona, and Padova.

Donadello is part of a group of mothers called “Mamme No PFAS” (Mothers against PFAS) that gathered after discovering these chemicals in their family’s blood. She currently lives about 12 kilometers away from the closed factory, but her garden sits on a dirty aquifer that feeds the well and irrigates the land.

According to Donadello, “PFAS has no taste, color, or smell, and the vegetables taste wonderful.” She added, “How do you convince someone who has eaten what they have produced all their life to stop eating them? This has been clearly expressed with irrefutable data and authority.”

The Miteni factory closed in 2018, but the land is still filled with PFAS and mixes with the river when it rains. Donadello cannot help but shed tears when she looks at the snow-covered mountains beyond the green fields and thinks about how this once was a “paradise” turned into ruins.

Donadello concludes, “It is very painful to think of toxic water flowing beneath my feet, and if not cleaned up, it will probably remain like this forever. This was my grandmother and grandfather’s, my father’s land. What am I leaving to my children?”