Umberto Veronesi (; 28 November 1925 – 8 November 2016) was an Italian oncologist, physician, scientist, and politician, internationally known for his contributions on prevention and treatment of breast cancer throughout a career spanning over fifty years. He was the founder and president of the Umberto Veronesi Foundation. He also founded and held the role of scientific director and scientific director emeritus of the European Institute of Oncology. During his life and career, Veronesi was awarded a number of prizes for his contributions.
Veronesi was the scientific director of the National Cancer Institute in Milan from 1976 to 1994. His clinical and research activity focused on the prevention and treatment of cancer. In particular, he dealt with breast cancer, the leading cause of cancer death in women, and was the first theorist and staunch proponent of quadrantectomy; he demonstrated how in the majority of cases the survival curves of this technique, provided it is combined with radiotherapy, are the same as those of mastectomy but with a better aesthetic and psychosexual impact. As a politician, Veronesi was Minister of Health from 2000 to 2001 and a member of the Senate of the Republic. He was also a supporter of civil rights, vegetarianism, and animal rights.
Early life, family, and education Veronesi was born in Milan on 28 November 1925. He grew up in via Vallazze, in Casoretto, in the then agricultural suburbs of Milan, with four older brothers and a younger sister. Veronesi failed high school twice. Given the early death of his father, the maternal figure of Erminia Verganti, to whom he dedicated the book Dell'amore e del dolore delle donne, was fundamental for him. Veronesi was born into a Catholic family and was also a practitioner but distanced himself from religion by the age of 14, becoming agnostic. He later declared that, after Auschwitz, the study of oncology had increasingly convinced him of the non-existence of God. In 2010, he said: "Religion, by definition, is fundamentalist, while science lives in doubt, in the search for truth." Veronesi obtained his professional degree in medicine and surgery from the University of Milan in 1951, and specialised in surgery in 1956 at the University of Pavia. Veronesi dedicated his professional life to the study and treatment of cancer.
Scientific career After spending brief periods in England and France, Veronesi joined the National Cancer Institute in Milan as a volunteer, and in 1975 became its director. Veronesi challenged the dominant paradigm among surgeons that cancer could only be treated with aggressive surgery. He championed a paradigm shift in cancer care from "maximum tolerated" to "minimum effective" treatment. In 1965, he participated in the foundation of the Italian Cancer Research Association and founded the European School of Oncology in 1982. He was also a founding member of the Italian Association of Medical Oncology. Among his numerous roles, there was that of president of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer from 1985 to 1988. In 1991, he founded the European Institute of Oncology, becoming its scientific director; it was an innovative oncology hospital model based on the three principles of patient centrality, integration between laboratory research and clinical research, and prevention. The Umberto Veronesi Foundation for the progress of science, with the aim of supporting scientific research at a national level in oncology, cardiology, and neurosciences and promoting scientific dissemination, was established in 2003.
Veronesi's name is linked to scientific and cultural contributions recognised and appreciated throughout the world, the most relevant scientific contributions concerning the invention of conservative surgery for the treatment of breast tumors. A pioneer of breast-conserving surgery in early breast cancer as an alternative to a radical mastectomy, he developed the technique of quadrantectomy, which limits surgical resection to the affected quarter of the breast. Between 1973 and 1980, Veronesi led the first prospective randomised trial of breast-conserving surgery, known as the Milan I trial, which compared outcomes from radical mastectomy against quadrantectomy. The results, published in 1981, and confirmed in 2002 in a 20-year follow-up study, played a key role in establishing breast conserving surgery as the standard of care for patients with early breast cancer, alongside results from trials of lumpectomy led by the American breast surgeon Bernard Fisher. In June 2005, 1,800 surgeons called for Veronesi to be awarded a Nobel Prize for having revolutionised cancer treatment.
Veronesi, who was chairman of the BioGeM Scientific Committee and also a member of the boards of directors of Mondadori, supported and promoted scientific research aimed at improving conservative surgical techniques, including sentinel lymph node biopsy, which resulted in axillary dissection in breast cancer with clinically negative lymph nodes no longer being performed. He contributed to breast cancer prevention conducting studies on tamoxifen and retinoids, and verifying their capabilities to prevent the formation of carcinoma. He was also an activist in anti-tobacco campaigns. In May 1994, the European Institute of Oncology was inaugurated and officially opened in January 1996; he was its director from 1994 to 2000 and from 2001 to 2014. In 2009, through his foundation, he started the project "Science for Peace", in order to promote peaceful relations through scientific development. In 2010, he was appointed president of the Scientific Committee of the Italy-USA Foundation. In 2012, some Italian websites reported that the institute led by Veronesi had purportedly certified the effectiveness of the Di Bella method, which he had already dismissed as part of the 1998 parliamentary commission and again in 2005; the news proved to be a hoax and Veronesi described it as fake news and confirmed the ineffectiveness of the Di Bella method.
Political career
During his early life, Veronesi shared his father's reformist socialist views and was close to the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). During the 1980s, he was called by the then PSI leader Bettino Craxi to be part of the party's national assembly. When the PSI was dissolved in 1994, he became an independent politician. In 1993 and 1998, after being appointed by the then health minister Raffaele Costa, he was respectively member of the National Commission Against Cancer to draw up a plan against tumor diseases and of the parliamentary commission for the evaluation of the Di Bella therapy against cancer. In 1995, he campaigned for drug liberalisation through the decriminalisation and legalisation of soft drugs, with the aim of achieving regulation of hemp derivatives, mainly for therapeutic use. On 25 April 2000, he was appointed to the Ministry of Health as part of the second Amato government, and was in office until 11 June 2001. Citing the health effects of tobacco, he was instrumental in the promotion of anti-smoking legislation in public places, calling for non-smokers to take to the streets with posters, hold marches, and occupy the Italian Parliament to have the law passed; the law was implemented by his successor Girolamo Sirchia. Under The Union banner, Veronesi was considered a candidate for mayor of Milan but this did not materialise.
In 2008, Veronesi was the successful main candidate in Milan for the Democratic Party (PD) to the Senate of the Republic. From 2010 to 2011, he was also chairman of Italy's Nuclear Safety Agency. After being appointed on 5 November 2010 as the head of the Italian Nuclear Safety Agency, Veronesi, who was a member of the 7th Public Education Commission on Cultural Heritage from 22 May 2008 to 22 February 2011, renounced to his senatorial seat in order to preside over the Nuclear Safety Agency. He was succeeded by Francesco Monaco. Later on 3 November 2011, Veronesi left the Nuclear Safety Agency, after announcing his resignation on 3 September 2011, in a controversy with the fourth Berlusconi government, complaining about the absence of headquarters, a formal appointment decree, and the minimum structures to allow the agency to begin and carry out its activities. His opposition to what he described as "the unjustified bogeyman" of nuclear power and his support for the usefulness and harmlessness of incineration earned him criticism from Beppe Grillo. For the 2012 Italian centre-left primary election, he said that he was inclined to vote for the left-wing candidate Nichi Vendola of Left Ecology Freedom (SEL). In the 2016 Milan municipal election, he expressed his support for the centre-left coalition candidate and eventual winner Giuseppe Sala.
Personal life and death Veronesi was married to Sultana Susanna "Susy" Razon, a pediatrician of Jewish faith and Turkish origins who had survived the Nazi concentration camps. Together, they had seven children (five boys and two girls), two of whom, Paolo and Giulia, followed in his footsteps and are surgeons, while a third, Alberto Veronesi, is an orchestra director. Veronesi died in his home in Milan on 8 November 2016, aged 90. Many politicians and public figures, including the incumbent Italian president Sergio Mattarella, the then Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, the then health minister Beatrice Lorenzin, the then Chamber of Deputies president Laura Boldrini, the then Senate of the Republic president Pietro Grasso, the then Lombardy president Roberto Maroni, and Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala, paid tributes to him. The secular funeral took place at Palazzo Marino in the presence of Sala and many ordinary people; his son Alberto honoured him with two musical pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven and Giacomo Puccini. After the funeral, his body was cremated.
Activism and political campaigns
Among the various campaigns promoted by Veronesi was that in 1995 for the decriminalisation and regulation of soft drugs and hemp derivates, especially for its therapeutic uses in the field of pain therapy. He argued that legalisation had positive effects, citing the liberal drug policy of Switzerland as having decreased the number of drug addicts. He was part of the guarantors of the Liberta e Giustizia association, which acts in defense of the secular state and the balance between powers. He was in favour of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In March 2005, on the occasion of a conference on environmental communication, Veronesi mentioned the toxins contained in certain foods, for example polenta, potatoes, flour, or basil. This statement, which was widely reported in the Italian press, including Corriere della Sera, Il Giornale, Il Giorno, Il Messaggero, La Repubblica, Il Secolo XIX, and La Stampa, provoked indignation from slow food, organic food growers, and movements against the legalisation of GMOs, including Beppe Grillo. On 11 December 2006, on the occasion of the awarding of the honorary degree in Agricultural Sciences and Technologies at the University of Naples Federico II, Veronesi reiterated that "genetic engineering is not a magic wand for solving the problems of humanity, but it is an extremely intelligent method to fight world hunger, to reduce the impact of pesticides, to combat desertification."