Fernanda Giannasi was a driving force in the campaign to have asbestos banned in Brazil. She was a Civil and Occupational Safety Engineer and was a Labor Inspector for 30 years at the Brazilian Labor Ministry. She founded the GIA-Grupo Interinstitutional of Asbestos and was manager of the State Program for the Banning of Asbestos. Fernanda founded the Brazilian Association of People Exposed to Asbestos (ABREA) and was one of the creators of the CONTREN-National Commission of the Workers on Nuclear Energy.
In 2024, she was a health, labour and environmental consultant for workers' organizations and victims of industrial disease. She also coordinated the Virtual-Citizen Network for the Banning of Asbestos for Latin America and is a member of the Brazilian Environmental Justice Network. Fernanda was part of the Italian Academy of Sciences of the World (Collegium Ramazzini), which awarded her the Ramazzini Prize in 2018.
Fernanda received a number of awards in recognition of her work including the Occupational Health of the American Public Health Association (APHA) in Chicago, 1999; 'Outstanding Citizen' award by the National Progressist Entrepreneurs Basis (PBNE), 2001; the title of “Anti-Asbestos G-Woman in Tokyo in 2004; commendations from the Order of Judicial Merit of Labor from the TST-Superior Labor Court (2014) and the TRT-Regional Labor Court (2015); the FazDiferença (Makes the Difference) Prize from the prestigious Newspaper “O Globo, 2017; and the Rachel LEE Jung-Lim Award in 2017 in South Korea.