title: [Relevance of the Di Bella case in the relationship between people and official medicine].
abstract: In this research, we suppose that the Di Bella case showed a separation, that is at the basis of the relation between people and the "official medicine", in an emblematic way: the separation between the reified universe--that is the scientific research with its necessary and universal rules, the medical practice, the medical and governmental institutions--and the consensual universe--the common sense, the emotions and the thoughts of people, of the patients and of their relatives. At the same time, these dynamics of the relationship between science and public opinion are framed in the context of the historical and political Italian situation of the Nineties to explain the origin and the development of the affair. Because of the priority role attributed to the mass-media in building the case, this research analyses all the articles on the Di Bella case published in Panorama and L'Espresso--two magazines chosen because they represent different cultural and political tendencies--by experimenting the integration of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. From our analysis, an ancient culture emerges, that is expressed by the stereotype of the no hope illness and by the repetition of consolidated common places: on one side the irrationality of the masses and the Italian character, on the other side the veneration for the science and the unquestionable trust in the guarantee provided by a foreign hospital or by a foreign research centre. At the same time, a positive role of the public opinion points out, which is able to get some negative sides of the reified universe and to give voice to the needs of the patients and of all common people who have to face with--or are afraid of facing with--the cancer, a prototypical illness which arouses fears and anxieties.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di psicologia, Università di Milano-Bicocca, piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano. francescopaolo.colucci@unimib.it
authors.forename: Francesco Paolo
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Colucci
authors.forename: Lorenzo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Montali
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008402:Mass Media; D008511:Medicine; D011639:Public Opinion
vernacular_title: Rilevanza del caso Di Bella nel rapporto tra le persone e la medicina ufficiale.