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	The Evidence Archive
What you think you know about tobacco may surprise you

Forces Comité van Aanbeveling

Forces Nederland
E-Mail:
info@forces-nl.org

SMOKESCREENS AND SCOOPS

In a recent press publication with the header 'Boy sues father over passive smoking' the story was told about an Italian boy that sued his father because of his smoking. The following follow-up message appeared in an Italian newspaper recently:

by Giovanni Ricci (from L' Espresso May 30, 2001)

The lie smells like tobacco. It all happened May 25. The Minister of Health presents World No Smoking Day to the press. Umberto Veronese hits hard: he accuses Parliament of throwing a monkey wrench in the machine of the anti-smoking law. But this is not what really makes noise. The front page headlines are captured by a new hero of the war against the cigarette pack. It is a 15-year-old boy, an asthma sufferer who has sued his father, a hard-core smoker, for private assault, asking for a billion lire [about $500,000. USD] in damages. The lawsuit originates from one of the organizations which is in the front lines in the war against smoking, called Codacons. A few lines from a press release are sufficient to unleash the manhunt. Press agencies publish the news, and immediately after, television, radio and newspapers are on the track of the case of the day - the poor, asthmatic boy.

Codacon's switchboard heats up, but the organization ekes out the details slowly. Only V.M., the initials of the minor involved, are known. V.M. lives in Forlì in a small apartment, and has been forced since birth to live with a father who smokes 40 cigarettes a day. New details arrive at the dailies. V.M. becomes Vincenzo M. He is the son of an immigrant, a construction worker who is often unemployed and who often fights with his wife, who plans to leave him. In the meantime, in secret agreement with the boy, she asks for help - first from the local health centre, then the parish priest; then she decides to turn to Codacons. Except for the above, nothing else is known. If more details are asked for, the answer is, "We have to protect the boy's privacy".

The news daily "Resto del Carlino", searching for the parish priest who has tried to help V.M. and his mother, asks the bishop to no avail. It also turns out that the local health centre has never received a report, while the Codacons of Forlì entrenches itself behind a "no comment". Finally, somebody wonders - does V.M. exist? The story of the adolescent smoked out by the father begins to smell fishy. It seems too fortunate a coincidence that the name of one of the directors of the legal office of Codacons is Vincenzo Masullo. It is he who takes care of lawsuits concerning smoking, but no one is able to find out anything about the Forlì boy. Curious, very curious. And this is because it turns out that the story was born in the mind of one of Masullo's joking colleagues who is a lawyer in Codacons - a story that had come to circulate among the other lawyers in the office, all the way up to the head of the press office, and Codacon's presidentissimo. Carlo Rienzi who, in fact, takes this "inspiration" to build up press release and catapult it on the front pages of the newspapers. In short, the story is not real at all, however plausible.

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SMOKESCREENS AND SCOOPS