Two science journalists, support from citizens and an e-book, to shed light on the Stamina affaire.
Scienza in rete launched an investigative journalism project funded on the web and, in memory of Romeo Bassoli, wants to find innovative ways to support journalism.
The project
The Stamina affaire begins on February 2012, when the TV show Le Iene tells the story of Celeste and Gioele, two children a bit more than one years old suffering for a very serious disease, the Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), which hits neurons. According to the show, the only hope resides in stem cells infusion performed by the Stamina Foundation, led by Davide Vannoni. Since there, a struggle fought with reports and public demonstrations, scientists claims and court's sentences.
Still, there are the questions raised by patients - often in desperate situations, their families, the population.
We ask for your help to dedicate two months of our work to find answer to such questions, investigating on the obscure points of this case. The resulting report will be available for free as an e-book. Scienza in rete is the promoter of this initiative, which is based on co-funding: Zadig will provide for production and diffusion costs, while funds collected through crowdfunding will be used as payment for the journalists.
This project will also be the occasion to commemorate Romeo Bassoli, scientific jorunalist recently passed away, because he always represented those virtues of a rational attitude and critic awareness. We thus think he would have encouraged and supported such an approach to investigative journalism.
Here you can donate to support the initiative.
Antonino Michienzi, free-lance journalist
Roberta Villa, MD and journalist
Add the banner of the initiative, in order to spread voice about it:
For more information, write to Roberta Villa.