A leading Italian television presenter is being sued by two homeopathy organizations for failing to include their views in a broadcast of his prime-time science programme Superquark.

Piero Angela's broadcast has been backed by scientists. Credit: EPA PHOTO ANSA/FILIPPO MONTEFORTE

Millions of Italians use homeopathic products — which purport to treat diseases using vanishingly small doses — and the homeopathists claim that the broadcast was unfair and could threaten their business. They complain that Piero Angela, who produces his own show, selected only interviewees who were critical of homeopathy for a show that was broadcast last July.

But Angela has received strong backing from the scientific community. He says that he has received many letters of support from individual researchers, including Nobel prizewinners Renato Dulbecco and Rita Levi-Montalcini.

Angela says that Italian public television archives show that 14 times more programmes had been broadcast advocating homeopathy than criticizing it. His programme sought to redress the balance, he says. He also argues that it is not his job to tell viewers what they want to hear: “Science is not like philosophy, where viewers can listen to both sides and decide for themselves,” he says. “Science cannot be decided on by the vote of viewers.”

One of the guests on Angela's show was Antonio Cassone, head of the department of bacteriology at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Italy's national health institute, who is a member of the ministry of health's ad hoc committee on homeopathy.

On the show, Cassone says, he merely offered the opinion that safety information should be provided on all homeopathic products, and that efficacy information should be provided on anything that is to be injected. “I would have had no objection to a homeopathist sharing the show,” he says, “because it would have been even more convincing to the viewers that arguments of homeopathists against providing information are untenable.” But he fully supports the way Angela produced his programme.

The suits, one civil and one criminal, have been brought by the Catania-based Italian Association of Medical Homeopathy and the Rome-based Italian Federation of Associations of Medical Homeopathy. The cases should come to court in the autumn.