The so-called Barbacid affair, which emerged in Spain during the spring of 2026, offers a remarkable case study in the contemporary relationship between scientific authority, public expectation, biomedical entrepreneurship, and media communication. At the centre of the controversy lies a study on pancreatic cancer published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), initially celebrated as a potentially revolutionary breakthrough and later retracted owing

"È la prima volta... O almeno una delle poche volte in cui in Italia si può verificare, a distanza di 10 anni, la puntuale realizzazione di ciò che era stato annunciato 10 anni prima. (...) 10 anni fa, il 18 gennaio del 2010, fu annunciato un piano editoriale, in 7 volumi e 15 tomi, che è stato puntualmente rispettato (...)." Così Gianni Letta, arcidiavolo ad honorem, il 20 luglio 2021, alle ore 13,00, nella Sala Polifunzionale della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri. L

Belfagor is not a magazine in the conventional sense. It does not exist to circulate visibility, nor to reinforce reputations already secured elsewhere. Its function is diagnostic. Each text, exhibition, performance, or academic production that enters this space is treated as an object of analysis. The question is simple: does it withstand scrutiny when removed from institutional protection, rhetorical inflation, and reputational inertia? The premise is that contemporary cult