In this work I review some of the main episodes in the history of quantum physics in which, for theoretical or experimental resons, the philosophical position of scientific realism was believed to be at risk. I argue that the only real threat to scientific realism derives from the basic fact that quantum mechanics, contrary to all main theories of classical physics and chemistry, does not come naturally embedded in a complete and coherent ontological framework. I criticise, in particular, the (once) usual view that scientific realism is one of the premisses involved in the Bell inequalities, in the specif logical sense in which it could in principle be one of the options to absorb the impact of the modus tollens resulting from their experimental violation.