I came across this weird bug whilst tweaking my site and could not find any website mentioning it. Or maybe I am too silly to use the right wording for my search queries as I cannot imagine that I am the first person to have noticed it.

First off, my layout here complies to HTML Strict 1.0. It would even validate as HTML Strict 1.1 after a minor configuration change on my web server (so that it uses a different mime type for html documents). My CSS file I use also validates without the slightest warning. Now to the description:
Whenever I use a block element that has an embedded <i> or <em> tag (to mark a quote for example) or alternatively, I define italic as style for a block element and it contains text that stretches over multiple lines, IE 6.0 on Windows will freak out and add horizontal scrollbars without a visible cause. These bars disappear as soon as I remove italic from the offending style or the embedded <i> or <em> tag from the affected block element.

Perhaps someone incidentally reading this post knows how to work around this problem or a link pointing to a working hack? Any hint would be greatly appreciated, as I really would like to learn what exactly is causing this issue.