He was one of the best con-men I have ever come across, he added. Theres a void in his personality that he seems to want to fill by conning more and more people.. BRAVE Combat Federation The Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. Chinese balloon photos Benita Alexander on attending Paolo Macchiarinis criminal trial in Sweden Alexander said she attended Macchiarini's trial for closure, seven years after she was unknowingly caught in a fraudulent romance with him, and for justice for his patients and for their families. July 21, 2022 Examined 9:54 Whats next for Russia? Team Lakay Get more great content like this delivered right to you! WebPaolo Macchiarini (born 22 August 1958): 2 is a Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon and former regenerative medicine researcher who became known for research fraud and manipulative behavior. Although all three patients eventually died, Dr. Macchiarini was not directly accused of killing them. Macchiarini was turning the dream of regenerative medicine into a reality. The district court in Solna today found Paolo Macchiarini not guilty on other charges, including aggravated assault, relating to three patients he treated while working for the famed Karolinska Institute (KI). According to Pierre Delaere, a professor of respiratory surgery at KU Leuven, Belgium, Macchiarinis experiments were bound to end badly. From that moment on, she made a proposal to Paolo Macchiarini, and Dateline planned to publish the story. Any replacement trachea must be rigid or itll collapse like a straw in a McDonalds milkshake, Dr. Genden said. The first season of both the Peacock series and the Wondery podcast of the same name told the story of Christopher Duntsch, a former neurosurgeon now serving a life sentence for botched surgeries that left more than 30 patients maimed or dead. Since this was radically new, Macchiarini and his colleagues should have tested it on animals first. Not only that, they later covered it up.. Philippines Dr. Genden examines the new trachea by inserting a scope in a hole he left in her neck, which hell eventually close. WebIn reality, Paolo had not worked with the Pope, and he was still married to his wife of 30 years. A White House source confirmed that Bill Clinton had never met Paolo. Four of Macchiarinis colleagues at KI, including Corbascio, filed official complaints in 2014 charging that several papers describing the surgeries deliberately left out serious complications in the patients. Sonia Sein, outside her Bronx home, had irreparable damage to her trachea. Likewise the whole idea of a wedding: Macchiarini was still married to his wife of 30 years. Dr. Genden said Dr. Macchiarinis rise and fall profoundly affected his own path. Macchiarini is known for his research fraud and manipulative behavior. And in 2014, four Karolinska University Hospital doctors filed two separate reports claiming that Macchiarinis scientific papers described exaggerated the positive results of the operations and incorrectly describe[d] the postoperative status of the patients and the functionality of the implant, the timeline says. How we can build a clean and renewable future. Gerdins report, released in May 2015, concluded Macchiarini was guilty of misconduct, but university administrators rejected that conclusion 3 months later, arguing Macchinarini and his co-authors had satisfactorily countered the issues Gerdin raised. But because Macchiarini is apparently living in Spain, its unlikely to have much effect. All but one died following severe complications with the implants. In court testimony, he defended himself as only trying to help desperately ill patients, and said he had the full support of KI and his colleagues. And then there are the surgeons on Dr. Death. Most protagonists on medical dramas are modern-day heroes. Its like when you get on a rocket ship., At times, he felt in a dreamlike state, he said. Virginia You can see this in the speed with which his breakthroughs were accepted. He was one of the best con men I have ever come across. Her ex-husband John was dying of cancer. But it did not work, and a court in Sweden has found him criminally liable for the harm inflicted on a patient. Or rather, his celebrity status helped him do so. A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 376, Issue 6600. The university board was dismissed and even Harriet Wallberg, whod moved on to become the chancellor for all Swedish universities, lost her job. On Friday Mr. Hurtig declined to comment on Paolos private affairs.. I could feel it in my lungs.. Dr. Gerdin said Dr. Macchiarini was allowed to continue his procedures for so long because the Karolinska Institute and its hospital allowed him to do so. For other cases, though, doctors say the approach seems promising. He officially cleared Macchiarini of scientific misconduct, allowing merely that hed sometimes acted without due care. This went on for three years until, just recently, Grinnemo was cleared of all wrongdoing. And because it was built from Castillos own cells, she didnt need to be on any risky immunosuppressant drugs. What comes next after Texas school shooting? According to a witness report, Paolo operated on a 45-50-year-old woman of Middle Eastern origin in a private clinic in Barcelona in the fall of 2008. They shared a happy relationship. There was nothing anybody could do for these patients, said Dr. Genden, who became captivated by the problem in medical school 30 years ago after a patient with a tracheal tumor died. Florida However, the serious complications that Castillo suffered were, for a long time, kept very quiet. She received another Support for Macchiarini remained strong, even as his patients began to die. February 28, 2022 Emanuela Pecchia is famously known as the wife of popular Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon, Paolo Macchiarini. ONE Super Series Paolo was a world-renowned surgeon who spoke six languages, mingled with the global elite, and resembled George Clooney. Jakarta Pennsylvania The scandal meant theres an amazing amount of scrutiny, he said. In place of clinical data, there are gushing testimonials. California The court ruling Thursday was in a case involving a Turkish woman named Yesim Cetir, who was the longest surviving of his patients at Karolinska. Some of them have been successful, but theyre cumbersome in different ways and theyre not a trachea, Dr. Patterson said. Reports of their success always seemed like hot air to him. To some extent, they believed Macchiarini because he told them what they wanted to hear. And the TV shows second season, announced earlier this month, will cover the podcasts third, with Edgar Ramirez playing Paolo Macchiarini, and This Is Us star Mandy Moore playing Benita Alexander, an investigative journalist who falls into a whirlwind romance with the doctor. The story portrayed Macchiarini, who was already married at the time, as a serial fabulist who exaggerated or lied about degrees, academic appointments, and Dr. Paolo Macchiarini became a star by creating a bioartificial windpipe. "I started thinking that if this man is lying to me at such an egregious level, theres no way hes not doing this in his medical life," she told CrimeFeed. Beyenes death two and a half years after the operation, caused by the failure of his artificial airway, was a grueling ordeal. Thailand It sounded unbelievable, but Paolo explained to her that he had treated Pope John Paul II in the past, and had become part of a highly classified group of doctors that treated the global elite. Help News from Science publish trustworthy, high-impact stories about research and the people who shape it. In this episode, eyewitnesses, officials, and some of Paolos victims thus reveal how they got conned by him, with his former lover television producer Benita Alexander at the front and center. They didnt even seek the approval of Stockholms ethical review board, which is based at Karolinska. None of these institutions have faced the same kind of public scrutiny. According to hospital staff, she had roughly 40 near-death experiences during this time, the judgment said. Over the years, this possibility has generated great excitement and a huge amount of research. She soon went into full-on investigative journalist mode, and learned that Paolo had, yup lied about everything. (The patient who survived had the implant removed.). In 2016, Vanity Fair published an expose on Paolo that uncovered even more damning evidence. No one is more powerless than a patient with a disease, said Dr. Gerdin. But it was already too late. That drama began about a decade ago when Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, working at Swedens famed Karolinska Institute, garnered headlines and accolades for replacing damaged tracheas with plastic tubes seeded with patients stem cells that he cultivated in devices called bioreactors. Stem cell brain implants could 'slow ageing and extend life', study shows, offering to treat just about any ailment you can name, Pregnant women's stem cells could treat osteoporosis, say scientists. So in 2010, Paolo operated on her at the National Research Center of Surgery in Moscow. For their efforts, the whistleblowers were punished. By the time the program aired, in mid-2014, the couple were planning their marriage. I have to expose him.". But owing to her cancer returning and the formation of a fistula, she too passed away. Tokyo Prosecutors dropped the case a few months later, however, saying they didnt have sufficient evidence to prove manslaughter. Some answers have emerged from the official inquiries into the Karolinska Institute and the Karolinska University hospital. A surgeon who just a decade ago was celebrated around the globe as a pioneer in stem cell transplants has been convicted of one count of causing bodily harm, a felony, in a Swedish court. Macchiarinis fall was swift, but troubling questions remain about why he was allowed to continue his experiments for so long. Photographs document Ms. Seins trachea transformation: Her old windpipe looks raw and red, her new one smooth as porcelain. In their view, he was grossly misrepresenting his results and the health of his patients. Those few patients who are still alive including Castillo have survived in spite of the artificial windpipes they received. Benita traveled to Paolo's Barcelona home with two friends and a video camera. And difficult to jump off. The charismatic Italian surgeon who designed it foresaw a future where hearts and lungs could be made from plastic, and organ donations became a thing of the past. Almost overnight, he became a superstar. Every year, it gives science a show-business makeover, picking out from the mass of medical researchers those individuals deserving of superstardom. Countless news stories declared it a medical breakthrough. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. He has been convicted of research-related crimes in Italy and Sweden. The next morning, with the donor and Ms. Sein in adjacent rooms, a team of over 50 medical personnel assembled. Read More: Where is Benita Alexander Now? I had a brave face, but I was scared, Ms. Sein said. Benita Alexander thought that she was living a real-life fairy tale when she met her fianc, Paolo Macchiarini. We have, for example, a growing list of scientific celebrities who have committed major stem cell fraud. There was another woman from the Czech Republic with mucoepidermoid carcinoma who received such a transplant. But after Alexander learned that Pope Francis was scheduled to visit South America at the time of their wedding, she confronted Macchiarini about his claims. Coming from different countries including Eritrea, Spain, Russian, Iceland, Britain and the United States, 20 patients were operated on by Macchiarini, who provide them with an artificial windpipe. Miss Universe 2021 But colleagues suspected that Macchiarini was manipulating his results. Disgraced surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, who faked research relating to dangerous and largely discredited tracheal transplants, has been handed a 16 month prison sentence in Italy for forging documents and abuse of office. Hundreds of Americans are estimated to die each year because techniques like stents, surgery or lasers cannot heal their damaged tracheas, and they suffocate when airways narrow dangerously or collapse. Two investigations, one by the Karolinska Institute and one by Karolinska University Hospital, both found that problems with Dr. Macchiarinis work had been covered up. KI fired Macchiarini in March 2016, 2 months after the Swedish documentary came out. Surely, he got away with so much because he was considered an exception to the rules with more than a whiff of the Nobel about him. A few years ago, Japans Haruko Obokata pulled a similar con when she announced to the world a new and simple and fake method of turning ordinary body cells into stem cells. Now they were on the wedding guest list: the Obamas, the Clintons, Vladimir Putin, Nicolas Sarkozy and other world leaders. Michigan Its kind of a marginal substitute, and many patients need further interventions to maintain their airways.. He is from Italy. Guided by a high-powered microscope, he used surgical thread half the diameter of a human hair. It is also unclear whether the verdict Thursday will have an impact in other jurisdictions where Dr. Macchiarini conducted windpipe operations. Born in 1984, Zhadyra Iglikova suffered from tracheostomy following a car accident. COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) Swedish prosecutors on Wednesday appealed a sentence given to an Italian surgeon who was put on trial for causing bodily harm during experimental stem-cell windpipe transplants on three patients who died. Its fascinating to rewatch as a lesson on how not to report on medical science. Filipino MMA fighters The felony conviction means Macchiarini would have a hard time finding employment again in Sweden, Gerdin says. Castillo was soon back home, chasing after her kids. About 11 centimeters (4 inches) long, one side curves like a halfpipe, composed of cartilage rings and ligaments. AAAS is a partner of HINARI, AGORA, OARE, CHORUS, CLOCKSS, CrossRef and COUNTER. Ultimate Fighting Championship The nine-centimeter transplant replaced all but two centimeters of her trachea. Dr. Delaere developed another innovative method, performed on nine patients so far: implanting a section of donor trachea in a patients forearm for weeks until it develops blood vessels and can replace part of the patients trachea. However, Swedish TV reporters also decided to take a close look at Macchiarinis work. Each new scientific discovery brings a flood of stories about how it will revolutionise medicine one day soon. The trachea has been characterized as a simple tube, but its very complex, Dr. Delaere said. Benita was also growing concerned about the cost of the wedding. Which left a big, burning question in the air: if Macchiarini was a pathological liar in matters of love, what about his medical research? All rights reserved. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. The maximum prison sentence for causing bodily harm is 4 years. According to the Times, Macchiarini seen below in a 2017 interview on Swedens TV4 Nyheterna performed 20 tracheal regeneration procedures across Europe and in the United States but hid the fact that the transplants were failing. Please try again later. The fact that he could keep all the details straight and compartmentalize these different lives and lies is really amazing.. We would have been planning my funeral, she said, but now were planning a birthday party.. Please make a tax-deductible gift today. Paolo Macchiarini traveled to Illinois to operate on toddler Hannah Warren, who was born without a trachea in 2013. "If I made a checklist of what I wanted a man to be, he had everything.". Swedish television broadcast a three-part expos of Paolo's work called Experimenten, which argued that the artificial windpipes did more harm than good and were actually rotting away inside his patients' bodies. Macchiarinis argument that KI fully supported and encouraged the surgeries likely swayed the judges as well, he says. When Macchiarini accused one of them, Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, of stealing his work in a grant application, Hamsten found him guilty. Macchiarini has consistently claimed he is innocent. Mieke Oorts alleged killer used a GPS tracking device to stalk her and would drive up and down the road where she lived to intimidate her. Texas When you implant a synthetic trachea you have one certainty, and that is that the patient will die as a result of it, Delaere says in the email. A 29-year old woman from New Brunswick, New Jersey, posed as a high school student and attended classes for four days before she was caught and arrested. Benita first met Paolo at the bar at Bostons Mandarin Oriental hotel in February 2013, when she was helping coordinate an interview for an NBC special on regenerative medicine. In his case, his stem cells were seeded into the airway just hours before it was implanted into him, making it work perfectly fine. They exchange their vows in Italy. You start to panic because you cant breathe., By early 2020, ethical approvals were in place, but the coronavirus pandemic held things up. Prosecutors asked for a five-year prison sentence for Macchiarinis liability in Cetirs bodily injury, but a Swedish court instead gave him a suspended sentence this June, deciding that he hadnt intended to cause the patients harm, according to BBC News. As he said in Experimenten: If I had the option of a synthetic trachea or a firing squad, Id choose the last option because it would be the least painful form of execution.. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/health/trachea-transplant-genden.html. She received a new trachea in January and is believed to be the first patient in the world to undergo a successful direct transplant of a donor trachea.CreditSarah Blesener for The New York Times. She was wearing a blonde wig, and her nervous laughter is audible on the video they shot. Alexander eventually fell in love with the surgeon, and in 2014, he proposed to her, and they started planning a lavish wedding for the following year. Journals retracted several of his studies. No one wanted to collaborate with me. So I called and called till I got an appointment., Dr. Genden said Ms. Sein beseeched him for the transplant, saying, You need to do this for me or Im going to end my life.. After Macchiarini fitted Cetir with one of his artificial windpipes in 2012, her condition worsened. Likewise the secretary-general of the Nobel Committee. Discovery, Inc. or its subsidiaries and affiliates. It won Dr. Macchiarini international news coverage and cemented his place as a celebrity scientist. Brave CF This guy mutilated people., Between 2011 and 2014, Macchiarini implanted artificial windpipes in at least eight patients in Sweden, the United States, and Russia. Called Experimenten (The Experiments), it argued convincingly that Macchiarinis artificial windpipes were not the life-saving wonders wed all been led to believe. He additionally claimed that former patients also included Bill and Hillary Clinton, and thenPresident Obama. Source: ABC Article continues below advertisement His relationship with Benita, Benita Alexander Before their wedding, the They and their loved ones fall victim to false hope. Paolo stated in an interview with a TV station in Iceland that he has always acted in the patients' best interest, and believes that his procedures should be seen as successful. Massachusetts If as a doctor you do stupid things, then you can be charged. But the not-guilty verdicts on the other two cases highlight how the law can leave vulnerable people unprotected, he says, for example when they are facing life-and-death decisions and holding less information than their doctor. Brazil In 2017, Paolo worked at a university in Russia, where he was given a federal grant for oesophagus research on primates, and operated on baboons rather than humans. The couple had traveled a lot, but there were some things She visits Mount Sinai weekly for blood work. Meanwhile, Macchiarinis career soared. Ms. Sein speaking with Dr. Eric M. Genden Sr., left, who developed the pioneering procedure, and Dr. Sander S. Florman, director of Mount Sinais Transplantation Institute. But, he added, Its an indirect technique. It takes time and can replace only the tracheas halfpipe side, so its not a complete tube.. At the trial, Macchiarini and his lawyer argued that the patients, with no other options, had been treated under compassionate care standards. Delaere was one of the earliest and harshest critics of Macchiarinis engineered airways. The first person to receive one of these was Andemariam Beyene, an Eritrean doctoral student in geology at the University of Iceland. But in October 2017, the attorney general's office announced that a crime could not be proven, because the patients might have died anyway. Singapore This was the start of a whirlwind romance that included five-star hotels, travel to far-flung locations, and extravagant shopping sprees. There Was Nothing Anybody Could Do for These Patients. Now There Is. China Her global quest to find out the truth about the man who left her personal and professional life in shambles is documented in He Lied About Everything on Investigation Discovery. Ground-breaking work on synthetic organ transplants made Paolo Macchiarini one of the most famous doctors in the world. Though Macchiarini was in the public eye, he was able to sidestep the usual rules and regulations. In the same year, he earned his medical degree from the, In 1989, he took a course on statistics in clinical research at, In 1994, he obtained a masters degree certificate in organ and tissue transplantation from the, From 2006 to 2009, he was an investigator at the, In June 2008, he performed a trachea transplant on, He performed a synthetic trachea transplant on, In 2012, he was charged in Italy with attempted aggravated fraud. Gerdin determined that Macchiarini committed scientific misconduct, but leadership at the Karolinska Institute ignored the findings and cleared Macchiarini. Her friends described him as "Mr. Big" from Sex and the City. Death Season 2, Mandy Moore Joins Dr. Wasnt something of this idea behind the special treatment Karolinska gave Macchiarini? Thereafter it was all over the news. Yet because of the ensuing complications, she had to receive a tracheoplasty in April 2011 and another cadaveric trachea graft in 2018. Benita Alexander with one of the custom-made gowns intended for her wedding [Investigation Discovery]. Every patient had another, nonlethal option, Pierre Delaere, a trachea expert at KU Leuven and an early critic of Macchiarini, said in an email to Science. According to Macchiarini and his colleagues, her artificial organ was well on the way to looking and functioning liked a natural one. In 2016, Claudia returned to the Hospital Clinic to have her left lung removed, and as per the last reports, she is now alive and doing relatively well. Why dont the Electoral College and popular vote always match up? All three patients later died. LONDON It sounded like real-life science fiction a 3-D printed organ, a groundbreaking artificial windpipe, built in a laboratory and made to order. Tennessee All rights reserved. The secret sauce in his approach, he said, is transplanting not just the donor trachea but also its attached esophagus (food tube), thyroid gland and thyroid arteries. Its enough to worry officials from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Emanuela Pecchia is married to Paolo Macchiarini for over 30 years. Plus: NYC sixth-grader struck and killed by stray bullet; New Hampshire police search for person of interest in double homicide; Fyre Festival fraudster released early from prison; and manhunt continues for escaped Texas prisoner. The court said the penalty was a suspended sentence, but did not specify how long the sentence would be if imposed. As the home of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, one of its ambitions is to create scientific celebrities. He convinced the Karolinska Institute that this could make them famous, and they just let him do it. WebPaolo Macchiarini (born 22 August 1958): 2 is a Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon and former regenerative medicine researcher who became known for research fraud and Most, including Andemariam Beyene, are now dead. The coronavirus pandemic will most likely create more cases because many Covid-19 patients have needed weeks on ventilators. In April 2017, the university terminated his project. The Italian surgeon and his Italian wife Emanuela Pecchia have one son and one daughter. Probationwtf.he killed people knowing damn well that his trachea was bs! But Benita, at the time an award-winning investigative news producer for NBC, had no way of knowing that, by the end of her love story, her heart would be broken and many of Paolo's patients who received the "miracle" transplants would be dead. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. It relieved a little bit of burden from him.. Paolo then came across Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, a man from Eritrea who was training to be a doctor when he got diagnosed with cancer. We have estimated Paolo Macchiarini's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. Vanity Fair also later discovered that several of Paolo's other statements were false, including his claims about having been an associate professor at the University of Pisa. Stem cell clinics have sprung up like weeds, offering to treat just about any ailment you can name. Bangkok Macchiarinis fame had won him well-placed backers. He performed a synthetic trachea transplant on, In 2013, he met documentary television producer. Ive never in my experience witnessed a fraud like this, with this level of international flair, Murphy told Vanity Fair. Other witnesses contradicted that, arguing that with Andemariams slow-growing cancer, minor surgeries and other treatments could have kept him alive.