Not only that, they later covered it up.. A genius is a revolutionary by definition, a risk-taker and a law-breaker. 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. 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.. 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? The different gender was important, allowing Dr. Genden to use chromosomal analysis to detect whether Ms. Seins cells populated the new trachea. Macchiarini, meanwhile, said he did not accept the findings of the disciplinary board. Benita was also growing concerned about the cost of the wedding. The Karolinska Institute, alleging scientific misconduct, dismissed Dr. Macchiarini, who has long denied wrongdoing. Recently, Ms. Sein, covering the hole with her hand to speak, enthused about having the energy to cook sesame chicken for the first time and how she aims to visit relatives in Puerto Rico. The story portrayed Macchiarini, who was already married at the time, as a serial fabulist who exaggerated or lied about degrees, academic appointments, and personal accomplishments. Scientists can also suffer from false hope. 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. She has since had the synthetic trachea removed. Countless news stories declared it a medical breakthrough. Because mucus would clog her tube, she was constantly suctioning, constantly worried about her airway, and it becomes overwhelming, Dr. Genden said, like being held down in a swimming pool. By using a patients own cells, Dr. Macchiarini sought to rectify an age-old problem with transplants involving donated organs, which the body sometimes rejects as foreign tissue. Macchiarinis lawyer declined to comment to Swedish media today about whether his client would appeal. By 2011, he was working in Sweden at one of the worlds most prestigious medical universities, the Karolinska Institute, whose professors annually select the winner of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine. The case is pending. "Maybe it happened because I am a journalist, and once I sort of woke up and put my journalist hat back on, I could expose him," she said. They planned to marry in the Catholic Church in Italy. Anyone can read what you share. Benita traveled to Paolo's Barcelona home with two friends and a video camera. Macchiarini was also charged with but acquitted of assault charges related to the deaths of two more of his artificial windpipe patients, an Eritrean man named Andemariam Beyene and an American man named Christopher Lyles, according to BBC News. Selena died in a hospital due to a loss of blood and cardiac arrest, two weeks before her 24th birthday. Paolo Macchiarini is exposed Reality struck Alexander's fantasy romance eight weeks before she was supposed to marry Macchiarini in 2015, when she received an email from a colleague with the subject line saying, "The Pope." 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 court had to apply the intentional indifference standard for the assault charges, he says, which is difficult to prove. Instead, they found him guilty of negligence and the lesser charge of causing bodily harm. 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. Paolo then came across Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, a man from Eritrea who was training to be a doctor when he got diagnosed with cancer. I can breathe, she was amazed to discover. As it turned out, Macchiarinis patients werent all at deaths door at the time he treated them. Alexander admits that, at the time, she was in a vulnerable place. Macchiarini has consistently claimed he is innocent. She soon went into full-on investigative journalist mode, and learned that Paolo had, yup lied about everything. With his methods still under fire in the West, he continues to work in Russia. He understood how difficult her life had become. 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. Georgia 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. New Jersey Look out for a message in your inbox in. So far he has not been prosecuted in any of those countries. Any replacement trachea must be rigid or itll collapse like a straw in a McDonalds milkshake, Dr. Genden said. The university board was dismissed and even Harriet Wallberg, whod moved on to become the chancellor for all Swedish universities, lost her job. Dr. Genden examines the new trachea by inserting a scope in a hole he left in her neck, which hell eventually close. Chief judge Bjoern Skaensberg said the court agreed that Macchiarinis operations were not consistent with science and proven experience, but the court determined that two of the interventions were justifiable.. He was handsome, suave, and a charmer. The maximum prison sentence for causing bodily harm is 4 years. Plus: A Chicago mother is arrested in connection to the murder of her 6-year-old son; the convicted killer Robert Durst dies at age 78; Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes sentencing date is set; and an LGBTQ+ rights movement hero is found dead in a Florida landfill. 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. Wasnt something of this idea behind the special treatment Karolinska gave Macchiarini? In the case of Cetir, he should have known the risk of complications was higher than the expected benefit, the judges ruled. I didnt want the fairy tale to end., Alexander also hired a private investigator, a former Pennsylvania State Police detective named Frank Murphy. Starting in 2011, Macchiarini performed three transplantations of synthetic tracheas at Karolinska University Hospital, but one of those patients died in 2012, the timeline reports. The Italian surgeon and his Italian wife Emanuela Pecchia have one son and one daughter. But the judges decided that, because the initial prognoses for Andemariam and Lyles were so grim without surgery, Macchiarini could not be held criminally responsible in those cases. Benita Alexander thought that she was living a real-life fairy tale when she met her fianc, Paolo Macchiarini. Paolo was a world-renowned surgeon who spoke six languages, mingled with the global elite, and resembled George Clooney. Any woman would swoon for such a catch! The court said the penalty was a suspended sentence, but did not specify how long the sentence would be if imposed. Gretchen Vogel is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine based in Berlin, Germany. As of the time of that judgment, Macchiarini had not been prosecuted in other countries where he implanted his artificial windpipes, and it was unclear whether he was still practicing medicine, the Times adds. Macchiarinis deceit was so outlandish, Vanity Fair sought the opinion of the Harvard professor Ronald Schouten, an expert on psychopaths, who gave this diagnosis-at-a-distance: Macchiarini is the extreme form of a con man. This argument didnt wash with those who later investigated the case. Discovery, Inc. or its subsidiaries and affiliates. This organ was prepared without the knowledge of authorities in a veterinary lab at the University of Bristol, but no one questioned it because of its initial success. I had a brave face, but I was scared, Ms. Sein said. Keep up with your favorite shows delivered to your inbox! Also seduced by Macchiarini was former NBC News producer Benita Alexander, who met the surgeon in 2013 when she was working on A Leap of Faith, an NBC special about Macchiarini hosted by Meredith Vieira. The coronavirus pandemic will most likely create more cases because many Covid-19 patients have needed weeks on ventilators. Support for Macchiarini remained strong, even as his patients began to die. Here are 13 more things about him: He married Pecchia in 1986. Remembering George Floyd: A year of protest. We were doing good research, but it didnt matter I thought I was going to lose my lab, my staff everything.. Those few patients who are still alive including Castillo have survived in spite of the artificial windpipes they received. 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. Paolo Macchiarini traveled to Illinois to operate on toddler Hannah Warren, who was born without a trachea in 2013. At the time, Macchiarini was employed by the prestigious Karolinska Institute in Sweden. He traveled to Illinois to operate on a Korean toddler who was born without a trachea and who was going to be the youngest person to ever receive an artificial one. The first successful direct transplant of a trachea is a medical milestone that could help thousands of people with airways damaged by ventilators and other causes. A 19-year-old Iowa college student allegedly defrauded over 400 donors after raising more than $37,000 by faking a triple cancer diagnosis. Benita was loyal to and supported Paolo when his professional life took a dark turn. WebPaolo Macchiarini Net Worth. Even the jewelry he had given her was fake. By the time the program aired, in mid-2014, the couple were planning their marriage. Her colleague had sent an article that said the pope would not be in Rome, or even Italy, on the day of their wedding. Source: ABC Article continues below advertisement His relationship with Benita, And fooled almost everyone. Nevada Sorry we couldn't set a reminder for you this time. All rights reserved. The nine-centimeter transplant replaced all but two centimeters of her trachea. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. Filipino MMA fighters Massachusetts Alexander said that Macchiarini told her he was still married to his wife because they were Catholic but were separated. Florida Around the same time, an article in Vanity Fair described how Macchiarini had misled a girlfriendan NBC news producer working on a flattering documentary about his surgeriesinto thinking they would be married in a ceremony attended by the Clintons and Obamas and officiated by the pope. Paolo Macchiarini was amazingly accomplished, stunningly successful, and fabulously rich. (The patient who survived had the implant removed.). Likewise the secretary-general of the Nobel Committee. The operations were hailed at the time as a breakthrough in regenerative medicine, although some observers remained skeptical. Brave CF Other trachea replacement attempts include transplanting part of a donors frozen, preserved aorta, the bodys main artery, and fabricating tracheas from patients own chest muscles and rib cartilage. He says prosecutors should have pressed for manslaughter charges because Macchiarini had no evidence that the tracheas he implanted would develop into normally functioning organs. She received another 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. None of these institutions have faced the same kind of public scrutiny. If there is a moral to this tale, its that we need to be wary of medical messiahs with their promises of salvation. The transplants, performed on patients from the United States and other countries, were heralded as inaugurating a regenerative medicine revolution. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Almost overnight, he became a superstar. So, as per the last reports, he is alive and well today. On the contrary, they seemed to do more harm than good something that Macchiarini had for years concealed or downplayed in his scientific articles, press releases and interviews. Learn how your comment data is processed. Most, including Andemariam Beyene, are now dead. No one is more powerless than a patient with a disease, said Dr. Gerdin. Talking about her spouse Paolo, he became infamous for research fraud and manipulative behavior. Its love of human interest stories makes it sympathetic to unproven therapies. The felony conviction means Macchiarini would have a hard time finding employment again in Sweden, Gerdin says. Records show that even with his implant failing, Andemariam was able to complete his Ph.D. before his demise in January 2013. Benita decided to get in touch with private investigator Frank Murphy. Stem-cell scientist Dr. Paolo Macchiarini was accused of wrongdoing during operations on three people between 2011 and 2014. They and their loved ones fall victim to false hope. He was born in Basel, Switzerland to Italian parents. In September 2020, Swedish prosecutors announced charges against him for aggravated assault in connection to three surgeries that he had performed at the. How climate change and forest management make wildfires harder to contain, Disparity in police response: Black Lives Matter protests and Capitol riot.
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