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According to the magazine, in 2012 he was charged in Italy with attempted aggravated fraud related to alleged efforts to persuade very ill patients to undergo radical surgery at facilities where he had privileges. 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. Macchiarinis fame had won him well-placed backers. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini became a star by creating a bioartificial windpipe. 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. There are people who go to jail for 5 years for not paying their taxes. Since this was radically new, Macchiarini and his colleagues should have tested it on animals first. Hwang, Obokata and Macchiarini were all attracted to the hottest regions of stem cell research, where hope for a medical breakthrough was greatest. The procedure involved replacing a damaged trachea with a plastic replica that had been soaked in the patients stem cells. She remained in intensive care for more than three years at Karolinska University Hospital and underwent more than 200 surgical procedures. Previously considered a pioneer for using both biological and synthetic scaffolds So, how much is Paolo Macchiarini worth at the age of 64 years old? Macchiarinis argument that KI fully supported and encouraged the surgeries likely swayed the judges as well, he says. Emanuela Pecchia: Everything We Know On Paolo Macchiarini Wife Colorado 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. They planned to marry in the Catholic Church in Italy. All but one died following severe complications with the implants. (LogOut/ Every year, it gives science a show-business makeover, picking out from the mass of medical researchers those individuals deserving of superstardom. 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. They reopened the case in 2020, this time charging Macchiarini on lesser counts of aggravated assault and severe bodily harm. Who Is Paolo Macchiarini, the Subject of 'Dr. Death' Season 2? She says she feels she has been given a chance of being alive one more time.. Paolo Macchiarini 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. He has been convicted of research-related crimes in Italy and Sweden. Few people at Karolinska, especially among those in power, knew enough about it to appreciate Delaeres claims. Surgeon Paolo Macchiarini was hailed for turning the dream of regenerative medicine into a reality until he was exposed as a con artist and false prophet. In September, a Swedish prosecutor indicted him on aggravated assault charges related to three trachea transplants. Countless news stories declared it a medical breakthrough. Besides which, compassionate concerns dont override the basic principles of patient safety and informed consent. Read More: Where is Benita Alexander Now? None of these institutions have faced the same kind of public scrutiny. Paolo Macchiarini at a press conference in 2008. For their efforts, the whistleblowers were punished. Its actually meaningless for him, Gerdin says. All rights reserved. They didnt. Sonia Sein, outside her Bronx home, had irreparable damage to her trachea. This is how NBCs Meredith Vieira put it in her documentary about Macchiarini, appropriately called A Leap of Faith: Just imagine a world where any injured or diseased organ or body part you have is simply replaced by a new artificial one, literally manmade in the lab, just for you. This marvelous world was now within reach, thanks to Macchiarini. 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. So did Karolinskas dean of research. Andemariam Beyene met up with Macchiarini in Iceland a year after his operation but later died Two more patients were also given transplants at the Karolinska We will send you a maximum of two emails in, We will be in touch to remind you to contribute. Born in 1977, this Colombian living in Spain woman suffered from tuberculosis-damaged airways. As for Keziah Shorten, who suffered from trachea cancer, Paolo Macchiarini did a transplant on her on July 13, 2010, which failed the very next year. 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. Paolo Macchiarini Wife Paolo Macchiarini, in a 2013 photo, implanted synthetic windpipes into multiple patients; all but one died following complications with the implants. Emanuela Pecchia Everything We Know On Paolo Macchiarini But hes lost his reputation, and thats more important.. More than a decade ago, Macchiarini became a superstar in the field of medicine when he implanted the worlds first bioartificial windpipe, a plastic structure that used the patients stem cells to reduce the risk of organ rejection. The other patients were treated at hospitals in Barcelona, Florence, London, Moscow, Krasnodar, Chicago and Peoria. But in October 2017, the attorney general's office announced that a crime could not be proven, because the patients might have died anyway. 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. Only three are still alive as of September 2020. To some extent, they believed Macchiarini because he told them what they wanted to hear. Still, noting that previous attempts didnt show documented success, he cautioned that longer-term results were needed before the technique should be embraced, adding, Lets see how it works and how you can do it in more patients.. They also questioned whether Macchiarini had obtained proper ethical permission for the surgeries and challenged a paper describing animal experiments with the technique. My wife was the one who said, If you truly believe that people are dying from this and that you could maybe make a difference, you cant just fold up and go home, he said. 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! A life-saver and a game-changer. 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. He performed a synthetic trachea transplant on, In 2013, he met documentary television producer. Paolo was in the house, but he was not alone after Benita's friends were asked to leave, they noticed a blonde woman coming out of the house, with two young children. He took the medical world by storm when he built and transplanted the worlds first bioartificial windpipe two years earlier. It relieved a little bit of burden from him.. She became close to Paolo as she opened her heart to him about how hard it was for her daughter, then nine years old, to lose her father. Ultimate Fighting Championship On Jan. 12, Dr. Genden got a call: An appropriate donor had died. The other side is flat and mobile to move air to the lungs. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. He said yeah, so I said Lets go for it., After extracting the donors organs, you go next door and you open up Sonia and you remove the diseased trachea, and there is no going back, Dr. Genden said. Support for Macchiarini remained strong, even as his patients began to die. An advantage is that immunosuppressants are necessary only for several months, he said. But some of Alexander's friends began to become suspicious. She was wearing a blonde wig, and her nervous laughter is audible on the video they shot. However, behind closed doors, Dr. Macchiarini was hiding a secret the procedures were not working. He was 63 years old when he was found guilty of causing harm through negligence but not of carrying out an intentional assault and he received a probationary sentence on June 16, 2022. For other cases, though, doctors say the approach seems promising. It showed department heads and colleagues that they should give Macchiarini special treatment.He could do pretty much as he pleased. Stem cell clinics have sprung up like weeds, offering to treat just about any ailment you can name. 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. Thousands of people in the United States alone develop trachea problems each year from burns, birth defects, tumors and extended intubation on ventilators. They should be. But owing to her cancer returning and the formation of a fistula, she too passed away. Likewise the secretary-general of the Nobel Committee. 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. 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.. Disgraced tracheal transplant surgeon is handed George Floyd They identified many problems with the way the twin organisations handled him. Alexander said that Macchiarini told her he was still married to his wife because they were Catholic but were separated. Macchiarini is known for his research fraud and manipulative behavior. Paolo Macchiarini, Star Surgeon, Loses Court Ruling in Sweden Then, in October of 2009, another woman, who had been operated on by Paolo twice before, received her airway transplant. 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. 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. We would have been planning my funeral, she said, but now were planning a birthday party.. 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. Benita Alexander Thought Paolo Macchiarini Was Her Dream Man Beyenes death two and a half years after the operation, caused by the failure of his artificial airway, was a grueling ordeal. Some of them have been successful, but theyre cumbersome in different ways and theyre not a trachea, Dr. Patterson said. One of these is the hype surrounding stem cells. (The patient who survived had the implant removed.). In 2015, the Karolinska Institute hired an independent investigator named Dr. Bengt Gerdin to look into the Macchiarini situation, per the Times. I have to expose him.". What Is Benita Alexander Doing Now? She Was Conned The different gender was important, allowing Dr. Genden to use chromosomal analysis to detect whether Ms. Seins cells populated the new trachea. An independent investigator agreed. 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. The Karolinska Institute was seduced by Macchiarini, said Dr. Gerdin. 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The next morning, with the donor and Ms. Sein in adjacent rooms, a team of over 50 medical personnel assembled. But because Macchiarini is apparently living in Spain, its unlikely to have much effect. ONE Super Series 2023 American Association for the Advancement of Science. It must be lined with cilia, hairlike projections like shag carpeting that move and clean the air we breathe in, he said. In 2013, the hospital halted future operations with synthetic trachea and opted to not extend Macchiarinis contract. We now know that wasnt true. He was one of the best con men I have ever come across. Paolo Macchiarini The scandal meant theres an amazing amount of scrutiny, he said. Get more great content like this delivered right to you! That meant the donor trachea was accompanied by a blood supply that Dr. Genden connected to Ms. Seins blood vessels. Called Experimenten (The Experiments), it argued convincingly that Macchiarinis artificial windpipes were not the life-saving wonders wed all been led to believe. A review of public records in Italy found that Paolo was never divorced from Emanuela Pecchia, his wife of nearly 30 years. 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. His findings at the time concluded that Dr. Macchiarini had committed scientific misconduct, but this was ultimately ignored by the universitys leadership who chose to clear the Italian surgeon. She had subsequently undergone six major surgeries and more than 10 smaller procedures, but with all conventional approaches to address her condition exhausted, she made plans to have the tube removed and receive only palliative care. Look out for a message in your inbox in. 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. The case is pending. 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.. This was Macchiarinis first big success. Allegations also emerged that the risky procedure was performed on at least one person who was not critically ill at the time. 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. Prosecutors dropped the case a few months later, however, saying they didnt have sufficient evidence to prove manslaughter. But they found prosecutors didnt prove Macchiarini was indifferent to the injuries or suffering that the surgeries might cause, the standard required for aggravated assault. In fact, the surgeon was still married to his wife of nearly 30 years. Macchiarini, they claimed, wasnt really doing clinical research. A good example is the NBC documentary A Leap of Faith. 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. The plastic trachea that Yesim Cetir received disfigured her and made her last three years in life basically like torture, Bosse Lindquist, the documentarian behind the Swedish TV series The Experiment, told the Times. The first person to receive one of these was Andemariam Beyene, an Eritrean doctoral student in geology at the University of Iceland. She received another These included Harriet Wallberg, who was the vice-chancellor of the Karolinska Institute in 2010, when Macchiarini was recruited. Delaeres damning criticisms appeared in major medical journals, including the Lancet, but werent taken seriously by Karolinskas leadership. I thought, If they do a transplant for everything, they should do a transplant for trachea, she recalled. Ms. Seins trachea before, left, and her new transplanted trachea. For six years, she had endured a tube inserted in her windpipe, or trachea, to keep her alive, but her discomfort and distress were becoming more and more unbearable. It is thus likely she has since passed away. Macchiarini gave his regenerating windpipes to 17 or more patients worldwide. Kevin Belingon 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. Her ex-husband John was dying of cancer. His lawyer did not respond to emails from Science today. Source: ABC Article continues below advertisement His relationship with Benita, Why are people hesitant to trust a COVID-19 vaccine? It is also unclear whether the verdict Thursday will have an impact in other jurisdictions where Dr. Macchiarini conducted windpipe operations. 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. After being dismissed from the institute, he worked at the Kazan Federal University in Kazan, Russia. As per Paolo Macchiarini The verdict is the latest development in Macchiarinis stunning fall from grace. And Murphy found that Macchiarinis claims about the wedding were almost all untrue and that the surgeon was married and had been for nearly 30 years. Yet, for the vast majority of such treatments, there is little solid evidence that they work. She would later discover that the woman in Barcelona had been living with Paolo for years, but that there were several other women in his life as well. The plastic trachea that Yesim Cetir received disfigured her and made her last three years in life basically like torture, said Bosse Lindquist, a documentarian who broke the story in Sweden about Dr. Macchiarini in a television series, The Experiment.. 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. Indonesia In January 2016, Macchiarini received an extraordinary double dose of bad press. He is from Italy. Dr. Genden said Dr. Macchiarinis rise and fall profoundly affected his own path. None have been forced to hold full and independent inquiries. 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. Was he conning his patients, his colleagues and the scientific community? 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). New York Philippines What comes next after Texas school shooting? 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. At the trial, Macchiarini and his lawyer argued that the patients, with no other options, had been treated under compassionate care standards. 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. Tennessee Almost immediately after she was fitted with a synthetic trachea in August 2012, Ms. Cetirs condition began to rapidly deteriorate, according to the courts written judgment. "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. He was handsome, suave, and a charmer. Though Macchiarini was in the public eye, he was able to sidestep the usual rules and regulations. Illinois The Karolinska Institute declined to comment for this article, noting only that Dr. Macchiarinis sentence may be appealed. In early 2014, four Karolinska doctors defied the reigning culture of silence by complaining about Macchiarini. In his case, his stem cells were seeded into the airway just hours before it was implanted into him, making it work perfectly fine. Benita packed her bags again, and began to search for Paolo in order to face him once more and their final confrontation is captured in He Lied About Everything. Alexander admits that, at the time, she was in a vulnerable place. 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. But as the big day approached, Alexander saw these plans unravel, and finally realised that her lover had lied about almost everything. When the blood vessels were finally connected, the donor trachea began bleeding. 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. Here are 13 more things about him: Categories: biographical data, crimes, Europe, fitness & health, Italy, Lifestyle, LISTS, Russia, Social Issues, Sweden, Tagged as: Basel, Benita Alexander, Emanuela Pecchia, Paolo Macchiarini. 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.. Michigan Brazil "If I made a checklist of what I wanted a man to be, he had everything.". Therefore, on June 12, 2008, at Hospital Clinic Barcelona, she received a cadaver trachea graft implanted as a bronchus transplant. It won Dr. Macchiarini international news coverage and cemented his place as a celebrity scientist. If we've learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that we cannot wait for a crisis to respond. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Learn how your comment data is processed. Its love of human interest stories makes it sympathetic to unproven therapies. This thing came to life, Dr. Genden marveled, and we were like, Holy smokes, weve done it.. Death for Season 2 at Peacock, From 'Truth About Pam' to 'Candy,' True-Crime EPs Tell the Truth (VIDEO). Macchiarini was turning the dream of regenerative medicine into a reality. Paolo, a visiting researcher at the prestigious Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, had shot to fame as the only doctor in the world who was able to use biological and synthetic scaffolds bathed in the patients' own stem cells for trachea transplants. 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. As studies have shown, the media often casts a positive light on stem cell tourism, suggesting that the treatments are effective and the risks low. By June 2013, when Paolo took Benita to Venice, Italy, for a romantic weekend, she knew she was falling madly in love. There was another woman from the Czech Republic with mucoepidermoid carcinoma who received such a transplant. 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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. No, he was just caring for his patients who were, one and all, facing certain death with no other treatment options available and no time to waste. He hopes the immunosuppressant drugs, which can create health risks, can be reduced or even stopped if the entire graft becomes filled with Sonias cells.. Over the years, this possibility has generated great excitement and a huge amount of research. 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. And investigations by both institute and the hospital found coverups regarding Macchiarinis work. Virginia But, we now know that the success of this operation was a lie, and the complications she suffered because of it were kept under wraps for a really long time. Border crisis: Whats happening at the US-Mexico border? With Macchiarinis exploits endorsed by management and breathlessly reported in the media, it was all too easy to jump on that bandwagon. 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. Metro Thats something that was new to us, so we need to analyze that, Lundstrm-Kron says. 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At first, they just connected as friends. Texas He was one of the best con-men I have ever come across, he added. According to the judgment in Macchiarinis case, hospital staff said that Cetir had around 40 near-death experiences and was conscious but unable to breathe for many of them. fall of a celebrity scientist The Italian surgeon and his Italian wife Emanuela Pecchia have one son and one daughter. 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