No one wanted to collaborate with me. 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.. Andemariam Beyene, for instance, had recurrent cancer of the windpipe but, aside from a cough, was still in good health. Paolo Macchiarini It is fitting that Macchiarinis career unravelled at the Karolinska Institute. She says it may mean the judges thought he and the patients believed time was short and options were few. Paolo Macchiarini document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. 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 The Macchiarini scandal claimed many of his powerful friends. Ground-breaking work on synthetic organ transplants made Paolo Macchiarini one of the most famous doctors in the world. Talking about her spouse 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. It would be a star-studded event. Not only that, they later covered it up.. Dr. Genden also transplanted the cricoid, cartilage cuffing the trachea, supplanting Ms. Seins completely destroyed cricoid. And fooled almost everyone. The operations were hailed at the time as a breakthrough in regenerative medicine, although some observers remained skeptical. "If I made a checklist of what I wanted a man to be, he had everything.". New York Despite having a wife and a family, Paolo was in a public affair with the internet star Benita Alexandra. February 28, 2022 Emanuela Pecchia is famously known as the wife of popular Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon, Paolo Macchiarini. Alexander admits that, at the time, she was in a vulnerable place. As the home of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, one of its ambitions is to create scientific celebrities. Its a problematic idea with unfortunate side effects. She was wearing a blonde wig, and her nervous laughter is audible on the video they shot. Emanuela Pecchia (Paolo Macchiarani's Wife), Bio, Age & More Euan Ward reported from London, and Christina Anderson from Bastad, Sweden. That drama began about a decade ago when Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, working at Swedens famed Karolinska Institute, garnered headlines and accolades for replacing The couple had traveled a lot, but there were some things She considered backing out. Paolo then came across Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, a man from Eritrea who was training to be a doctor when he got diagnosed with cancer. The fact that he could keep all the details straight and compartmentalize these different lives and lies is really amazing.. Gerdin determined that Macchiarini committed scientific misconduct, but leadership at the Karolinska Institute ignored the findings and cleared Macchiarini. ONE Championship ONE Super Series Filipino MMA fighters 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. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Macchiarini shot to prominence back in 2008, when he created a new airway for Claudia Castillo, a young woman from Barcelona. He officially cleared Macchiarini of scientific misconduct, allowing merely that hed sometimes acted without due care. 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. 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. Benita Alexander thought that she was living a real-life fairy tale when she met her fianc, Paolo Macchiarini. But that day is always postponed. They didnt. February 28, 2022 Emanuela Pecchia is famously known as the wife of popular Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon, Paolo Macchiarini. Investigations by the hospital and the Karolinska Institute revealed that issues with Dr. Macchiarinis work had been covered up. Now they were on the wedding guest list: the Obamas, the Clintons, Vladimir Putin, Nicolas Sarkozy and other world leaders. In the months and years following their respective surgeries, all of them except Dmitri Onogda have passed away due to post-operative complications. 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. Dr. Macchiarini received a conditional, or suspended, sentence, and was acquitted of assault charges related to two other patients who had also received the artificial organs from him at the Swedish facility. Here are 13 more things about him: He married Pecchia in 1986. 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. We would have been planning my funeral, she said, but now were planning a birthday party.. 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. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. Or rather, his celebrity status helped him do so. However, behind closed doors, Dr. Macchiarini was hiding a secret the procedures were not working. 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. An independent investigator agreed. He convinced the Karolinska Institute that this could make them famous, and they just let him do it. Sadly, she passed away soon after her second implant. The nine-centimeter transplant replaced all but two centimeters of her trachea. They exchange their vows in Italy. Largely confined to her Bronx apartment, she needed home health aides and had to quit her career as a social worker for pregnant women. In 2016, Vanity Fair published an expose on Paolo that uncovered even more damning evidence. 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. Why dont the Electoral College and popular vote always match up? An advantage is that immunosuppressants are necessary only for several months, he said. Yet, for the vast majority of such treatments, there is little solid evidence that they work. KI commissioned surgeon Bengt Gerdin, a professor emeritus at Uppsala University, to investigate the issue. Paolo grew close to Alexander's daughter [Investigation Discovery], He was incredibly charming, worldly smart, sophisticated, and seemed very gentle," Benita told CrimeFeed. 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. Its enough to worry officials from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). About 11 centimeters (4 inches) long, one side curves like a halfpipe, composed of cartilage rings and ligaments. Now his reputation lies in tatters. All rights reserved. (The patient who survived had the implant removed.). Benita traveled to Paolo's Barcelona home with two friends and a video camera. Brazil And difficult to jump off. She told CrimeFeed that, looking back, it seemed odd to her she had not met many of Paolo's close friends in Barcelona. The operation, performed at one of the worlds most prestigious medical universities, part of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, was hailed as revolutionary. Jakarta Seven of the eight patients Paolo inserted tracheas into have died. Some answers have emerged from the official inquiries into the Karolinska Institute and the Karolinska University hospital. Macchiarini gave his regenerating windpipes to 17 or more patients worldwide. Ohio Delaeres damning criticisms appeared in major medical journals, including the Lancet, but werent taken seriously by Karolinskas leadership. Philippines He has been convicted of research-related crimes in Italy and Sweden. 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. Border crisis: Whats happening at the US-Mexico border? But some of Alexander's friends began to become suspicious. But Benita stood by her man and, she said, tried to help him through a tough time. She says she feels she has been given a chance of being alive one more time.. But as the big day approached, Alexander saw these plans unravel, and finally realised that her lover had lied about almost everything. If we've learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that we cannot wait for a crisis to respond. 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. "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. After several weeks in recovery, she is home. In 2019, an Italian court said he had forged documents and abused his position, charges unrelated to his trachea work. (The big exception is blood stem cell transplantation, which has been saving the lives of people with leukemia and other cancers of the blood for decades.). 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. Benita Alexander and Paolo Macchiarini [Investigation Discovery]. On Friday Mr. Hurtig declined to comment on Paolos private affairs.. Claudia Castillo with Dr Paolo Macchiarini. Macchiarini was turning the dream of regenerative medicine into a reality. Dr. Genden said some scientists told him Youre out of your mind because trying a transplant would risk his reputation. The pope, the palace, the world leaders, the famous tenor they were all fantasies. Paolo Macchiarini But it did not work, and a court in Sweden has found him criminally liable for the harm It won Dr. Macchiarini international news coverage and cemented his place as a celebrity scientist. And then there are the surgeons on Dr. Death. Singapore 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! Georgia For their efforts, the whistleblowers were punished. None other than Pope Francis would officiate, and his papal palace in Castel Gandolfo would serve as the venue. Benita was also growing concerned about the cost of the wedding. Since this was radically new, Macchiarini and his colleagues should have tested it on animals first. When Macchiarini accused one of them, Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, of stealing his work in a grant application, Hamsten found him guilty. Macchiarinis fall was swift, but troubling questions remain about why he was allowed to continue his experiments for so long. He convinced the Karolinska Institute that this could make them famous, and they just let him do it. 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. The court had to apply the intentional indifference standard for the assault charges, he says, which is difficult to prove. 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. The tube was necessary because her trachea the airway leading to the lungs had become damaged after she spent weeks on a ventilator for a severe asthma attack in 2014. The felony conviction means Macchiarini would have a hard time finding employment again in Sweden, Gerdin says. He is from Italy. 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. Benita Alexander Before their wedding, the 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. We will send you a maximum of two emails in, We will be in touch to remind you to contribute. 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. She visits Mount Sinai weekly for blood work. According to Pierre Delaere, a professor of respiratory surgery at KU Leuven, Belgium, Macchiarinis experiments were bound to end badly. Macchiarini has consistently claimed he is innocent. The first was a Vanity Fair article about his affair with Benita Alexander, an award-winning producer for NBC News. 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. So did Karolinskas dean of research. Experts say this case is about what the definition of a resident is under Spanish law. Guided by several mentors, he delved into research and animal experiments, developing a transplant approach. However, its imperative to mention that the doctor has only been criminally found guilty of causing bodily harm to a single patient he operated on in Sweden back in 2011 two other charges of assault were dismissed. 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. Nearly all of those patients have died. What Is Benita Alexander Doing Now? She Was Conned But as time went on, she could not resist her connection to the dashing surgeon and she violated the number one rule of journalism: Never get involved with a person you're reporting on. They shared a happy relationship. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City cast member was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for defrauding the elderly. I thought, If they do a transplant for everything, they should do a transplant for trachea, she recalled. Tokyo I cant do this anymore, Sonia Sein told herself, her family and her doctor. Guided by a high-powered microscope, he used surgical thread half the diameter of a human hair. Disgraced Italian surgeon convicted of criminal harm to stem cell Pennsylvania Likewise, they didnt undertake a proper risk assessment of the procedure, nor did Macchiarinis team seek government permits for the plastic windpipes, stem cells, and chemical growth factors they used. Though Macchiarini was in the public eye, he was able to sidestep the usual rules and regulations. 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Thailand Instead of stripping the cells from donor windpipes, Macchiarini had plastic scaffolds made to order. As it was built from Claudias own cells, she didnt need to be on any risky immunosuppressant drugs. How we can build a clean and renewable future. As of late March, 6.5 percent of cells in the donor trachea were hers, with the proportion increasing, he said. 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. After being dismissed from the institute, he worked at the Kazan Federal University in Kazan, Russia. In the 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. An alarmingly wide gap has grown between what we expect from stem cells and what they deliver. However, Swedish TV reporters also decided to take a close look at Macchiarinis work. 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). 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. Tennessee There are also plenty of desperate patients who believe because theyve been told countless times that stem cells are the cure, and who cannot wait any longer for mainstream medicine. A panel of judges unanimously ruled that the interventions were not in accordance with science and proven experience, according to a statement released today. According to The New York Times, Macchiarini is an Italian surgeon who was found criminally liable this June for causing felony bodily injury to a Turkish woman named Yesim Cetir, a patient who had received one of his 3D-printed windpipes and later died. Karolinskas leadership expected big things from their superstar, things that would bring prestige and funding to the institute. What comes next after Texas school shooting? Dr. Paolo Macchiarini at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in 2013. Change). 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. 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First Successful Trachea Transplant a Medical Milestone - The Hes clearly bright and has accomplishments, but he cant contain himself. Its actually meaningless for him, Gerdin says. At any rate, some of his most powerful friends were themselves Nobel judges until, with his fall from grace, they fell too. However, the serious complications that Castillo suffered were, for a long time, kept very quiet. The vice-chancellor, Anders Hamsten, resigned. Hwang, Obokata and Macchiarini were all attracted to the hottest regions of stem cell research, where hope for a medical breakthrough was greatest. To some extent, they believed Macchiarini because he told them what they wanted to hear. Back in New York, Benita found herself unable to stop thinking about Paolo's patients. Subscribe to News from Science for full access to breaking news and analysis on research and science policy. Cardiothoracic surgeon Matthias Corbascio, one of Macchiarinis former colleagues at KI who first raised questions about the work, describes it as terrible and insane. The court basically gave him a slap on the wrist, says Corbascio, who is now at the University of Copenhagen. Few people at Karolinska, especially among those in power, knew enough about it to appreciate Delaeres claims. Paolo Macchiarini is a thoracic surgeon. Virginia Delaere was one of the earliest and harshest critics of Macchiarinis engineered airways. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/health/trachea-transplant-genden.html. 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. A Swedish filmmakers investigative documentary raised further questions, as did a Vanity Fair article detailing how the beguiling surgeon became romantically involved with an NBC producer working on a feature about him and apparently conned her into believing he was divorced and would marry her in a ceremony officiated by the pope and attended by the Clintons, Obamas, John Legend and Elton John. So in 2010, Paolo operated on her at the National Research Center of Surgery in Moscow. So, how much is Paolo Macchiarini worth at the age of 64 years old? Benita Alexander wearing a wig as she tracked down Paolo in Barcelona [Investigation Discovery]. Unfortunately, the scandal is much bigger than Karolinska, which accounts for only three of the patients who have received Macchiarinis regenerating windpipes. 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. He opened and cleaned out the donors esophagus, laying it against Ms. Seins esophagus. Their devastating documentary, which aired in January 2016, led KI officials to reopen the investigation. BRAVE Combat Federation That meant the donor trachea was accompanied by a blood supply that Dr. Genden connected to Ms. Seins blood vessels. He was handsome, suave, and a charmer. 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. She pushed through his appointment despite the fact that he had some very negative references and dubious claims on his rsum. Ciaran Lynch, born in 2000 in Ireland without a functional trachea, received a transplant on March 15, 2010, at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. Dressed in a white lab coat or in surgical scrubs, with his broad, handsome face and easy charm, he certainly looked the part. And investigations by both institute and the hospital found coverups regarding Macchiarinis work. Therefore, of all the medically ill individuals Paolo has ever provided a biological or synthetic implant to, at least 8 of them allegedly died due to his misconduct in research, failure to provide proper post-operative care, and/or his disregard for ethical practices. A genius is a revolutionary by definition, a risk-taker and a law-breaker. After realizing other treatment methods wouldnt help, he concluded that Ms. Sein had a logical, thoughtful grasp of transplantations risks and of her health condition. In September, a Swedish prosecutor indicted him on aggravated assault charges related to three trachea transplants. But in October 2017, the attorney general's office announced that a crime could not be proven, because the patients might have died anyway. 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. He was one of the best con-men I have ever come across, he added. Karolinska Institute announced in February 2016 that it would not renew his research contract, which was due to expire in November 2016, then terminated the contract in December 2016. They exchange their vows in Italy. In place of clinical data, there are gushing testimonials. 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. In the case of Cetir, he should have known the risk of complications was higher than the expected benefit, the judges ruled. Benita Alexander and Paolo Macchiarini in Venice, Italy [Investigation Discovery]. The official report into the matter dubbed this the bandwagon effect. Massachusetts He took the medical world by storm when he built and transplanted the worlds first bioartificial windpipe two years earlier. Articles in this area are retracted 2.4 times more often than the average for biomedicine, and over half of these retractions are due to fraud. In their view, Macchiarini was certainly engaged in clinical research. A White House source confirmed that Bill Clinton had never met Paolo. 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. Its very exciting, said Dr. G. Alexander Patterson, a professor of surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, who was not involved in the case. 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. Macchiarini is known for his research fraud and manipulative behavior. He reportedly lied on his CV and research papers to trick patients, causing almost all those who received his inventive trachea transplants (using their own bone marrow cells for organ functionality) to lose their lives. In 2015, the Karolinska Institute hired an independent investigator named Dr. Bengt Gerdin to look into the Macchiarini situation, per the Times.
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