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. Paolo Macchiarini at a press conference in 2008. After Macchiarini fitted Cetir with one of his artificial windpipes in 2012, her condition worsened. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini became a star by creating a bioartificial windpipe. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. 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. The theory was simple: let the body do most of the work. 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? That meant the donor trachea was accompanied by a blood supply that Dr. Genden connected to Ms. Seins blood vessels. Singapore Those few patients who are still alive including Castillo have survived in spite of the artificial windpipes they received. There Was Nothing Anybody Could Do for These Patients. Now There Is. Claudia Castillo with Dr Paolo Macchiarini. Likewise the whole idea of a wedding: Macchiarini was still married to his wife of 30 years. 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. 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. 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. Dressed in a white lab coat or in surgical scrubs, with his broad, handsome face and easy charm, he certainly looked the part. Its very significant, said Dr. Pierre Delaere, a professor of head and neck surgery at University Hospital Gasthuisberg in Belgium, a trachea specialist not involved in the case. Though Macchiarini was in the public eye, he was able to sidestep the usual rules and regulations. Any woman would swoon for such a catch! The Karolinska University Hospital suspended Dr. Macchiarinis contract as a surgeon in 2013, but the affiliated Karolinska Institute kept him on until 2016 even as the scandal over his work spread, according to a timeline on the institutes website. The different gender was important, allowing Dr. Genden to use chromosomal analysis to detect whether Ms. Seins cells populated the new trachea. 2023 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 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A review of public records in Italy found that Paolo was never divorced from Emanuela Pecchia, his wife of nearly 30 years. The surgeons defense attorney, Bjrn Hurtig, said his client was considering an appeal. Support for Macchiarini remained strong, even as his patients began to die. Thats something that was new to us, so we need to analyze that, Lundstrm-Kron says. Ultimate Fighting Championship 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. They reopened the case in 2020, this time charging Macchiarini on lesser counts of aggravated assault and severe bodily harm. "If I made a checklist of what I wanted a man to be, he had everything.". 2023 Warner Bros. By this year, Dr. Genden said, her condition had deteriorated so that if we delay further, its not going to work out.. Gerdin says the conviction on one count still shows that health care doesnt stand above the law. Macchiarini has consistently claimed he is innocent. Despite having a wife and a family, Paolo was in a public affair with the internet star Benita Alexandra. This went on for three years until, just recently, Grinnemo was cleared of all wrongdoing. Some answers have emerged from the official inquiries into the Karolinska Institute and the Karolinska University hospital. In such dire circumstances, new treatments can be tried as a last resort. Las Vegas We now know that wasnt true. He was born in Basel, Switzerland to Italian parents. And then there are the surgeons on Dr. Death. A genius is a revolutionary by definition, a risk-taker and a law-breaker. There was another reason to be daunted too: historical assumptions that tracheas werent transplantable. The other patients were treated at hospitals in Barcelona, Florence, London, Moscow, Krasnodar, Chicago and Peoria. 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All three patients later died. I can breathe, she was amazed to discover. 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. Guided by a high-powered microscope, he used surgical thread half the diameter of a human hair. Only three are still alive as of September 2020. They shared a happy relationship. Paolo Macchiarinis most notable patient is Claudia Castillo. They will especially examine the judges decision that Macchiarini couldnt be held responsible for what happened to Andemariam and Lyles because he acted in distress, according to the courts statement. Were going to show up and say, As a student, I had this idea on the back of a napkin and now were ready to go and if it fails, the patient dies and it becomes yet another example of some surgeon who thought he could solve a problem and hes created, instead, just the opposite.. The Karolinska Institute declined to comment for this article, noting only that Dr. Macchiarinis sentence may be appealed. Macchiarini, they claimed, wasnt really doing clinical research. They also cited a loophole known as compassionate use. But owing to her cancer returning and the formation of a fistula, she too passed away. Emanuela Pecchia is married to Paolo Macchiarini for over 30 years. I had a brave face, but I was scared, Ms. Sein said. 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 Almost overnight, he became a superstar. As the home of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, one of its ambitions is to create scientific celebrities. Delaere feels the sentence is too light for what he considers a serious crime. She received another 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. Unfortunately, the scandal is much bigger than Karolinska, which accounts for only three of the patients who have received Macchiarinis regenerating windpipes. But it did not work, and a court in Sweden has found him criminally liable for the harm She pushed through his appointment despite the fact that he had some very negative references and dubious claims on his rsum. We have estimated Paolo Macchiarini's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. Her colleague had sent an article that said the pope would not be in Rome, or even Italy, on the day of their wedding. "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. 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.. She has since had the synthetic trachea removed. This argument didnt wash with those who later investigated the case. Greys Anatomy Alum Isaiah Washington Retires from Acting, Tom Sizemore, Saving Private Ryan Star, Dies at 61, Chris Rock Live on Netflix, No Salvation on Last of Us, A World Without Bart Simpson, Kids Choice Awards, Rachael Ray Ending After 17 Seasons: Its Time for Me to Move On, Enver Gjokaj Returns as Captain Milius on NCIS: Hawaii, Copyright 2023 NTVB Media, Inc., All Rights Reserved, Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence, Luke Kirby, Ashley Madekwe & More Join Dr. KI fired Macchiarini in March 2016, 2 months after the Swedish documentary came out. 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. A year later, he began to implant synthetic windpipes seeded with stem cells isolated from the patients own bone marrow, claiming the cells would grow and integrate with the patients tissue. No one wanted to collaborate with me. On Jan. 12, Dr. Genden got a call: An appropriate donor had died. They should be. 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. Experts say this case is about what the definition of a resident is under Spanish law. The operations were hailed at the time as a breakthrough in regenerative medicine, although some observers remained skeptical. There was another woman from the Czech Republic with mucoepidermoid carcinoma who received such a transplant. In April 2017, the university terminated his project. 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. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Which left a big, burning question in the air: if Macchiarini was a pathological liar in matters of love, what about his medical research? Delaere was one of the earliest and harshest critics of Macchiarinis engineered airways. In 2018, KI finally released the findings of its second investigation, which confirmed he had committed misconduct. She spent more than three years in intensive care and endured 200 surgical procedures, theTimes reports. Nevada The apparent success of Ms. Seins operation is also notable because the trachea field has been rocked for years by a sensational scandal. Emanuela Pecchia has been married to Paolo Macchiarini for over 30 years. 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. Because immunosuppressant drugs are required to prevent rejection of the transplant, cancer patients would be eligible only if free of cancer for five years, Dr. Genden said. The Italian surgeon and his Italian wife Emanuela Pecchia have one son and one daughter. So in 2010, Paolo operated on her at the National Research Center of Surgery in Moscow. 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. No one is more powerless than a patient with a disease, said Dr. Gerdin. The law is supposed to protect individuals from all types of assault, especially when they are powerless, said Dr. Bengt Gerdin, an independent investigator who was hired by the Karolinska Institute in 2015 to look into Dr. Macchiarinis work. Benita was also growing concerned about the cost of the wedding. A review of public records in Italy found that Paolo was never divorced from Emanuela Pecchia, his wife of nearly 30 years. Does the heat of stem cell research the high levels of funding, prestige and media coverage it enjoys somehow encourage fraud? Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Its a problematic idea with unfortunate side effects. Illinois Or rather, his celebrity status helped him do so. COVID-19 This was the start of a whirlwind romance that included five-star hotels, travel to far-flung locations, and extravagant shopping sprees. Florida Subscribe to News from Science for full access to breaking news and analysis on research and science policy. 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. Seven of the eight patients Paolo inserted tracheas into have died. With Macchiarinis exploits endorsed by management and breathlessly reported in the media, it was all too easy to jump on that bandwagon. Stem cell research is a hot field of science and, according to statistics, also a rather scandal-prone one. However, the serious complications that Castillo suffered were, for a long time, kept very quiet. Eduard Folayang In the first couple of years at Karolinska, he put plastic airways into three patients. Benita Alexander with one of the custom-made gowns intended for her wedding [Investigation Discovery]. The couple set a date: July 11, 2015. North Carolina 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 patient who survived had the implant removed.). Every year, it gives science a show-business makeover, picking out from the mass of medical researchers those individuals deserving of superstardom. I dont want to live like this, she concluded. The couple had traveled extensively, but there were a 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 couple had traveled a lot, but there were some things Heres this handsome Italian surgeon at the finest institution in the world, the Karolinska, and hes everything Im not: Hes got a beautiful head of hair, he drives a motorcycle, hes got an accent, hes incredibly charismatic and dynamic, Dr. Genden said. Disgraced Italian surgeon convicted of criminal harm to stem cell patient. She received another implant at the University College Hospital in London in 2011, after which she was able to be discharged. This guy mutilated people., Between 2011 and 2014, Macchiarini implanted artificial windpipes in at least eight patients in Sweden, the United States, and Russia. 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! 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. Each new scientific discovery brings a flood of stories about how it will revolutionise medicine one day soon. Remembering George Floyd: A year of protest. And it needs a blood supply to connect to the patients vascular system. A life-saver and a game-changer. From that moment on, she made a proposal to Paolo Macchiarini, and Dateline planned to publish the story. And difficult to jump off. 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. Dr. Genden said some scientists told him Youre out of your mind because trying a transplant would risk his reputation.
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