Kentucky If we've learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that we cannot wait for a crisis to respond. 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. 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. He says, Ive created this bioreactor and its stem cells and it makes tracheas. And its huge., Dr. Genden said that when he and colleagues questioned Dr. Macchiarini at a conference early on, in his bigger-than-life way he says, This is ridiculous, you dont know what youre talking about, it functions beautifully., Dr. Genden thought his work had become obsolete, so you basically shut down the lab, he said. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. I dont want to live like this, she concluded. 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. This thing came to life, Dr. Genden marveled, and we were like, Holy smokes, weve done it.. Thats what Macchiarini told his fiancee. But on Thursday, the surgeon, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, was found criminally liable by a Swedish court for causing felony bodily injury to a patient he had fitted with one of the windpipes at a medical university in Sweden. ONE Super Series 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. But as the big day approached, Alexander saw these plans unravel, and finally realised that her lover had lied about almost everything. 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. Every year, it gives science a show-business makeover, picking out from the mass of medical researchers those individuals deserving of superstardom. By June 2013, when Paolo took Benita to Venice, Italy, for a romantic weekend, she knew she was falling madly in love. A review of public records in Italy found that Paolo was never divorced from Emanuela Pecchia, his wife of nearly 30 years. 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. Delaere feels the sentence is too light for what he considers a serious crime. Benita Alexander Before their wedding, the I can breathe, she was amazed to discover. The Karolinska Institute was seduced by Macchiarini, said Dr. Gerdin. Hwang, Obokata and Macchiarini were all attracted to the hottest regions of stem cell research, where hope for a medical breakthrough was greatest. 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.. Thereafter it was all over the news. Brazil Alexander started a problem with the specialist at this time. Euan Ward reported from London, and Christina Anderson from Bastad, Sweden. If there is a moral to this tale, its that we need to be wary of medical messiahs with their promises of salvation. Why dont the Electoral College and popular vote always match up? 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. 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. What's next for abortion rights in America? 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. How a star surgeon's personal and professional lives converged Bangkok Paolo grew close to Alexander's daughter [Investigation Discovery], He was incredibly charming, worldly smart, sophisticated, and seemed very gentle," Benita told CrimeFeed. Talking about her spouse Macchiarinis lawyer declined to comment to Swedish media today about whether his client would appeal. Benita was also growing concerned about the cost of the wedding. 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. 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. He has been convicted of research-related crimes in Italy and Sweden. Las Vegas 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. Dr. Genden examines the new trachea by inserting a scope in a hole he left in her neck, which hell eventually close. (LogOut/ 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. She was wearing a blonde wig, and her nervous laughter is audible on the video they shot. (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.). 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. And fooled almost everyone. They also questioned whether Macchiarini had obtained proper ethical permission for the surgeries and challenged a paper describing animal experiments with the technique. 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. 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And after hiring a private investigator, Ms Alexander found that Dr Macchiarini, pictured, was a man of more modest means living in Barcelona and that he was still married to his wife of 30 years Ms Alexander told Vanity Fair: 'I just didn't want to put two and two together. After being dismissed from the institute, he worked at the Kazan Federal University in Kazan, Russia. (LogOut/ In their view, he was grossly misrepresenting his results and the health of his patients. Paolo Macchiarinis most notable patient is Claudia Castillo. 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. Nor did they impress the institutes ethics council when Delaere lodged a formal complaint. Likewise the whole idea of a wedding: Macchiarini was still married to his wife of 30 years. Paolo Macchiarini rode groundbreaking surgeries to global fame, but patients died anyway. WebPaolo Macchiarini Net Worth. Dmitris graft had started collapsing six months into his surgery as well, but he managed to get it successfully removed and is now living with a tracheostomy. So in 2010, Paolo operated on her at the National Research Center of Surgery in Moscow. In the On Friday Mr. Hurtig declined to comment on Paolos private affairs.. The popular press also has a lot to answer for. First Successful Trachea Transplant a Medical Milestone - The (LogOut/ I had a brave face, but I was scared, Ms. Sein said. I Googled trachea transplant and Dr. Genden popped up. Andrea Bocelli was to sing at the ceremony. All three patients later died. The other patients were treated at hospitals in Barcelona, Florence, London, Moscow, Krasnodar, Chicago and Peoria. Pennsylvania We have estimated Paolo Macchiarini's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. Ultimate Fighting Championship In 2013, the hospital halted future operations with synthetic trachea and opted to not extend Macchiarinis contract. 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. 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. 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! How did the GameStop stock spike on Wall Street happen? In June 2016, the public prosecutor's office began investigating Paolo on suspicion of manslaughter and grievous bodily harm based on the material leading to the deaths of the three patients operated on in Sweden. The Karolinska Institute, alleging scientific misconduct, dismissed Dr. Macchiarini, who has long denied wrongdoing. In other countries, more of Macchiarinis patients died after receiving one of his artificial windpipes. 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.. The verdict is the latest development in Macchiarinis stunning fall from grace. 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. There Was Nothing Anybody Could Do for These Patients. Now There Is. We have, for example, a growing list of scientific celebrities who have committed major stem cell fraud. Emanuela Pecchia [Paolo Macchiarini Wife] Biography, KI fired Macchiarini in March 2016, 2 months after the Swedish documentary came out. There is South Koreas Hwang Woo-suk who, in 2004, falsely claimed to have created the first human embryonic stem cells by means of cloning. Ohio Its like when you get on a rocket ship., At times, he felt in a dreamlike state, he said. The transplants, performed on patients from the United States and other countries, were heralded as inaugurating a regenerative medicine revolution. Brave CF New York City Emanuela Pecchia has been married to Paolo Macchiarini for over 30 years. Dr. Genden said Dr. Macchiarinis rise and fall profoundly affected his own path. 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. Even so, it wasnt until 2016 that the Karolinska Institute declined to renew his contract. 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 the vice-chancellor of Karolinska Institute, Anders Hamsten, wasnt bound by this judgement. Eduard Folayang Largely confined to her Bronx apartment, she needed home health aides and had to quit her career as a social worker for pregnant women. 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. But some of Alexander's friends began to become suspicious. He is still licensed to practice medicine in Europe. Paolo Macchiarini at a press conference in 2008. Emanuela Pecchia (Paolo Macchiarani's Wife), Bio, Age & More 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. She says it may mean the judges thought he and the patients believed time was short and options were few. But even if his days had been numbered, this didnt necessarily justify what Macchiarini put him through. Italian surgeon gets his sentence appealed in Sweden case From Confines Of Russia, Controversial Stem-Cell Surgeon The different gender was important, allowing Dr. Genden to use chromosomal analysis to detect whether Ms. Seins cells populated the new trachea. 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. Paolo Macchiarini: Surgeon convicted for fatal Swedish - BBC They also cited a loophole known as compassionate use. As per What Is Benita Alexander Doing Now? She Was Conned 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. In the case of Cetir, he should have known the risk of complications was higher than the expected benefit, the judges ruled. So, as per the last reports, he is alive and well today. On May 13, Alexander left her job. The apparent success of Ms. Seins operation is also notable because the trachea field has been rocked for years by a sensational scandal. Paolo Macchiarini While there isnt enough data to actually prove this, we do have some key indicators. He should be given death penalty! Those few patients who are still alive including Castillo have survived in spite of the artificial windpipes they received. 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. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Even the jewelry he had given her was She has since had the synthetic trachea removed. 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. "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. Remembering George Floyd: A year of protest. In 2010, the Italian surgeon was recruited by KIhome of the committee that awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. To some extent, they believed Macchiarini because he told them what they wanted to hear. Or rather, his celebrity status helped him do so. 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. A White House source confirmed that Bill Clinton had never met Paolo. He took the medical world by storm when he built and transplanted the worlds first bioartificial windpipe two years earlier. The media began calling him "Dr. Frankenstein" and said that he committed "the world's biggest medical fraud.". 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. In 2017, prosecutors in Sweden charged Macchiarini with manslaughter in connection with the three patients who had received transplants at KI in 2011 and 2012, all of whom had died: Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, a graduate student from Eritrea with a slow-growing cancer obstructing his windpipe; Christopher Lyles, a 30-year-old American with tracheal cancer; and Yesim Cetir, a teenager from Turkey whose trachea had been accidentally damaged during a previous surgery. This set a dangerous example. Likewise the secretary-general of the Nobel Committee. 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. Macchiarini told people that Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Vladimir Putin would attend the wedding, Andrea Bocelli would perform, and Pope Francis (a patient of his, or so he said) would officiate the ceremony, per Vanity Fair. Benita Alexander Thought Paolo Macchiarini Was Her Dream Man 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. Any woman would swoon for such a catch! He was one of the best con-men I have ever come across, he added. 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. In his case, his stem cells were seeded into the airway just hours before it was implanted into him, making it work perfectly fine. According to the Karolinska Institutes timeline of the Macchiarini case, the institute recruited Macchiarini as a visiting professor of regenerative medicine/stem cell biology in 2010, and the associated Karolinska University Hospital gave him a part-time contract as a consultant and surgeon around the same time. They shared a happy relationship. These included Harriet Wallberg, who was the vice-chancellor of the Karolinska Institute in 2010, when Macchiarini was recruited. 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. Although the difference in his birthplace, he is known to be an Italian by his nationality. 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. In September 2020, Swedish prosecutors announced charges against him for aggravated assault in connection to three surgeries that he had performed at the. Besides which, compassionate concerns dont override the basic principles of patient safety and informed consent. 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. Benita Alexander thought that she was living a real-life fairy tale when she met her fianc, Paolo Macchiarini. Does the heat of stem cell research the high levels of funding, prestige and media coverage it enjoys somehow encourage fraud? She remained in intensive care for more than three years at Karolinska University Hospital and underwent more than 200 surgical procedures. 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. Paolo Macchiarini was amazingly accomplished, stunningly successful, and fabulously rich. Metro 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. There was another woman from the Czech Republic with mucoepidermoid carcinoma who received such a transplant. And then there are the surgeons on Dr. Death. The only question was how long it would take weeks, months or a few years. Team Lakay Macchiarini is known for his research fraud and manipulative behavior. 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. Its love of human interest stories makes it sympathetic to unproven therapies. 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. In 2015, the Karolinska Institute hired an independent investigator named Dr. Bengt Gerdin to look into the Macchiarini situation, per the Times. Paolo Macchiarini traveled to Illinois to operate on toddler Hannah Warren, who was born without a trachea in 2013. Macchiarini shot to prominence back in 2008, when he created a new airway for Claudia Castillo, a young woman from Barcelona. Even the jewelry he had given her was fake. The Vatican confirmed that he had never been the Pope's doctor. 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. Subscribe to News from Science for full access to breaking news and analysis on research and science policy. 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. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City cast member was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for defrauding the elderly.
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