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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. She met Macchiarini while producing A Leap of Faith and was soon breaking one of the cardinal rules of journalism: dont fall in love with the subject of your story. She remained in intensive care for more than three years at Karolinska University Hospital and underwent more than 200 surgical procedures. After Macchiarini fitted Cetir with one of his artificial windpipes in 2012, her condition worsened. The Italian surgeon and his Italian wife Emanuela Pecchia have one son and one daughter. 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This guy mutilated people., Between 2011 and 2014, Macchiarini implanted artificial windpipes in at least eight patients in Sweden, the United States, and Russia. He additionally claimed that former patients also included Bill and Hillary Clinton, and thenPresident Obama. Despite having a wife and a family, Paolo was in a public affair with the internet star Benita Alexandra. Please make a tax-deductible gift today. Karolinskas leadership expected big things from their superstar, things that would bring prestige and funding to the institute. From that moment on, she made a proposal to Paolo Macchiarini, and Dateline planned to publish the story. But Benita stood by her man and, she said, tried to help him through a tough time. Macchiarinis fall was swift, but troubling questions remain about why he was allowed to continue his experiments for so long. Alexander started a problem with the specialist at this time. What's next for abortion rights in America? We would have been planning my funeral, she said, but now were planning a birthday party.. Miss Universe 2021 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. Benita Alexander wearing a wig as she tracked down Paolo in Barcelona [Investigation Discovery]. And difficult to jump off. This was Macchiarinis first big success. Andemariam Beyene, for instance, had recurrent cancer of the windpipe but, aside from a cough, was still in good health. If we've learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that we cannot wait for a crisis to respond. They and their loved ones fall victim to false hope. Ground-breaking work on synthetic organ transplants made Paolo Macchiarini one of the most famous doctors in the world. Now his reputation lies in tatters. The story portrayed Macchiarini, who was already married at the time, as a serial fabulist who exaggerated or lied about degrees, academic appointments, and Macchiarini has consistently claimed he is innocent. He opened and cleaned out the donors esophagus, laying it against Ms. Seins esophagus. Nevada In Sweden, both the defense and the prosecution can appeal rulings, and senior prosecutor Karin Lundstrm-Kron says she and her colleagues will decide in the coming weeks. So did Karolinskas dean of research. 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. Macchiarinis lawyer declined to comment to Swedish media today about whether his client would appeal. 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 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. 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. This argument didnt wash with those who later investigated the case. Learn how your comment data is processed. Experts say this case is about what the definition of a resident is under Spanish law. But colleagues suspected that Macchiarini was manipulating his results. 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. Benita said that, if she can take any lessons away from what happened to her, she hopes that her experience will help others. 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. Gretchen Vogel is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine based in Berlin, Germany. Over the years, this possibility has generated great excitement and a huge amount of research. Seven of the eight patients Paolo inserted tracheas into have died. However, he eventually found out about his previous associations. Andrea Bocelli was to sing at the ceremony. None of these institutions have faced the same kind of public scrutiny. Macchiarini was fired in 2016 amid allegations of fraud and scientific misconduct after many of his transplant recipients died. 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. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini became a star by creating a bioartificial windpipe. 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. That meant the donor trachea was accompanied by a blood supply that Dr. Genden connected to Ms. Seins blood vessels. Benita fell for Macchiarini while a producer for NBC, working on a story on him in 2013. Macchiarinis fame had won him well-placed backers. He is from Italy. 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.. 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. That drama began about a decade ago when Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, working at Swedens famed Karolinska Institute, garnered headlines and accolades for replacing Guided by several mentors, he delved into research and animal experiments, developing a transplant approach. 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. China As Grinnemo recalls, it nearly destroyed his career: I didnt receive any new grants. The operations were hailed at the time as a breakthrough in regenerative medicine, although some observers remained skeptical. 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. How we can build a clean and renewable future. 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. But in October 2017, the attorney general's office announced that a crime could not be proven, because the patients might have died anyway. Family Seeks JusticeAfter Her Disappearance, Oregon Mother Of Four Who Was To Meet Up With Teen Son Suddenly Vanishes, Husband Of Missing Massachusetts Woman Charged With Her Murder, 8 Things To Know About The Nicholas Barclay Disappearance And Ensuing Deception, I'm Still Searching For My Baby: Georgia Mother Hopes For Answers In Daughters Disappearance, A Woman Disappeared From A Group Hike And Was Never Seen Again. 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. Likewise the whole idea of a wedding: Macchiarini was still married to his wife of 30 years. Macchiarini was turning the dream of regenerative medicine into a reality. He convinced the Karolinska Institute that this could make them famous, and they just let him do it. Ultimate Fighting Championship But it did not work, and a court in Sweden has found him criminally liable for the harm (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.). I can breathe, she was amazed to discover. 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. Kentucky They also cited a loophole known as compassionate use. Dr. Genden examines the new trachea by inserting a scope in a hole he left in her neck, which hell eventually close. The first person to receive one of these was Andemariam Beyene, an Eritrean doctoral student in geology at the University of Iceland. The Vatican confirmed that he had never been the Pope's doctor. That's when, Benita said, it hit her: She had given up a good job and spent $50,000 on a "bogus fantasy wedding" to a man who already had at least two families. They allowed Macchiarini to continue his work as a visiting professor with a research lab. But after Alexander learned that Pope Francis was scheduled to visit South America at the time of their wedding, she confronted Macchiarini about his claims. A good example is the NBC documentary A Leap of Faith. 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. At night, when she connected her tracheal tube to a ventilator, the alarm kept going off to let people know that I stopped breathing, said Ms. Sein, who hated causing her family concern. The couple set a date: July 11, 2015. Abu Dhabi Although all three patients eventually died, Dr. Macchiarini was not directly accused of killing them. Few people at Karolinska, especially among those in power, knew enough about it to appreciate Delaeres claims. This thing came to life, Dr. Genden marveled, and we were like, Holy smokes, weve done it.. That was a very smart idea to help maintain the fragile blood supply of the airway by leaving the esophagus in place behind it, Dr. Patterson said. It would be a star-studded event. The vice-chancellor, Anders Hamsten, resigned. Nearly all of those patients have died. In September, a Swedish prosecutor indicted him on aggravated assault charges related to three trachea transplants. 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. In his case, his stem cells were seeded into the airway just hours before it was implanted into him, making it work perfectly fine. He officially cleared Macchiarini of scientific misconduct, allowing merely that hed sometimes acted without due care. 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. 2023 Warner Bros. 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. Dressed in a white lab coat or in surgical scrubs, with his broad, handsome face and easy charm, he certainly looked the part. 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). By the time the program aired, in mid-2014, the couple were planning their marriage. He was one of the best con-men I have ever come across, he added. There was another woman from the Czech Republic with mucoepidermoid carcinoma who received such a transplant. 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. According to hospital staff, she had roughly 40 near-death experiences during this time, the judgment said. In 2013, the hospital halted future operations with synthetic trachea and opted to not extend Macchiarinis contract. In 2017, after another hospital said everything possible had been tried, she felt desperate. 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. 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. 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 official report into the matter dubbed this the bandwagon effect. Dr. Delaere developed another innovative method, performed on nine patients so far: implanting a section of donor trachea in a patients forearm for weeks until it develops blood vessels and can replace part of the patients trachea. We have, for example, a growing list of scientific celebrities who have committed major stem cell fraud. Not just that, Paolo was also entangled in several other controversies. A life-saver and a game-changer. Beyenes death two and a half years after the operation, caused by the failure of his artificial airway, was a grueling ordeal. Gerdin determined that Macchiarini committed scientific misconduct, but leadership at the Karolinska Institute ignored the findings and cleared Macchiarini. It is also unclear whether the verdict Thursday will have an impact in other jurisdictions where Dr. Macchiarini conducted windpipe operations. Every year, it gives science a show-business makeover, picking out from the mass of medical researchers those individuals deserving of superstardom. 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. They also questioned whether Macchiarini had obtained proper ethical permission for the surgeries and challenged a paper describing animal experiments with the technique. In the first couple of years at Karolinska, he put plastic airways into three patients. Thousands of people in the United States alone develop trachea problems each year from burns, birth defects, tumors and extended intubation on ventilators. 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. Meanwhile, Macchiarinis career soared. But because Macchiarini is apparently living in Spain, its unlikely to have much effect. 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 Karolinska Institute was seduced by Macchiarini, said Dr. Gerdin. I had a brave face, but I was scared, Ms. Sein said. Born in 1984, Zhadyra Iglikova suffered from tracheostomy following a car accident. She has since had the synthetic trachea removed. They didnt. Thats what Macchiarini told his fiancee. Dont yet have access? 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 fooled almost everyone. As the home of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, one of its ambitions is to create scientific celebrities. Journals retracted several of his studies. In April 2017, the university terminated his project. And investigations by both institute and the hospital found coverups regarding Macchiarinis work. 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. None have been forced to hold full and independent inquiries. Largely confined to her Bronx apartment, she needed home health aides and had to quit her career as a social worker for pregnant women. There was another reason to be daunted too: historical assumptions that tracheas werent transplantable. Claudia Castillo with Dr Paolo Macchiarini. 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.. In January 2016, Macchiarini received an extraordinary double dose of bad press. In 2015, the Karolinska Institute hired an independent investigator named Dr. Bengt Gerdin to look into the Macchiarini situation, per the Times. He took the medical world by storm when he built and transplanted the worlds first bioartificial windpipe two years earlier. In Macchiarinis case, the hope was that patients could be treated with stem cells taken from their own bone marrow. Brave CF But owing to her cancer returning and the formation of a fistula, she too passed away. Now they were on the wedding guest list: the Obamas, the Clintons, Vladimir Putin, Nicolas Sarkozy and other world leaders. But it was already too late. 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.. 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. All but one died following severe complications with the implants. Therefore, on June 12, 2008, at Hospital Clinic Barcelona, she received a cadaver trachea graft implanted as a bronchus transplant. There Was Nothing Anybody Could Do for These Patients. Now There Is. Records show that even with his implant failing, Andemariam was able to complete his Ph.D. before his demise in January 2013. A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 376, Issue 6600. 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. Another was a Russian mother named Julia Tuulik, per BBC News. Hwang, Obokata and Macchiarini were all attracted to the hottest regions of stem cell research, where hope for a medical breakthrough was greatest. Watch He Lied About Everything on ID GO now! He was handsome, suave, and a charmer. No one wanted to collaborate with me. In such dire circumstances, new treatments can be tried as a last resort. An independent investigator agreed. Filipino MMA fighters Jakarta 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. LONDON It sounded like real-life science fiction a 3-D printed organ, a groundbreaking artificial windpipe, built in a laboratory and made to order. The coronavirus pandemic will most likely create more cases because many Covid-19 patients have needed weeks on ventilators. 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. Most protagonists on medical dramas are modern-day heroes. 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 only question was how long it would take weeks, months or a few years. How did the GameStop stock spike on Wall Street happen? Sadly, she passed away soon after her second implant. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. I didnt want Paolo to not be the man I believed him to be, she told Vanity Fair. The other side is flat and mobile to move air to the lungs. Florida Border crisis: Whats happening at the US-Mexico border? George Floyd Anyone can read what you share. Sonia Sein, outside her Bronx home, had irreparable damage to her trachea. 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. They exchange their vows in Italy. Gerdin says the conviction on one count still shows that health care doesnt stand above the law. New York City 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. 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. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. 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.