If there is a moral to this tale, its that we need to be wary of medical messiahs with their promises of salvation. On Friday Mr. Hurtig declined to comment on Paolos private affairs.. Reports of their success always seemed like hot air to him. One of these is the hype surrounding stem cells. 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. Few people at Karolinska, especially among those in power, knew enough about it to appreciate Delaeres claims. Emanuela Pecchia Everything We Know On Paolo Macchiarini But colleagues suspected that Macchiarini was manipulating his results. But the vice-chancellor of Karolinska Institute, Anders Hamsten, wasnt bound by this judgement. Euan Ward reported from London, and Christina Anderson from Bastad, Sweden. In 2017, Paolo worked at a university in Russia, where he was given a federal grant for oesophagus research on primates, and operated on baboons rather than humans. Macchiarini, meanwhile, said he did not accept the findings of the disciplinary board. Scientific pioneer, superstar surgeon, miracle worker thats how Paolo Macchiarini was known for several years. 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. Macchiarinis fame had won him well-placed backers. As per When Macchiarini accused one of them, Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, of stealing his work in a grant application, Hamsten found him guilty. In 2015, the Karolinska Institute hired an independent investigator named Dr. Bengt Gerdin to look into the Macchiarini situation, per the Times. But in October 2017, the attorney general's office announced that a crime could not be proven, because the patients might have died anyway. Apparently, her graft detached soon after, causing an infection, and because of difficulties in breathing, she had to be admitted into emergency a total of 13 times. An alarmingly wide gap has grown between what we expect from stem cells and what they deliver. 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. February 28, 2022 Emanuela Pecchia is famously known as the wife of popular Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon, Paolo Macchiarini. When the blood vessels were finally connected, the donor trachea began bleeding. Macchiarini, who denied the charges against him, wasnt directly accused of killing any of the three patients. California He convinced the Karolinska Institute that this could make them famous, and they just let him do it. Who Were Paolo Macchiarinis Victims? - The Cinemaholic 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. Hwang, Obokata and Macchiarini were all attracted to the hottest regions of stem cell research, where hope for a medical breakthrough was greatest. If we've learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that we cannot wait for a crisis to respond. Macchiarinis deceit was so outlandish, Vanity Fair sought the opinion of the Harvard professor Ronald Schouten, an expert on psychopaths, who gave this diagnosis-at-a-distance: Macchiarini is the extreme form of a con man. She considered backing out. 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. Dr. Genden examines the new trachea by inserting a scope in a hole he left in her neck, which hell eventually close. Although all three patients eventually died, Dr. Macchiarini was not directly accused of killing them. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. Emanuela Pecchia: Everything We Know Discovery, Inc. or its subsidiaries and affiliates. The case is pending. 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. 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. Paolo then came across Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, a man from Eritrea who was training to be a doctor when he got diagnosed with cancer. Paolo was a world-renowned surgeon who spoke six languages, mingled with the global elite, and resembled George Clooney. But hes lost his reputation, and thats more important.. 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. Sonia Sein, outside her Bronx home, had irreparable damage to her trachea. Does the heat of stem cell research the high levels of funding, prestige and media coverage it enjoys somehow encourage fraud? If she talked for over five minutes, she had to stop because I couldnt breathe.. Singapore 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. 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.. I had a brave face, but I was scared, Ms. Sein said. Get more great content like this delivered right to you! She spent more than three years in intensive care and endured 200 surgical procedures, theTimes reports. Florida She says she feels she has been given a chance of being alive one more time.. 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. But for now, lets focus solely on his medical patients, shall we? Paolo Macchiarinis most notable patient is Claudia Castillo. Born in 1977, this Colombian living in Spain woman suffered from tuberculosis-damaged airways. Today, Ms. Sein, 56, dances and plays tag with her grandchildren and plans to resume working, possibly as an acupuncturist. Its love of human interest stories makes it sympathetic to unproven therapies. Dr. Genden said some scientists told him Youre out of your mind because trying a transplant would risk his reputation. They also cited a loophole known as compassionate use. Ive never in my experience witnessed a fraud like this, with this level of international flair, Murphy told Vanity Fair. For Ms. Sein, the procedure was a long-sought dream. We were doing good research, but it didnt matter I thought I was going to lose my lab, my staff everything.. 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. 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. 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. But that, and the fact that he had multiple cell phones for different countries, she chalked up to his demanding job and constant international travel. The Karolinska Institute declined to comment for this article, noting only that Dr. Macchiarinis sentence may be appealed. 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. 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. No one wanted to collaborate with me. 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. On May 13, Alexander left her job. At the trial, Macchiarini and his lawyer argued that the patients, with no other options, had been treated under compassionate care standards. Acquittal is therefore difficult to defend., But Gerdin says the verdict is not unexpected. Previously considered a pioneer for using both biological and synthetic scaffolds Also, in such a highly competitive environment, people are keen to show allegiance to their superiors and wary of criticising them. 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. February 28, 2022 Emanuela Pecchia is famously known as the wife of popular Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon, Paolo Macchiarini. In 2018, KI finally released the findings of its second investigation, which confirmed he had committed misconduct. 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. Tokyo Unfortunately, though, she reportedly succumbed to her underlying disease in January of 2012. 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. Paolo dropped another bomb when he told Benita that, despite the fact that both of them had been divorced, Pope Francis would officiate at their wedding. Science and AAAS are working tirelessly to provide credible, evidence-based information on the latest scientific research and policy, with extensive free coverage of the pandemic. She visits Mount Sinai weekly for blood work. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/health/trachea-transplant-genden.html. At the time, Macchiarini was working at Swedens Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine every year. Ultimate Fighting Championship In 2019, an Italian court said he had forged documents and abused his position, charges unrelated to his trachea work. Why are people hesitant to trust a COVID-19 vaccine? She received another implant at the University College Hospital in London in 2011, after which she was able to be discharged. Anyone can read what you share. In their view, he was grossly misrepresenting his results and the health of his patients. The first person to receive one of these was Andemariam Beyene, an Eritrean doctoral student in geology at the University of Iceland. 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. But for now, lets focus solely on his medical patients, shall we? They reopened the case in 2020, this time charging Macchiarini on lesser counts of aggravated assault and severe bodily harm. The pope, the palace, the world leaders, the famous tenor they were all fantasies. Though Macchiarini was in the public eye, he was able to sidestep the usual rules and regulations. 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. 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. This guy mutilated people., Between 2011 and 2014, Macchiarini implanted artificial windpipes in at least eight patients in Sweden, the United States, and Russia. 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. The Italian surgeon and his Italian wife Emanuela Pecchia have one son and one daughter. 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. The court said the penalty was a suspended sentence, but did not specify how long the sentence would be if imposed. As it was built from Claudias own cells, she didnt need to be on any risky immunosuppressant drugs. Even the jewelry he had given her was The first successful direct transplant of a trachea is a medical milestone that could help thousands of people with airways damaged by ventilators and other causes. While many in Sweden expressed disappointment at what they saw as the leniency of the sentence, given that prosecutors had asked for five years in prison, the verdict nonetheless represented the culmination of a stunning fall from grace for a once high-flying surgeon. Largely confined to her Bronx apartment, she needed home health aides and had to quit her career as a social worker for pregnant women. It would be a star-studded event. 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. 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. The nine-centimeter transplant replaced all but two centimeters of her trachea. These included Harriet Wallberg, who was the vice-chancellor of the Karolinska Institute in 2010, when Macchiarini was recruited. We have estimated Paolo Macchiarini's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. Jakarta 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. US Capitol 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. "I have to tell people. He is from Italy. Most, including Andemariam Beyene, are now dead. 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. Benita Alexander Thought Paolo Macchiarini Was Her Dream Man For the respect of privacy, his wifes identity is not revealed on the internet. Kentucky Some answers have emerged from the official inquiries into the Karolinska Institute and the Karolinska University hospital. Dressed in a white lab coat or in surgical scrubs, with his broad, handsome face and easy charm, he certainly looked the part. Macchiarini gave his regenerating windpipes to 17 or more patients worldwide. But it did not work, and a court in Sweden has found him criminally liable for the harm inflicted on a patient. Paolo Macchiarini, in a 2013 photo, implanted synthetic windpipes into multiple patients; all but one died following complications with the implants. What comes next after Texas school shooting? He was one of the best con-men I have ever come across, he added. By June 2013, when Paolo took Benita to Venice, Italy, for a romantic weekend, she knew she was falling madly in love. The Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. Nearly all of those patients have died. ABCs true-crime documentary series The Con premieres with the story of Paolo Macchiarini, who was once considered a pioneer in the field of regenerative medicine but allegedly turned out to be just a fraud. It is fitting that Macchiarinis career unravelled at the Karolinska Institute. That drama began about a decade ago when Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, working at Swedens famed Karolinska Institute, garnered headlines and accolades for replacing damaged tracheas with plastic tubes seeded with patients stem cells that he cultivated in devices called bioreactors. A 19-year-old Iowa college student allegedly defrauded over 400 donors after raising more than $37,000 by faking a triple cancer diagnosis. Any woman would swoon for such a catch! None other than Pope Francis would officiate, and his papal palace in Castel Gandolfo would serve as the venue. It relieved a little bit of burden from him.. Called Experimenten (The Experiments), it argued convincingly that Macchiarinis artificial windpipes were not the life-saving wonders wed all been led to believe. I have to expose him.". 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. Gerdin determined that Macchiarini committed scientific misconduct, but leadership at the Karolinska Institute ignored the findings and cleared Macchiarini. Paolo Macchiarini is a thoracic surgeon. After Macchiarini fitted Cetir with one of his artificial windpipes in 2012, her condition worsened. Macchiarini had often boasted to Alexander of his famous friends. The vice-chancellor, Anders Hamsten, resigned. Ohio Georgia Teen Vanished In South Carolina, Search Continues For North Carolina Girl, 11, Whose Parents Didnt Report Her Missing For Weeks, Where Is Ella Goodie? And fooled almost everyone. Macchiarini, they claimed, wasnt really doing clinical research. The next morning, with the donor and Ms. Sein in adjacent rooms, a team of over 50 medical personnel assembled. Claudia Castillo with Dr Paolo Macchiarini. 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. And then there are the surgeons on Dr. Death. Keep up with your favorite shows delivered to your inbox! The Vatican confirmed that he had never been the Pope's doctor. COVID-19 Thats something that was new to us, so we need to analyze that, Lundstrm-Kron says. 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 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. At first, they just connected as friends. 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 other countries, more of Macchiarinis patients died after receiving one of his artificial windpipes. 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. 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. There was another reason to be daunted too: historical assumptions that tracheas werent transplantable. How we can build a clean and renewable future. 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. I didnt want Paolo to not be the man I believed him to be, she told Vanity Fair. The university board was dismissed and even Harriet Wallberg, whod moved on to become the chancellor for all Swedish universities, lost her job. Benita was also growing increasingly concerned, because she had not yet been introduced to Paolo's children or even seen where she was meant to live with him in Barcelona. Benita Alexander with one of the custom-made gowns intended for her wedding [Investigation Discovery]. This set a dangerous example. Please try again later. Kevin Belingon All rights reserved. Theres a void in his personality that he seems to want to fill by conning more and more people..
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