In the same year, he earned his medical degree from the, In 1989, he took a course on statistics in clinical research at, In 1994, he obtained a masters degree certificate in organ and tissue transplantation from the, From 2006 to 2009, he was an investigator at the, In June 2008, he performed a trachea transplant on, He performed a synthetic trachea transplant on, In 2012, he was charged in Italy with attempted aggravated fraud. He took the medical world by storm when he built and transplanted the worlds first bioartificial windpipe two years earlier. 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. In the Read More: Where is Benita Alexander Now? She remained in intensive care for more than three years at Karolinska University Hospital and underwent more than 200 surgical procedures. Benita decided to get in touch with private investigator Frank Murphy. It would be a star-studded event. If there is a moral to this tale, its that we need to be wary of medical messiahs with their promises of salvation. Hes clearly bright and has accomplishments, but he cant contain himself. No one wanted to collaborate with me. This was Macchiarinis first big success. I didnt want Paolo to not be the man I believed him to be, she told Vanity Fair. Stem cell clinics have sprung up like weeds, offering to treat just about any ailment you can name. Filipino MMA fighters Macchiarinis fame had won him well-placed backers. For other cases, though, doctors say the approach seems promising. 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. None have been forced to hold full and independent inquiries. It is fitting that Macchiarinis career unravelled at the Karolinska Institute. The felony conviction means Macchiarini would have a hard time finding employment again in Sweden, Gerdin says. But some of Alexander's friends began to become suspicious. Remembering George Floyd: A year of protest. (LogOut/ The other side is flat and mobile to move air to the lungs. She told CrimeFeed that, looking back, it seemed odd to her she had not met many of Paolo's close friends in Barcelona. Her friends described him as "Mr. Big" from Sex and the City. February 28, 2022 Emanuela Pecchia is famously known as the wife of popular Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon, Paolo Macchiarini. But according to reports, Paolo cheated on his Emanuela Pecchia. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. And because it was built from Castillos own cells, she didnt need to be on any risky immunosuppressant drugs. One biomedical researcher has documented a total of 20 tracheal regeneration procedures by Macchiarini in Russia, Spain, Britain, and the United States, as well as Sweden. Alexander admits that, at the time, she was in a vulnerable place. He performed a synthetic trachea transplant on, In 2013, he met documentary television producer. But of 20 patients, including children, most ultimately died, and scientists said Dr. Macchiarini misrepresented data and exaggerated his techniques effectiveness. The media began calling him "Dr. Frankenstein" and said that he committed "the world's biggest medical fraud.". For their efforts, the whistleblowers were punished. They and their loved ones fall victim to false hope. The operations were hailed at the time as a breakthrough in regenerative medicine, although some observers remained skeptical. Paolo was a world-renowned surgeon who spoke six languages, mingled with the global elite, and resembled George Clooney. Discovery, Inc. or its subsidiaries and affiliates. Unfortunately, the scandal is much bigger than Karolinska, which accounts for only three of the patients who have received Macchiarinis regenerating windpipes. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. A White House source confirmed that Bill Clinton had never met Paolo. 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. In 2015, the Karolinska Institute hired an independent investigator named Dr. Bengt Gerdin to look into the Macchiarini situation, per the Times. 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. Why dont the Electoral College and popular vote always match up? It relieved a little bit of burden from him.. Alexander started a problem with the specialist at this time. I thought, If they do a transplant for everything, they should do a transplant for trachea, she recalled. Although the difference in his birthplace, he is known to be an Italian by his nationality. So did Karolinskas dean of research. China It showed department heads and colleagues that they should give Macchiarini special treatment.He could do pretty much as he pleased. They reopened the case in 2020, this time charging Macchiarini on lesser counts of aggravated assault and severe bodily harm. Macchiarini was also charged with but acquitted of assault charges related to the deaths of two more of his artificial windpipe patients, an Eritrean man named Andemariam Beyene and an American man named Christopher Lyles, according to BBC News. 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. A 19-year-old Iowa college student allegedly defrauded over 400 donors after raising more than $37,000 by faking a triple cancer diagnosis. 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. 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. In other countries, more of Macchiarinis patients died after receiving one of his artificial windpipes. At any rate, some of his most powerful friends were themselves Nobel judges until, with his fall from grace, they fell too. Although all three patients eventually died, Dr. Macchiarini was not directly accused of killing them. She spent more than three years in intensive care and endured 200 surgical procedures, theTimes reports. According to Pierre Delaere, a professor of respiratory surgery at KU Leuven, Belgium, Macchiarinis experiments were bound to end badly. 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. In 2010, the Italian surgeon was recruited by KIhome of the committee that awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The vice-chancellor, Anders Hamsten, resigned. Though Macchiarini was in the public eye, he was able to sidestep the usual rules and regulations. Also, in such a highly competitive environment, people are keen to show allegiance to their superiors and wary of criticising them. He was born in Basel, Switzerland to Italian parents. 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.. There Was Nothing Anybody Could Do for These Patients. Now There Is. She had already spent $10,000 on engraved invitations made for a guest list that included the Obamas, the Clintons, Vladimir Putin, and Elton John. Dr. Genden said Dr. Macchiarinis rise and fall profoundly affected his own path. They also cited a loophole known as compassionate use. 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. 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. But it was already too late. The surgeons defense attorney, Bjrn Hurtig, said his client was considering an 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." 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. 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. In addition to his partner of over 30 years, he also had a special next woman. Likewise the whole idea of a wedding: Macchiarini was still married to his wife of 30 years. 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. Talking about her spouse 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. 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. 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. It sounded unbelievable, but Paolo explained to her that he had treated Pope John Paul II in the past, and had become part of a highly classified group of doctors that treated the global elite. The couple has been married for 30 years now. By this year, Dr. Genden said, her condition had deteriorated so that if we delay further, its not going to work out.. Another was a Russian mother named Julia Tuulik, per BBC News. In 2018, KI finally released the findings of its second investigation, which confirmed he had committed misconduct. On Friday Mr. Hurtig declined to comment on Paolos private affairs.. 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. The Karolinska Institute declined to comment for this article, noting only that Dr. Macchiarinis sentence may be appealed. But for now, lets focus solely on his medical patients, shall we? 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. 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 Macchiarini was fired in 2016 amid allegations of fraud and scientific misconduct after many of his transplant recipients died. But, he added, Its an indirect technique. It takes time and can replace only the tracheas halfpipe side, so its not a complete tube.. 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. 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. Her transformation follows a groundbreaking experimental procedure she underwent in January: the first time, medical experts believe, a donor trachea has been successfully directly transplanted into another person. Death for Season 2 at Peacock, From 'Truth About Pam' to 'Candy,' True-Crime EPs Tell the Truth (VIDEO). They exchange their vows in Italy. Since this was radically new, Macchiarini and his colleagues should have tested it on animals first. He opened and cleaned out the donors esophagus, laying it against Ms. Seins esophagus. 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. With his methods still under fire in the West, he continues to work in Russia. 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. Death Season 2, Mandy Moore Joins Dr. Thats what Macchiarini told his fiancee. I Googled trachea transplant and Dr. Genden popped up. In September, a Swedish prosecutor indicted him on aggravated assault charges related to three trachea transplants. Acquittal is therefore difficult to defend., But Gerdin says the verdict is not unexpected. Nor did they impress the institutes ethics council when Delaere lodged a formal complaint. 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. The idea is that scientific progress is driven by the genius of a few. 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. And then there are the surgeons on Dr. Death. Benita Alexander on attending Paolo Macchiarinis criminal trial in Sweden Alexander said she attended Macchiarini's trial for closure, seven years after she was 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. He understood how difficult her life had become. Countless news stories declared it a medical breakthrough. But the vice-chancellor of Karolinska Institute, Anders Hamsten, wasnt bound by this judgement. Benita fell for Macchiarini while a producer for NBC, working on a story on him in 2013. 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. 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.. Ohio They recently published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine admitting that stem cell research has mostly failed to live up to its therapeutic promise. Paolo grew close to Alexander's daughter [Investigation Discovery], He was incredibly charming, worldly smart, sophisticated, and seemed very gentle," Benita told CrimeFeed. But Benita stood by her man and, she said, tried to help him through a tough time. Castillo was soon back home, chasing after her kids. Sadly, she passed away soon after her second implant. In their view, he was grossly misrepresenting his results and the health of his patients. 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. Change). In 2017, after another hospital said everything possible had been tried, she felt desperate. They identified many problems with the way the twin organisations handled him. This was the start of a whirlwind romance that included five-star hotels, travel to far-flung locations, and extravagant shopping sprees. After being dismissed from the institute, he worked at the Kazan Federal University in Kazan, Russia. Born in 1984, Zhadyra Iglikova suffered from tracheostomy following a car accident. 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. Karolinskas leadership expected big things from their superstar, things that would bring prestige and funding to the institute. Paolo then came across Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, a man from Eritrea who was training to be a doctor when he got diagnosed with cancer. In such dire circumstances, new treatments can be tried as a last resort. 2023 Warner Bros. Macchiarinis fall was swift, but troubling questions remain about why he was allowed to continue his experiments for so long. 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.CreditSarah Blesener for The New York Times. She pushed through his appointment despite the fact that he had some very negative references and dubious claims on his rsum. And it needs a blood supply to connect to the patients vascular system. But, we now know that the success of this operation was a lie, and the complications she suffered because of it were kept under wraps for a really long time. George Floyd However, Swedish TV reporters also decided to take a close look at Macchiarinis work. The Karolinska Institute was seduced by Macchiarini, Gerdin told the newspaper. Your tax-deductible contribution plays a critical role in sustaining this effort. In fact, the surgeon was still married to his wife of nearly 30 years. He was 63 years old when he was found guilty of causing harm through negligence but not of carrying out an intentional assault and he received a probationary sentence on June 16, 2022. He has been convicted of research-related crimes in Italy and Sweden. Tennessee How we can build a clean and renewable future. 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. We now know that wasnt true. Ive never in my experience witnessed a fraud like this, with this level of international flair, Murphy told Vanity Fair. In the months and years following their respective surgeries, all of them except Dmitri Onogda have passed away due to post-operative complications. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in 2013. 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. She visits Mount Sinai weekly for blood work. 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. Talking about her spouse Paolo, he became infamous for research fraud and manipulative behavior. The transplants, performed on patients from the United States and other countries, were heralded as inaugurating a regenerative medicine revolution. You start to panic because you cant breathe., By early 2020, ethical approvals were in place, but the coronavirus pandemic held things up. 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.. Not just that, Paolo was also entangled in several other controversies. Andrea Bocelli was to sing at the ceremony. The couple had traveled a lot, but there were some things 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. 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. Despite having a wife and a family, Paolo was in a public affair with the internet star Benita Alexandra. ONE Super Series 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. Its kind of a marginal substitute, and many patients need further interventions to maintain their airways.. If as a doctor you do stupid things, then you can be charged. But the not-guilty verdicts on the other two cases highlight how the law can leave vulnerable people unprotected, he says, for example when they are facing life-and-death decisions and holding less information than their doctor. The nine-centimeter transplant replaced all but two centimeters of her trachea. Paolo Macchiarini is a thoracic surgeon. 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. On May 13, Alexander left her job. In the case of Cetir, he should have known the risk of complications was higher than the expected benefit, the judges ruled. In the first couple of years at Karolinska, he put plastic airways into three patients. 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. In September 2020, Swedish prosecutors announced charges against him for aggravated assault in connection to three surgeries that he had performed at the. 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. 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. 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 very next day, she got an email from a friend that outlined the Pope's plans to visit South America on Benita and Paolo's wedding day. The university board was dismissed and even Harriet Wallberg, whod moved on to become the chancellor for all Swedish universities, lost her job. Almost immediately after she was fitted with a synthetic trachea in August 2012, Ms. Cetirs condition began to rapidly deteriorate, according to the courts written judgment. In 2013, the hospital halted future operations with synthetic trachea and opted to not extend Macchiarinis contract. The only question was how long it would take weeks, months or a few years. Any replacement trachea must be rigid or itll collapse like a straw in a McDonalds milkshake, Dr. Genden said. Its fascinating to rewatch as a lesson on how not to report on medical science. Delaere feels the sentence is too light for what he considers a serious crime. Now they were on the wedding guest list: the Obamas, the Clintons, Vladimir Putin, Nicolas Sarkozy and other world leaders. As the home of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, one of its ambitions is to create scientific celebrities. This thing came to life, Dr. Genden marveled, and we were like, Holy smokes, weve done it.. How did the GameStop stock spike on Wall Street happen? All rights reserved. Delaere was one of the earliest and harshest critics of Macchiarinis engineered airways. She soon went into full-on investigative journalist mode, and learned that Paolo had, yup lied about everything. ONE Championship An advantage is that immunosuppressants are necessary only for several months, he said. An unhappy result of this is the rise of pseudo-scientific therapies. But it did not work, and a court in Sweden has found him criminally liable for the harm New Jersey A genius is a revolutionary by definition, a risk-taker and a law-breaker. 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. February 28, 2022 Emanuela Pecchia is famously known as the wife of popular Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon, Paolo Macchiarini. But Benita, at the time an award-winning investigative news producer for NBC, had no way of knowing that, by the end of her love story, her heart would be broken and many of Paolo's patients who received the "miracle" transplants would be dead. The case is pending. There was another woman from the Czech Republic with mucoepidermoid carcinoma who received such a transplant. American Catherine Serou sent her mother a text that read, I hope Im not being abducted., Benita Found Her Dream Man But He Lied About Everything & Left Death In His Wake, Benita Alexander had no way of knowing that, by the end of her love story, her heart would be broken and many of Paolos patients who received the , Shakira Could Face 8 Years In Prison For Tax Fraud In Spain, What To Know About Reality Star Jen Shah's Wire Fraud Case, Tejano Music Queen Selena Was Shot To Death By The President Of Her Fan Club, 29-Year-Old Woman Arrested After Enrolling In New Jersey High School, American College Student In The Netherlands Stalked And Killed By Man She Met On Tinder, Iowa College Student Allegedly Faked Cancer Diagnosis, Scammed Hundreds, Italian Surgeon Accused Of Operating Inappropriately Gets Conditional Sentence, True Crime News Roundup: Elderly Man Missing For Months Found Dead In Trash Can Outside His Home, True Crime News Roundup: Prince Andrew Stripped Of Military Titles After Judge Allows Sex Abuse Case To Proceed, Student Studying Abroad In Russia Found Dead After Sending Her Mother Troubling Text, An Alabama Woman Disappeared After Her Boyfriend Dropped Her Off At Home, Have You Seen Semaj Goodwine?