Nor did they impress the institutes ethics council when Delaere lodged a formal complaint. He is from Italy. Any replacement trachea must be rigid or itll collapse like a straw in a McDonalds milkshake, Dr. Genden said. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini became a star by creating a bioartificial windpipe. 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. I didnt want Paolo to not be the man I believed him to be, she told Vanity Fair. Los Angeles Paolo Macchiarini Thats something that was new to us, so we need to analyze that, Lundstrm-Kron says. Because mucus would clog her tube, she was constantly suctioning, constantly worried about her airway, and it becomes overwhelming, Dr. Genden said, like being held down in a swimming pool. Italian surgeon gets his sentence appealed in Sweden case He took the medical world by storm when he built and transplanted the worlds first bioartificial windpipe two years earlier. The couple had traveled a lot, but there were some things Alexander admits that, at the time, she was in a vulnerable place. AAAS is a partner of HINARI, AGORA, OARE, CHORUS, CLOCKSS, CrossRef and COUNTER. Unfortunately, the scandal is much bigger than Karolinska, which accounts for only three of the patients who have received Macchiarinis regenerating windpipes. 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. 2023 American Association for the Advancement of Science. I could feel it in my lungs.. Stem cell clinics have sprung up like weeds, offering to treat just about any ailment you can name. 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. 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. 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. Her friends described him as "Mr. Big" from Sex and the City. The case is pending. Ive never in my experience witnessed a fraud like this, with this level of international flair, Murphy told Vanity Fair. Journals retracted several of his studies. However, behind closed doors, Dr. Macchiarini was hiding a secret the procedures were not working. Not only that, they later covered it up.. For the respect of privacy, his wifes identity is not revealed on the internet. That meant the donor trachea was accompanied by a blood supply that Dr. Genden connected to Ms. Seins blood vessels. She told CrimeFeed that, looking back, it seemed odd to her she had not met many of Paolo's close friends in Barcelona. 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. 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. But owing to her cancer returning and the formation of a fistula, she too passed away. Texas Today, Ms. Sein, 56, dances and plays tag with her grandchildren and plans to resume working, possibly as an acupuncturist. Alexander started a problem with the specialist at this time. 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. The story portrayed Macchiarini, who was already married at the time, as a serial fabulist who exaggerated or lied about degrees, academic appointments, and The different gender was important, allowing Dr. Genden to use chromosomal analysis to detect whether Ms. Seins cells populated the new trachea. But colleagues suspected that Macchiarini was manipulating his results. 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. Discovery, Inc. or its subsidiaries and affiliates. He is still licensed to practice medicine in Europe. 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. In January 2016, Macchiarini received an extraordinary double dose of bad press. The court said the penalty was a suspended sentence, but did not specify how long the sentence would be if imposed. Those few patients who are still alive including Castillo have survived in spite of the artificial windpipes they received. Macchiarini was fired in 2016 amid allegations of fraud and scientific misconduct after many of his transplant recipients died. Ms. Seins trachea before, left, and her new transplanted trachea. 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. Few people at Karolinska, especially among those in power, knew enough about it to appreciate Delaeres claims. His lawyer did not respond to emails from Science today. The trachea has been characterized as a simple tube, but its very complex, Dr. Delaere said. The vice-chancellor, Anders Hamsten, resigned. Yet, for the vast majority of such treatments, there is little solid evidence that they work. Illinois Paolo Macchiarini at a press conference in 2008. Donald Trump 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. Talking about her spouse 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. And fooled almost everyone. The maximum prison sentence for causing bodily harm is 4 years. "If I made a checklist of what I wanted a man to be, he had everything.". 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. Surely, he got away with so much because he was considered an exception to the rules with more than a whiff of the Nobel about him. Acquittal is therefore difficult to defend., But Gerdin says the verdict is not unexpected. The Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. We were doing good research, but it didnt matter I thought I was going to lose my lab, my staff everything.. Born in 1984, Zhadyra Iglikova suffered from tracheostomy following a car accident. 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. The other patients were treated at hospitals in Barcelona, Florence, London, Moscow, Krasnodar, Chicago and Peoria. I had a brave face, but I was scared, Ms. Sein said. The popular press also has a lot to answer for. 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. Gerdin determined that Macchiarini committed scientific misconduct, but leadership at the Karolinska Institute ignored the findings and cleared Macchiarini. 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. They didnt. Wasnt something of this idea behind the special treatment Karolinska gave Macchiarini? What Is Benita Alexander Doing Now? She Was Conned Unfortunately, though, she reportedly succumbed to her underlying disease in January of 2012. I Googled trachea transplant and Dr. Genden popped up. Thereafter it was all over the news. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City cast member was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for defrauding the elderly. Countless news stories declared it a medical breakthrough. 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. 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. You start to panic because you cant breathe., By early 2020, ethical approvals were in place, but the coronavirus pandemic held things up. (The patient who survived had the implant removed.). 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. Selena died in a hospital due to a loss of blood and cardiac arrest, two weeks before her 24th birthday. Over the years, this possibility has generated great excitement and a huge amount of research. 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. An unhappy result of this is the rise of pseudo-scientific therapies. Last year, however, the dream soured, exposing an ugly reality. There was another reason to be daunted too: historical assumptions that tracheas werent transplantable. 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Sonia Sein, outside her Bronx home, had irreparable damage to her trachea. Learn how your comment data is processed. Previously considered a pioneer for using both biological and synthetic scaffolds 2023 Warner Bros. 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 theory was simple: let the body do most of the work. 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. We have, for example, a growing list of scientific celebrities who have committed major stem cell fraud. 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. Benita Alexander with one of the custom-made gowns intended for her wedding [Investigation Discovery]. They identified many problems with the way the twin organisations handled him. She visits Mount Sinai weekly for blood work. 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. 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. He was one of the best con men I have ever come across. Hes clearly bright and has accomplishments, but he cant contain himself. In his case, his stem cells were seeded into the airway just hours before it was implanted into him, making it work perfectly fine. And because it was built from Castillos own cells, she didnt need to be on any risky immunosuppressant drugs. 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. Disgraced tracheal transplant surgeon is handed Paolo Macchiarini traveled to Illinois to operate on toddler Hannah Warren, who was born without a trachea in 2013. Emanuela Pecchia: Everything We Know On Paolo Macchiarini Wife It is fitting that Macchiarinis career unravelled at the Karolinska Institute. ONE Championship A review of public records in Italy found that Paolo was never divorced from Emanuela Pecchia, his wife of nearly 30 years. The coronavirus pandemic will most likely create more cases because many Covid-19 patients have needed weeks on ventilators. Indonesia One was a 2-year-old girl named Hannah Warren, on whom hed operated in Peoria, IL, in 2013, according to Vanity Fair. He should be given death penalty! The couple had traveled extensively, but there were a 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. Help News from Science publish trustworthy, high-impact stories about research and the people who shape it. This guy mutilated people., Between 2011 and 2014, Macchiarini implanted artificial windpipes in at least eight patients in Sweden, the United States, and Russia. It is also unclear whether the verdict Thursday will have an impact in other jurisdictions where Dr. Macchiarini conducted windpipe operations. February 28, 2022 Emanuela Pecchia is famously known as the wife of popular Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon, Paolo Macchiarini. An alarmingly wide gap has grown between what we expect from stem cells and what they deliver. In the first couple of years at Karolinska, he put plastic airways into three patients. But in October 2017, the attorney general's office announced that a crime could not be proven, because the patients might have died anyway. 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. New Jersey In addition to his partner of over 30 years, he also had a special next woman. Benita Alexander on attending Paolo Macchiarinis criminal trial in Sweden Alexander said she attended Macchiarini's trial for closure, seven years after she was Back in New York, Benita found herself unable to stop thinking about Paolo's patients. By the time the program aired, in mid-2014, the couple were planning their marriage. Dr. Macchiarini received a conditional, or suspended, sentence, and was acquitted of assault charges related to two other patients who had also received the artificial organs from him at the Swedish facility. She considered backing out. Macchiarinis lawyer declined to comment to Swedish media today about whether his client would appeal. All rights reserved. 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. When Macchiarini accused one of them, Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, of stealing his work in a grant application, Hamsten found him guilty. You cant justify doing experimental surgery and immunosuppression when you see something else that looks perfect, so you realize, wow, were out of business., As Dr. Macchiarinis work drew criticism, Dr. Genden revived his idea, but was uncertain about trying it. Four of Macchiarinis colleagues at KI, including Corbascio, filed official complaints in 2014 charging that several papers describing the surgeries deliberately left out serious complications in the patients. Although all three patients eventually died, Dr. Macchiarini was not directly accused of killing them. She soon went into full-on investigative journalist mode, and learned that Paolo had, yup lied about everything. Its fascinating to rewatch as a lesson on how not to report on medical science. Beyenes death two and a half years after the operation, caused by the failure of his artificial airway, was a grueling ordeal. But the judges decided that, because the initial prognoses for Andemariam and Lyles were so grim without surgery, Macchiarini could not be held criminally responsible in those cases. (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.). 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. 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. Reports of their success always seemed like hot air to him. Although the difference in his birthplace, he is known to be an Italian by his nationality. He could see no real evidence that the windpipe scaffolds were becoming living, functioning airways in which case, they were destined to fail. A High-Flying Italian Surgeons Fall From Grace, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/world/europe/macchiarini-windpipe-surgeon-deaths.html. China It is thus likely she has since passed away. I wasnt lying exactly, just Prior to this, he was regarded as a pioneer in the field of regenerative medicine using both biological and synthetic scaffolds seeded with patients own stem cells as trachea transplants. In 2016, Claudia returned to the Hospital Clinic to have her left lung removed, and as per the last reports, she is now alive and doing relatively well. Delaere was one of the earliest and harshest critics of Macchiarinis engineered airways. Eduard Folayang Ground-breaking work on synthetic organ transplants made Paolo Macchiarini one of the most famous doctors in the world. Chatri Sityodtong After Macchiarini fitted Cetir with one of his artificial windpipes in 2012, her condition worsened. 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. Emanuela Pecchia has been married to Paolo Macchiarini for over 30 years. 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. But of 20 patients, including children, most ultimately died, and scientists said Dr. Macchiarini misrepresented data and exaggerated his techniques effectiveness. Bangkok None other than Pope Francis would officiate, and his papal palace in Castel Gandolfo would serve as the venue. Thousands of people in the United States alone develop trachea problems each year from burns, birth defects, tumors and extended intubation on ventilators. Macchiarini had often boasted to Alexander of his famous friends. But Benita stood by her man and, she said, tried to help him through a tough time. Your tax-deductible contribution plays a critical role in sustaining this effort. 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. US Capitol If there is a moral to this tale, its that we need to be wary of medical messiahs with their promises of salvation. George Floyd Largely confined to her Bronx apartment, she needed home health aides and had to quit her career as a social worker for pregnant women. But hes lost his reputation, and thats more important.. 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. The law is supposed to protect individuals from all types of assault, especially when they are powerless, said Dr. Bengt Gerdin, an independent investigator who was hired by the Karolinska Institute in 2015 to look into Dr. Macchiarinis work. Some answers have emerged from the official inquiries into the Karolinska Institute and the Karolinska University hospital. Watch He Lied About Everything on ID GO now! Some of them have been successful, but theyre cumbersome in different ways and theyre not a trachea, Dr. Patterson said. Dr. Genden said some scientists told him Youre out of your mind because trying a transplant would risk his reputation. Paolo Macchiarini is a thoracic surgeon.
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