Although the difference in his birthplace, he is known to be an Italian by his nationality. (LogOut/ Or rather, his celebrity status helped him do so. "I started thinking that if this man is lying to me at such an egregious level, theres no way hes not doing this in his medical life," she told CrimeFeed. They also questioned whether Macchiarini had obtained proper ethical permission for the surgeries and challenged a paper describing animal experiments with the technique. Dr. Genden also transplanted the cricoid, cartilage cuffing the trachea, supplanting Ms. Seins completely destroyed cricoid. 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. An independent investigator agreed. They planned to marry in the Catholic Church in Italy. 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. Tennessee 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. Benita first met Paolo at the bar at Bostons Mandarin Oriental hotel in February 2013, when she was helping coordinate an interview for an NBC special on regenerative medicine. How did the GameStop stock spike on Wall Street happen? Countless news stories declared it a medical breakthrough. He is still licensed to practice medicine in Europe. Claudia Castillo with Dr Paolo Macchiarini. Does the heat of stem cell research the high levels of funding, prestige and media coverage it enjoys somehow encourage fraud? Benita was loyal to and supported Paolo when his professional life took a dark turn. Acquittal is therefore difficult to defend., But Gerdin says the verdict is not unexpected. Paolo grew close to Alexander's daughter [Investigation Discovery], He was incredibly charming, worldly smart, sophisticated, and seemed very gentle," Benita told CrimeFeed. 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. Stem cell research is a hot field of science and, according to statistics, also a rather scandal-prone one. Hundreds of Americans are estimated to die each year because techniques like stents, surgery or lasers cannot heal their damaged tracheas, and they suffocate when airways narrow dangerously or collapse. Theres a void in his personality that he seems to want to fill by conning more and more people.. By this year, Dr. Genden said, her condition had deteriorated so that if we delay further, its not going to work out.. But, he added, Its an indirect technique. It takes time and can replace only the tracheas halfpipe side, so its not a complete tube.. But because Macchiarini is apparently living in Spain, its unlikely to have much effect. Likewise the whole idea of a wedding: Macchiarini was still married to his wife of 30 years. They reopened the case in 2020, this time charging Macchiarini on lesser counts of aggravated assault and severe bodily harm. She became close to Paolo as she opened her heart to him about how hard it was for her daughter, then nine years old, to lose her father. Talking about her spouse If the sins of Karolinska have been committed elsewhere, it is partly because medical research facilities share a common milieu, which harbours common dangers. Its enough to worry officials from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It relieved a little bit of burden from him.. Therefore, of all the medically ill individuals Paolo has ever provided a biological or synthetic implant to, at least 8 of them allegedly died due to his misconduct in research, failure to provide proper post-operative care, and/or his disregard for ethical practices. He has been convicted of research-related crimes in Italy and Sweden. Alexander said that Macchiarini told her he was still married to his wife because they were Catholic but were separated. In part, this is because the field of windpipe repair is a niche area. Not only that, they later covered it up.. Nearly all of those patients have died. Largely confined to her Bronx apartment, she needed home health aides and had to quit her career as a social worker for pregnant women. Macchiarini shot to prominence back in 2008, when he created a new airway for Claudia Castillo, a young woman from Barcelona. We now know that wasnt true. He officially cleared Macchiarini of scientific misconduct, allowing merely that hed sometimes acted without due care. 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. We have estimated Paolo Macchiarini's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini became a star by creating a bioartificial windpipe. It is thus likely she has since passed away. There was nothing anybody could do for these patients, said Dr. Genden, who became captivated by the problem in medical school 30 years ago after a patient with a tracheal tumor died. 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. Filipino MMA fighters Disgraced Italian surgeon convicted of criminal harm to stem cell patient. Macchiarini had often boasted to Alexander of his famous friends. Which left a big, burning question in the air: if Macchiarini was a pathological liar in matters of love, what about his medical research? This argument didnt wash with those who later investigated the case. Dont yet have access? There was another woman from the Czech Republic with mucoepidermoid carcinoma who received such a transplant. 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. Selena died in a hospital due to a loss of blood and cardiac arrest, two weeks before her 24th birthday. They didnt even seek the approval of Stockholms ethical review board, which is based at Karolinska. By the time the program aired, in mid-2014, the couple were planning their marriage. In Macchiarinis case, the hope was that patients could be treated with stem cells taken from their own bone marrow. Now they were on the wedding guest list: the Obamas, the Clintons, Vladimir Putin, Nicolas Sarkozy and other world leaders. But owing to her cancer returning and the formation of a fistula, she too passed away. Paolo then came across Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, a man from Eritrea who was training to be a doctor when he got diagnosed with cancer. Andrea Bocelli was to sing at the ceremony. Washington 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. He says, Ive created this bioreactor and its stem cells and it makes tracheas. And its huge., Dr. Genden said that when he and colleagues questioned Dr. Macchiarini at a conference early on, in his bigger-than-life way he says, This is ridiculous, you dont know what youre talking about, it functions beautifully., Dr. Genden thought his work had become obsolete, so you basically shut down the lab, he said. Award-winning documentary-maker Benita Alexander was swept off her feet by renowned Italian doctor Paolo Macchiarini in 2013 while she was working on a story about his pioneering medical work. By June 2013, when Paolo took Benita to Venice, Italy, for a romantic weekend, she knew she was falling madly in love. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in 2013. 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? She considered backing out. He could see no real evidence that the windpipe scaffolds were becoming living, functioning airways in which case, they were destined to fail. 2nd Impeachment Trial: What this could mean for Trump, Presidential transition of power: Examined, How Donald Trump spent his last days as president, How Joe Biden's inauguration will be different from previous years, Trump challenges the vote and takes legal action, 2020s DNC and RNC are different than any before, Power Trip: Those Who Seek Power and Those Who Chase Them, Leave No Trace: A Hidden History of the Boy Scouts, Keeper of the Ashes: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders, The Orphans of COVID: America's Hidden Toll, X / o n e r a t e d - The Murder of Malcolm X and 55 Years to Justice, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. The idea is that scientific progress is driven by the genius of a few. A genius is a revolutionary by definition, a risk-taker and a law-breaker. And investigations by both institute and the hospital found coverups regarding Macchiarinis work. But hes lost his reputation, and thats more important.. With his methods still under fire in the West, he continues to work in Russia. Records show that even with his implant failing, Andemariam was able to complete his Ph.D. before his demise in January 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. All rights reserved. The media began calling him "Dr. Frankenstein" and said that he committed "the world's biggest medical fraud.". But for now, lets focus solely on his medical patients, shall we? However, behind closed doors, Dr. Macchiarini was hiding a secret the procedures were not working. If she talked for over five minutes, she had to stop because I couldnt breathe.. A review of public records in Italy found that Paolo was never divorced from Emanuela Pecchia, his wife of nearly 30 years. 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. Her colleague had sent an article that said the pope would not be in Rome, or even Italy, on the day of their wedding. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. 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. In his case, his stem cells were seeded into the airway just hours before it was implanted into him, making it work perfectly fine. According to Pierre Delaere, a professor of respiratory surgery at KU Leuven, Belgium, Macchiarinis experiments were bound to end badly. 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. So did Karolinskas dean of research. 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. It would be a star-studded event. The scandal meant theres an amazing amount of scrutiny, he said.