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. Even the jewelry he had given her was fake. Macchiarini was turning the dream of regenerative medicine into a reality. On May 13, Alexander left her job. I dont want to live like this, she concluded. In 2019, an Italian court said he had forged documents and abused his position, charges unrelated to his trachea work. They exchange their vows in Italy. One of these is the hype surrounding stem cells. 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. 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. They will especially examine the judges decision that Macchiarini couldnt be held responsible for what happened to Andemariam and Lyles because he acted in distress, according to the courts statement. 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. Discovery, Inc. or its subsidiaries and affiliates. Scientists can also suffer from false hope. Not just that, Paolo was also entangled in several other controversies. It relieved a little bit of burden from him.. Nevada Unfortunately, due to complications, she passed away either around Christmas of that year or in the first few months of 2009. Stem cell clinics have sprung up like weeds, offering to treat just about any ailment you can name. But it did not work, and a court in Sweden has found him criminally liable for the harm inflicted on a patient. The next morning, with the donor and Ms. Sein in adjacent rooms, a team of over 50 medical personnel assembled. The charismatic Italian surgeon who designed it foresaw a future where hearts and lungs could be made from plastic, and organ donations became a thing of the past. 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. The Karolinska Institute was seduced by Macchiarini, Gerdin told the newspaper. He is still licensed to practice medicine in Europe. An alarmingly wide gap has grown between what we expect from stem cells and what they deliver. Investigations by the hospital and the Karolinska Institute revealed that issues with Dr. Macchiarinis work had been covered up. According to Macchiarini and his colleagues, her artificial organ was well on the way to looking and functioning liked a natural one. Death for Season 2 at Peacock, From 'Truth About Pam' to 'Candy,' True-Crime EPs Tell the Truth (VIDEO). Benita Alexander wearing a wig as she tracked down Paolo in Barcelona [Investigation Discovery]. In their view, Macchiarini was certainly engaged in clinical research. Anyone can read what you share. Claudia Castillo with Dr Paolo Macchiarini. 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. A review of public records in Italy found that Paolo was never divorced from Emanuela Pecchia, his wife of nearly 30 years. And difficult to jump off. Singapore By this year, Dr. Genden said, her condition had deteriorated so that if we delay further, its not going to work out.. From that moment on, she made a proposal to Paolo Macchiarini, and Dateline planned to publish the story. Her colleague had sent an article that said the pope would not be in Rome, or even Italy, on the day of their wedding. Benita traveled to Paolo's Barcelona home with two friends and a video camera. She remained conscious and awake throughout most of them, but unable to breathe. She says it may mean the judges thought he and the patients believed time was short and options were few. Paolo Macchiarini This went on for three years until, just recently, Grinnemo was cleared of all wrongdoing. Emanuela Pecchia (Paolo Macchiarani's Wife), Bio, Age & More Those few patients who are still alive including Castillo have survived in spite of the artificial windpipes they received. They allowed Macchiarini to continue his work as a visiting professor with a research lab. Delaere feels the sentence is too light for what he considers a serious crime. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in 2013. In the case of Cetir, he should have known the risk of complications was higher than the expected benefit, the judges ruled. The Karolinska University Hospital suspended Dr. Macchiarinis contract as a surgeon in 2013, but the affiliated Karolinska Institute kept him on until 2016 even as the scandal over his work spread, according to a timeline on the institutes website. Paolo Macchiarini In 2018, KI finally released the findings of its second investigation, which confirmed he had committed misconduct. Benita Alexander Before their wedding, the Andemariam Beyene, for instance, had recurrent cancer of the windpipe but, aside from a cough, was still in good health. Her ex-husband John was dying of cancer. According to the Times, Macchiarini seen below in a 2017 interview on Swedens TV4 Nyheterna performed 20 tracheal regeneration procedures across Europe and in the United States but hid the fact that the transplants were failing. Subscribe to News from Science for full access to breaking news and analysis on research and science policy. 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. 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. You start to panic because you cant breathe., By early 2020, ethical approvals were in place, but the coronavirus pandemic held things up. Likewise the whole idea of a wedding: Macchiarini was still married to his wife of 30 years. With his methods still under fire in the West, he continues to work in Russia. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Some of them have been successful, but theyre cumbersome in different ways and theyre not a trachea, Dr. Patterson said. As Selena ran from the room, Yolanda Saldivar shot her in the back. Dont yet have access? Keep up with your favorite shows delivered to your inbox! This was Macchiarinis first big success. It is thus likely she has since passed away. But according to reports, Paolo cheated on his Emanuela Pecchia. Ive never in my experience witnessed a fraud like this, with this level of international flair, Murphy told Vanity Fair. Talking about her spouse Paolo, he became infamous for research fraud and manipulative behavior. What's next for abortion rights in America? Its actually meaningless for him, Gerdin says. As the home of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, one of its ambitions is to create scientific celebrities. He is from Italy. Look out for a message in your inbox in. In early 2014, four Karolinska doctors defied the reigning culture of silence by complaining about Macchiarini. First Successful Trachea Transplant a Medical Milestone - The That meant the donor trachea was accompanied by a blood supply that Dr. Genden connected to Ms. Seins blood vessels. 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. The Karolinska Institute declined to comment for this article, noting only that Dr. Macchiarinis sentence may be appealed. Dr. Genden said Dr. Macchiarinis rise and fall profoundly affected his own path. 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. Here are 13 more things about him: He married Pecchia in 1986. 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. The media began calling him "Dr. Frankenstein" and said that he committed "the world's biggest medical fraud.". The pope, the palace, the world leaders, the famous tenor they were all fantasies. Because immunosuppressant drugs are required to prevent rejection of the transplant, cancer patients would be eligible only if free of cancer for five years, Dr. Genden said. We would have been planning my funeral, she said, but now were planning a birthday party.. Which left a big, burning question in the air: if Macchiarini was a pathological liar in matters of love, what about his medical research? Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Please make a tax-deductible gift today. New York Allegations also emerged that the risky procedure was performed on at least one person who was not critically ill at the time. 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. 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. Andrea Bocelli was to sing at the ceremony. Paolo Macchiarini Wife We now know that wasnt true. A life-saver and a game-changer. When Macchiarini accused one of them, Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, of stealing his work in a grant application, Hamsten found him guilty. I had a brave face, but I was scared, Ms. Sein said. Beyenes death two and a half years after the operation, caused by the failure of his artificial airway, was a grueling ordeal. There Was Nothing Anybody Could Do for These Patients. Now There Is. February 28, 2022 Emanuela Pecchia is famously known as the wife of popular Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon, Paolo Macchiarini. Benita was loyal to and supported Paolo when his professional life took a dark turn. His lawyer did not respond to emails from Science today. 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. Paolo Macchiarini rode groundbreaking surgeries to global fame, but patients died anyway. "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. Does the heat of stem cell research the high levels of funding, prestige and media coverage it enjoys somehow encourage fraud? Eduard Folayang Not only that, they later covered it up.. They also cited a loophole known as compassionate use. What comes next after Texas school shooting? They planned to marry in the Catholic Church in Italy. China The other patients were treated at hospitals in Barcelona, Florence, London, Moscow, Krasnodar, Chicago and Peoria. Gerdin determined that Macchiarini committed scientific misconduct, but leadership at the Karolinska Institute ignored the findings and cleared Macchiarini. 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. Macchiarini, who denied the charges against him, wasnt directly accused of killing any of the three patients. 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. Paolo Macchiarini, in a 2013 photo, implanted synthetic windpipes into multiple patients; all but one died following complications with the implants. There was another woman from the Czech Republic with mucoepidermoid carcinoma who received such a transplant. Macchiarini had often boasted to Alexander of his famous friends. His operation was on June 9, 2011, at the Karolinska University Hospital, where he received the upgraded plastic trachea made at University College London. Metro Guided by several mentors, he delved into research and animal experiments, developing a transplant approach. The first was a Vanity Fair article about his affair with Benita Alexander, an award-winning producer for NBC News. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini became a star by creating a bioartificial windpipe. Wasnt something of this idea behind the special treatment Karolinska gave Macchiarini? Only three are still alive as of September 2020. But on Thursday, the surgeon, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, was found criminally liable by a Swedish court for causing felony bodily injury to a patient he had fitted with one of the windpipes at a medical university in Sweden. If we've learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that we cannot wait for a crisis to respond. But colleagues suspected that Macchiarini was manipulating his results. The nine-centimeter transplant replaced all but two centimeters of her trachea. Anyone can read what you share. 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. Castillo was soon back home, chasing after her kids. But owing to her cancer returning and the formation of a fistula, she too passed away. If there is a moral to this tale, its that we need to be wary of medical messiahs with their promises of salvation. In 2015, the Karolinska Institute hired an independent investigator named Dr. Bengt Gerdin to look into the Macchiarini situation, per the Times. Alexander said that Macchiarini told her he was still married to his wife because they were Catholic but were separated. Euan Ward reported from London, and Christina Anderson from Bastad, Sweden. 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. He took the medical world by storm when he built and transplanted the worlds first bioartificial windpipe two years earlier. Journals retracted several of his studies. Brazil The court had to apply the intentional indifference standard for the assault charges, he says, which is difficult to prove. Paolo Macchiarini 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. 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. Even the jewelry he had given her was If the Pope was planning to marry two divorcees, surely it would be huge global news? Also, in such a highly competitive environment, people are keen to show allegiance to their superiors and wary of criticising them. But as time went on, she could not resist her connection to the dashing surgeon and she violated the number one rule of journalism: Never get involved with a person you're reporting on. If she talked for over five minutes, she had to stop because I couldnt breathe.. 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. Tokyo But Benita stood by her man and, she said, tried to help him through a tough time. Donald Trump Florida Benita Alexander on attending Paolo Macchiarinis criminal trial in Sweden Alexander said she attended Macchiarini's trial for closure, seven years after she was With Macchiarinis exploits endorsed by management and breathlessly reported in the media, it was all too easy to jump on that bandwagon. 2023 Warner Bros. Not only that, they later covered it up.. After being dismissed from the institute, he worked at the Kazan Federal University in Kazan, Russia. So, how much is Paolo Macchiarini worth at the age of 64 years old? Paolo Macchiarini - Wikipedia Paolo Macchiarini, Star Surgeon, Loses Court Ruling in Sweden Delaere was one of the earliest and harshest critics of Macchiarinis engineered airways. Pennsylvania Macchiarini, meanwhile, said he did not accept the findings of the disciplinary board. I could feel it in my lungs.. 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. Paolo Macchiarini: Surgeon convicted for fatal Swedish - BBC