From thestar.com
Three years ago, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini was making history as a pioneering surgeon in the fledgling field of regenerative medicine.
But now any legacy is besmirched by scandal.
And the only thing that’s history may be his career.
In recent weeks, the Italian doctor has been swallowed by controversy. Media reports have reignited accusations of research fraud and introduced new allegations that he failed to explain the risks of his signature trachea surgery, in which he implants a plastic windpipe combined with tissue from a patient’s own stem cells.
A Swedish TV documentary reported in January that most of Macchiarini’s patients died after undergoing this surgery, including a woman in Russia who was not seriously ill before the procedure.
Meanwhile, two Swedish medical figures from the prestigious Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm have resigned over the handling of an investigation into falsified research that cleared Macchiarini of scientific misconduct last fall. The doctor’s research lab at the institute is being shut down, and Macchiarini will not work there past the end of his current contract in November. An inquiry into his research and practices has also been reopened.
In the midst of this, Vanity Fair published a story that detailed an extravagant web of lies that Macchiarini allegedly spun to win the affections of an American television producer who had worked on a segment about his work. The magazine reported that Macchiarini promised Pope Francis would officiate at their wedding in a quaint Italian village, in the presence of luminaries like U.S. President Barack Obama and the Emperor of Japan.
Macchiarini did not respond to an email from the Star on Thursday.
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