Karolinska’s haunted leadership
Johan Thyberg discusses the Macchiarini affair in the context of ethical shortcomings of Karolinska’s own leadership.
Tag: Paolo Macchiarini
Peter Wilmshurst vs Macchiarini cult at The Lancet
The 2008 Lancet paper of Paolo Macchiarini and Martin Birchall about the world first trachea transplant might end up retracted. Until recently, the journal’s editor Richard Horton used to ignore and suppress “non peer-reviewed” evidence, but due to combined pressure of activism, media and politics, things started to move.
Swedish Prosecution Authority reopens Macchiarini manslaughter investigation
A decision was announced by the Swedish Prosecution Authority in Gothenburg on the Paolo Macchiarini case today. The issue are plastic trachea transplants the scandal surgeon performed at the hospital of the Karolinska Institutet (KI) in Stockholm, Sweden. The earlier decision by state prosecutor was changed in part and the preliminary investigation will be reopened
Paolo De Coppi and the UCL organ factory
Paediatric surgeon Paolo De Coppi claims to grow all possible internal organs in his lab at UCL. Though his career started with his association with Macchiarini, and their regenerative medicine ideas sound strangely similar, De Coppi is celebrated as a modest genius poised to save lives of uncounted children, and the funding money flows.
Megagrant, the Russian docu-novel of Paolo Macchiarini
This is my review of the Russian book “Megagrant”, which tells of Macchiarini’s adventures with the plastic trachea, much of it played out in Russia, funded by a state Megagrant of €4.5mn. Some books are namely only good as court evidence.
How Macchiarini was recruited to Karolinska
In September 2010, trachea transplant surgeon Paolo Macchiarini was basically at the end of his career of fraud and patient abuse, unwanted by everyone. Except by Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, which pushed the recruitment process through in just 3 weeks, despite warnings from colleagues in Florence, Barcelona and Hannover not to employ someone who was basically a lying psychopath. Yet Karolinska leadership was desperate for some positive reviews for Macchiarini. They finally got them from London, from UCL and GOSH.
Former KI rector Dahlman-Wright: stones in a glass house
The Paolo Macchiarini investigation was initiated in 2016 by the interim Karolinska Rector Karin Dahlman-Wright, finalised this year by the newly installed Ole Petter Ottersen. The irony is that several Dahlman-Wright papers were now scrutinised data integrity sleuths with the result that one wonders if Dahlman-Wright was the right person to supervise any research misconduct investigations. Also Ottersen himself might be tainted: he is co-author on an old paper with image duplication.
Macchiarini victim Zhadyra Iglikova is dead
Another one of Paolo Macchiarini’s past trachea transplant patients has died on 9 July 2018. She received from Macchiarini a cadaveric decellurised trachea in December 2010. By 2018, Zhadyra’s situation critically deteriorated, the dying patient was used for another experiment. On June 5th 2018, Zhadyra received in Moscow another trachea transplant. Responsible was same Parshin who performed the first trachea transplant together with Macchiarini.
“Me llamo Paloma Cabeza Jiménez”: Macchiarini victim speaks out
Paloma was supposed to the second trachea transplant patient of Paolo Macchiarini’s in Barcelona, in summer 2008. The scandal surgeon gave her a fake diagnosis of a lethal tracheal cancer which she never had, and also “accidentally” mislocated her stent during a enforced bronchoscopy. All to coerce his patient to agree to a trachea transpalnt. Paloma had a lucky escape, twice. She namely also encountered Thorsten Walles.
Karolinska requests retraction of Macchiarini and Jungebluth papers
Karolinska Institutet announced its decision on 6 papers by their former professor and surgeon, Paolo Macchiarini. All are to be retracted, 7 scientists were found guilty of research misconduct, including one of the whistleblowers.
