Italian surgeon once hailed for pioneering windpipe surgery found guilty of bodily harm during operation
Three patients that he had treated with the trachea transplants subsequently died
Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
A disgraced Italian doctor who won global praise for pioneering windpipe surgery has been convicted by a Swedish court for causing bodily harm during an operation.
Paolo Macchiarini, who was hailed in 2011 after claiming to have performed the world’s first synthetic trachea transplants using stem cells, was given a suspended sentence by a court in Sweden where he was a surgeon.
But his work was called into question after three patients he treated with the trachea transplants subsequently died, reported the BBC.
Prosecutors claimed the operations constituted assault or bodily harm due to negligence on the part of Macchiarini.
The court cleared him in two cases because of the health of the patients. However, in a third case he was found guilty. If he breaks the terms of his suspended sentence, Macchiarini could be jailed for two years under Swedish law.
In total, eight such transplants were carried out.
Andemariam Beyene, who received the first transplant in 2011, died two and a half years later after a series of infections.
“I was very scared, very scared about the operation. But it was live or die,” he was quoted as saying after the operation.
After the ruling Macchiarini’s lawyer Bjorn Hurtig said: “We won most of the case”, as the court had cleared his client on “significant parts”
The doctor was also an employee of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute research facility, which awards the Nobel prize in medicine.
The institute sacked him in 2016.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments