Karolinska Institutet announced today it would not extend the contract of star surgeon Paolo Macchiarini. He has been instructed to “phase out” his research from now until November 30.
According to a press release issued today: Continue reading Karolinska won’t extend star surgeon Macchiarini’s contract
Karolinska Institutet may reopen its misconduct investigation into acclaimed surgeon Paolo Macchiarini following new allegations revealed during a documentary series by Swedish Television.
According to a recent statement from KI: Continue reading Karolinska may reopen inquiry into star surgeon Macchiarini, following documentary’s revelations
We are pleased to present a guest post by Paolo Macchiarini, a surgeon best known for pioneering the creation of tracheas from cadavers and patients’ own stem cells. Macchiarini has faced some harsh criticisms over the years, including accusations of downplaying the risks of the procedure and not obtaining proper consent. We have covered the investigation, including the recent verdict by Karolinska Institutet that he acted “without due care,” but was not guilty of misconduct. He has taken issue with some aspects of our coverage, and has written a guest post to present his side of the story. We welcome such debate, and have included a short response at the end of his post.
I admire the underlying aims of Retraction Watch. That might come as a surprise to some readers of the site, given that it has a whole page devoted to me in its archives. However, I believe passionately that scientific misconduct is a serious crime. It not only undermines the very purpose of science, but has victims as well, especially in clinical specialisms. It is vital that misconduct is detected, that fraudulent work is retracted and those retractions made public. That is why I support Retraction Watch’s aims. But I am not writing in wholehearted support of the site. Continue reading Where I think Retraction Watch went wrong: A guest post from Paolo Macchiarini
Following an investigation, Karolinska Institutet has found that surgeon and visiting professor Paolo Macchiarini acted in some cases “without due care,” but that his behavior “does not qualify as scientific misconduct.”
Karolinska’s Vice Chancellor has also recommended that Macchiarini submit an unspecified number of corrections “to clarify and rectify the failings that the inquiry has brought to light.”
Macchiarini is most well-known for pioneering the creation of tracheas from cadavers and patients’ own stem cells. However, the glow of his success was diminished somewhat after four Karolinska surgeons filed a complaint, alleging Macchiarini had downplayed the risks of the procedure and not obtained proper consent, among other accusations.
An external review by Bengt Gerdin of Uppsala University concluded in May that Continue reading Trachea surgeon Macchiarini acted “without due care,” but is not guilty of misconduct: Karolinska
One of Paolo Macchiarini’s co-authors on a 2011 Lancet paper describing an allegedly groundbreaking procedure to transplant an artificial trachea seeded with stem cells is objecting to a recent investigation that concluded Macchiarini had committed misconduct.
Ola Hermanson, who studies neural stem cells at Karolinska Institutet, argued in a report dated June 29 that the investigation contained “serious flaws and formal errors.”
Hermanson’s lengthy response (uploaded here except for supporting emails) is to the findings of an external review of allegations about Macchiarini’s work, conducted by Bengt Gerdin, of Uppsala University. In regards to the 2011 Lancet paper, Gerdin’s investigation found:
Continue reading Macchiarini co-author objects to investigation’s misconduct verdict
This week at Retraction Watch saw us report on thousands of retractions from IEEE, which will have a serious effect on retraction record-keeping, a bizarre case of author impersonation, and a look at dentistry in outer space. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: LaCour loses job offer; new Science data guidelines; Macchiarini grant funding frozen
This week saw us profiled in The New York Times and de Volkskrant, and the introduction of our new staff writer. We also launched The Retraction Watch Leaderboard. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Duplication rampant in cancer research?; meet the data detective; journals behaving badly
The Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has released an English translation of an external review that found Paolo Macchiarini, a celebrated surgeon who is credited with creating tracheas from cadavers and patients’ own stem cells, committed misconduct in a series of papers describing the work.
You can read the entire report, news of which was first reported by Science, here. The investigator, Bengt Gerdin, of Uppsala University, considered a series of allegations about Macchiarini’s papers, and found a number of them lived up to the verdict of misconduct. There were seven affected papers, not six, as was reported last week based on the initial findings (reported in Swedish).
For instance, in a 2014 Nature Communications paper describing the procedure in rats, Gerdin found that the scientists erred when none of the listed authors could assume responsibility for a CT image showing rats with “a smooth and patent oesophagus” (the researcher who took it asked to be left off the author list when he disagreed with how it was being interpreted), among other issues: Continue reading Misconduct found in 7 papers by Macchiarini, says English write-up of investigation
Paolo Macchiarini, the celebrated surgeon whose work has come under scrutiny in Italy and at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, committed misconduct in six papers, according to an external reviewer.
Macchiarini is best known for creating tracheas from cadavers and patients’ own stem cells. The findings of the external review, first reported yesterday by SvD Nyheter, were made public last week. They are only available in Swedish thus far, and we have requested a copy from the Karolinska.
External reviewer Bengt Gerdin, of Uppsala University, summarized his findings this way for Retraction WAtch: Continue reading “Super-surgeon” Macchiarini guilty of misconduct, external review finds
Surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, who is under investigation for allegedly downplaying dangers of an experimental surgery, has been cleared of some misconduct allegations by the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.
Macchiarini, a thoracic surgeon, has made headlines for repairing damaged airways using tracheas from cadavers and even synthetic tracheas, both treated with the patients’ own stem cells to assist in the transplant.
In a letter to Vice-Chancellor Anders Hamsten dated last month, KI’s Ethics Council refuted a number of accusations leveled against Macchiarini by Pierre Delaere at KU Leuven in Belgium, who had suggested the surgeon had engaged in scientific misconduct, including fabricating data.
The Ethics Council, however, disagreed: