Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon

Synopsis

The series investigates Paolo Macchiarini’s claims to have invented a ground-breaking method to create new organs. His method using plastic tracheas sown with stemcells has been operated on patients in the US, Russia, Sweden and the UK. So far, unfortunately, the track record of his plastic organs is not very good. Almost all patients are dead. And several of his former surgeon colleagues in Sweden claim that not only does the method not work, but that his scientific claim to fame is based on falsified and misrepresented data. Some even claim that his patients have been used as human guinea-pigs.

First Air Date: 2016-01-13

Last Air Date: 2016-01-27

Number of Seasons: 1

Number of Episodes: 3

Created By: Bosse Lindquist

Networks: SVT1

View Technical Specifications on IMDb

Top Cast

Bosse Lindquist as Self - Speakerröst
Paolo Macchiarini as Self
Johannes Hallbom as Self - Reporter
Anna Nordbeck as Self - Reporter
Johannes Wahlström as Self - Reporter
Beyene Andemariam as Self
Julia Tuulik as Self
Andrej Vasiljev as Self - Julias make
Natalia Tuulik as Self - Julias mamma
Karl-Henrik Grinnemo as Self - Professor vid Institutionen för kirurgiska vetenskaper; Thoraxkirurgi

Seasons

Season 1 (2016)

No overview available for this season.

Episodes:

Ep. 1: Part 1 (2016-01-13)

Paolo Macchiarini is one of world's most famous surgeons. He hopes to revolutionize medicine by creating a new type of synthetic organ - a vision that could save many lives. But the Italian surgeon has also been accused of using terminally ill patients as human guinea pigs as well as falsifying his science. Is he a genius - or is he behind one of medicine's biggest scandals?
Ep. 2: Part 2 (2016-01-20)

In the summer of 2012, supersurgeon Macchiarini is under pressure when problems start to arise. His pioneering transplant work seems at risk when he discovers faults with the new synthetic organs. Macchiarini still has faith in the procedure and plans new operations. This time it will no longer be fatally ill patients on whom he tries out his new methods, but patients whose condition is not life-threatening. Will Macchiarini succeed with his pioneering work?
Ep. 3: Part 3 (2016-01-27)

By 2014, four Karolinska doctors started to question Macchiarini's transplantation of plastic tracheas and raised the alarm at Karolinska University Hospital and Karolinska Institute. They suspected that Macchiarini had been lying in his scientific papers and that patients' lives were being put at risk by a technique which had not been properly tested or investigated beforehand. But still his employer, the Karolinska Institute, defended him and claimed nothing was amiss.