Beyond cheerleading: How to reveal a scientific scandal

Desciption

The Macchiarini affair is one of the greatest scientific scandals of our time. With groundbreaking transplants and sensational articles in the most prominent scientific journals, Swiss-Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini amassed success and fame all across Europe, the US and Russia and was recruited by the Karolinska Institute – which grants the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology – and the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm. Patients were flown in from all around the world to be treated with Macchiarini’s revolutionary methods. The charismatic surgeon charmed colleagues, directors, journalists and patients and no one questioned the miracles he promised to perform. But his methods were fake and most of his patients died. Nevertheless, international media and esteemed medical institutions continued to sing his praises.

With the help of a few courageous whistle blowers, investigative journalist Bosse Lindquist managed to unravel a web of scientific fraud, intrigue, corruption and callous disregard for human life.

Only after his three part documentary “the Experiments” was shown in Swedish television in 2016, did responsible officials take action.

What led Bosse Lindquist to the story and the truth, when all other journalists, including experienced science journalists, had been blinded? What was his method to win the trust of Macchiarini himself, and to efficiently reveal and tell the story to the public?