Ignazio Marino
Ignazio Roberto Maria Marino is an Italian transplant surgeon who was Mayor of Rome from 2013 to 2015.
He was a member of the centre-left Democratic Party and held a seat in the Italian Senate from 2006 until his election as mayor of Rome. He was elected Mayor of Rome in June 2013. Shortly after his victory in the elections he was approached by an organised crime network which rigged public contracts and embezzled funds. Marino took the case to prosecutors, starting the 2014 Rome corruption scandal. On 12 October 2015, Marino resigned from the Office of Mayor amidst an expense scandal that had been made by the opposition parties of M5S and Fratelli d'Italia, but on 29 October he retired the resignation. Nevertheless, on 30 October he was ousted from his position after 26 of the 48 members of the City Council resigned. On 7 October 2016, over the allegations of embezzlement, fraud and forgery that had been made by the opposition parties of M5S and Fratelli d'Italia and after which he had stepped down to prove his innocence. The court decided for a full acquittal and ruled that Marino's actions "did not constitute a crime" and that the alleged facts "did not take place," according to article 530 of the Italian C.P.P..
As a surgeon, he trained with Thomas Starzl, who had pioneered liver transplantion in humans. In 1992-1993, as a member of Starzl's team at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States, he helped conduct two baboon-to-human liver transplants. He was instrumental in setting up the ISMETT liver transplant centre in Palermo, Sicily, which was founded in 1997. In 2001 he performed the first organ transplant in Italy for a person with HIV. In the United States he has held chairs as Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.
Biography
Early life and education
Marino was born in Genoa to a Sicilian father and a Swiss mother and is the oldest of three children. He graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome. He then trained at the Transplant Center of the University of Cambridge and the University of Pittsburgh's Starzl Transplantation Institute, under the guidance of Thomas Starzl, the pioneer surgeon who performed the first liver transplant in humans in 1963.Medical career
In 1992 he was appointed Associate Director of the National Liver Transplant Center of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center of Pittsburgh, the only organ transplant department of the Government of the United States. He was a member of the surgical team which in June 1992 and January 1993 performed two baboon-to-human liver xenotransplants in a clinical trial coordinated by Starzl.He was instrumental in setting up Palermo's ISMETT, the first liver transplant center in Sicily, founded in 1997 thanks to a partnership between the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Italian Government. He has been a Director and CEO of the institute.
In 2001 he performed the first organ transplant in Italy on a person with HIV undergoing highly active antiretroviral therapy—a kidney transplant made in response to a personal request from the patient himself, who had been turned down by other Italian transplant centres. A clinical success, the operation sparked an institutional dispute in Italy at the time.
In 2002 he left his position as Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and accepted a post as Professor of Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. To this end, he resigned from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, although polemics were raised over the circumstances of Dr. Marino's departure. Some Italian newspapers published that the reason for departure was related to some expense reimbursement requests, but Dr. Marino won several lawsuits against said newspapers, including Il Foglio that in July 2009 had also published a statement by UPMC spokesman Paul Woods. Statements included in the articles were declared by the Court “not true”, “not corresponding to factual reality." For having published a piece of news that was “false and injurious to Dr. Marino,” the Court condemned the journalists Giuliano Ferrara, Maurizio Belpietro, Mario Giordano, Vittorio Feltri, Franco Bechis, Paolo Granzotto, among others, and the newspapers Il Foglio, Libero, Il Giornale and Italia Oggi to pay Marino a total of Euro 90,000, beyond Euro 12,000 of legal expenses.
Marino has personally performed over 650 transplants. He is a byline author of over 170 peer-review articles and has authored three scientific books. In 2005 he published a book with Einaudi entitled Credere e curare ; the book deals with the medical profession and the influence that faith, seen as a religious creed but also as compassion, solidarity and empathy towards all human beings, has upon it. In 2005 he founded Imagine ONLUS, an international non-profit organization engaged in international solidarity activities with special regard to health issues. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of Transplantation, Liver Transplantation, Clinical Transplantation and 9 other international scientific journals.
Political career
Entry into politics
A good friend of Massimo D'Alema, Marino was persuaded by him to enter into politics as an independent candidate with the Democrats of the Left in the 2006 general elections, and was elected as a Senator; he has been the Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Health since 6 June 2006.Following the fall of Romano Prodi's government and an early election held in 2008, he was confirmed in the Senate, where he was appointed whip of the Democratic Party in the Standing Committee on Health and Chair of the Investigative Committee on the National Health Care System. In his second tenure as a Senator, Marino gained public exposure due to his strong support for the right to die and a clear advance health care directive law during the dramatic final days of Eluana Englaro, which caused widespread debate and a constitutional crisis within Italy. Following such events, Marino has become recognizable in Italian politics as a strong advocate of a lay country, gaining vocal support from left-wing parties and the Italian Radicals, but also being criticized by socially conservative politicians also within the Democratic Party, such as Paola Binetti.
In June 2009 he publicly announced his intention to run as a candidate for the Democratic Party leadership election in October. His leadership election platform was mostly focused on social rights, public health and environmentalism. He came third in the election, winning 12.5% of the votes.
Mayor of Rome
Marino ran the 2013 election for Mayor of Rome with the support of a centre-left alliance. After leading in the first round he was elected Mayor of Rome at the second ballot, winning 63.9% of the votes in a run-off against the centre-right candidate, the incumbent mayor Gianni Alemanno.Among Marino's projects has been the controversial opening of the Via dei Fori Imperiali to pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Mayor Marino cited his experiences as a cyclist in Philadelphia as the foundation for his having learned to live without a car.
Shortly after his victory in the elections, he was approached by an organized crime network that rigged public contracts and embezzled funds. Marino took the case to prosecutors, starting the 2014 Rome corruption scandal.
On October 18, 2014, Marino registered the marriages of 16 same-sex couples who requested it to the Municipality, which followed similar acts by other Italian mayors. Same-sex marriages and civil unions were illegal in Italy at the time, and by registering the marriages, the mayors hoped to force the hand of national legislators to clarify a deepening legal muddle around same-sex unions, particularly for Italians married abroad. Same-sex civil unions were eventually legalized in Italy in 2016.
On 12 October 2015, Marino resigned amidst an accusation of expense scandal that had been made by the opposition parties of M5S and Fratelli d'Italia, but on 29 October he retired the resignation. Nevertheless, on 30 October he was ousted from his position after 26 of the 48 members of the City Council resigned. He was replaced by a government-appointed commissioner.
On 7 October 2016, over the allegations of embezzlement, fraud, and forgery that had been made by the opposition parties of M5S and Fratelli d'Italia and after which he had stepped down to prove his innocence. The court decided for a full acquittal and ruled that Marino's actions "did not constitute a crime" and that the alleged facts "did not take place," according to article 530 of the Italian C.P.P.