More than 100 fertility doctors in dozens of states may have brokered unauthorized transfers of human eggs, according to the bankruptcy court filing of a local company and its former records supervisor.
Options National Fertility Registry was forced out of business in 2003 after getting caught up in a tangle of lawsuits in Texas, the court filing says.
An Options donor, identified only as 'Elizabeth,' had contracted to donate her eggs to one infertile couple, and later learned that the doctor gave some of her eggs to a second couple without her knowledge, permission or consent, the bankruptcy documents say.
Elizabeth sued, and settled with the doctor out of court....
More recent audits of Options' records suggest that there were 596 embryos, and 2,189 eggs, unaccounted for. More than 300 post-cycle reports had irregularities, involving 80 medical facilities, 102 physicians and 229 donors....
"I consider it a wake-up call," she [the medical records supervisor] said. "This needs to be known. I couldn't go on knowing that these women weren't aware of what's going on, and that the children resulting from these arrangements would have no link to their genetic roots." ...
The situation bears an eerie resemblance to the fertility fraud scandal at UC Irvine a dozen years ago. Then, doctors took eggs from fertility patients without their permission, and gave those eggs to other women, at least a dozen of whom later gave birth.
"If it's true, it certainly would be a major scandal," said Arthur Caplan, chair of the department of medical ethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
"They call these egg donations, but these are egg sales. But even when you agree to sell your eggs, you're agreeing to a specific purpose and a specific couple. As we saw with the UCI problems, people might have reasons for not making their eggs available to certain other people. They do have the right to control the disposition of their eggs.
"It's not the same as stealing a whole embryo to make a baby," he said. "But you're supposed to know where things are going and it's absolutely important that the system can account for it and make sure it goes where it's supposed to go. If doctors are making deals on the side and moving them around – for teaching, research purposes, whatever – that is a violation of informed consent." ...
This is a substantial story, with many more details than I've excerpted here.
As I've said previously, Art Caplan is my go-to guy on this subject. I'm inclined to trust his judgments in this domain, with allowances for his colorful (that is to say, non-lawyerly) mode of expressing them. He is sometimes a bit quick on the draw for my taste, but that may be appropriate in this Wild West (and often highly entrepreneurial) domain of medical practice.
State and federal governments remain woefully behind the curve in providing an adequate legal and regulatory framework for assisted reproduction, as Art has argued for decades now.
1 comment:
I was an egg donor through Options and have just recently found out what's going on...I am sick and appalled. I would love to know what to do next...
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