Last week, I
blogged about the Ochsner Hospital in Louisiana, which has indefinitely
suspended operations at its in vitro fertilization center in Elmwood because of
a mix-up in the labeling of frozen embryos. Approximately 100 couples may be affected by the labeling
errors, and two class action lawsuits have been filed against Ochsner so far.
It has now been reported that Ochsner
can't find four missing embryos belonging to one couple that the fertility
clinic froze more than two years ago, and two embryos belonging to another
couple have disappeared. Ochsner insists that, although frozen embryos were systematically
mislabeled, none have been transferred into the wrong patient.
I also blogged
about Carolyn Savage, an Ohio woman who gave birth to a boy (which she
delivered to the child’s genetic parents) after the Ohio fertility clinic where
she underwent in vitro fertilization transferred another couple's embryos into
her uterus.
The American Society for
Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) executive director Robert W. Rebar has released the following statement
regarding the recent embryo mix-ups.
The statement appears to suggest that ASRM intends to work with
lawmakers to develop laws to supplement existing industry self-regulation,
although it is vague about what form such laws may take:
Even with these [ASRM
industry self-regulation] efforts, the incidents reported this week make it
clear that there is still work to do. As the leaders in reproductive medicine,
we will redouble our efforts to develop systems that will assure our patients
and the public that these kinds of mistakes will not happen.
The time has come for policy makers to sit down with the
leading experts in the field to explore ways we can codify our standards to
give them additional regulatory teeth.
We will lead an
effort involving our members, representatives of patient groups, policy makers
and other stakeholders to work together to come up with solutions.