UC Irvine Sues 3 Doctors Who Run School Fertility Clinic

UC Irvine on Tuesday sued three doctors who run the school’s fertility clinic, asking the court to safeguard research records and equipment while the clinic is under investigation.

The university is ending its relationship with the lucrative UCI Center for Reproductive Health as internal and outside investigators try to determine whether doctors did research on patients without approval. UC Irvine stopped research at the clinic in February.

There is no evidence that any patients were put at risk, the school said.

“The stakes are high,” Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening said in a statement announcing the Superior Court lawsuit. If the university does not cooperate with an inquiry by the National Institutes of Health, it could lose its federal research funding, she said.

Officials said at least five investigations are looking into management, research and clinical practices as well as finances at the center, which will close June 2.

In the mid-1980s, Drs. Ricardo Asch and Jose Balmaceda developed the gamete intrafallopian-tube transfer, or GIFT method for enabling infertile women to have children.

Asch, the clinic’s director, Balmaceda and Dr. Sergio Stone moved their Garden Grove fertility practice to UCI Medical Center in 1990 in what was seen as a coup for the cash-short university because the doctors attracted paying patients.

Since then, they and employee Dr. Jane Frederick have helped hundreds of women have babies.

Balmaceda, Stone and Frederick acknowledged that they conducted research involving patients without the required approval, but said they did not believe they were doing anything wrong. Major universities require approval by a review board for studies involving humans.

Neither school nor national health officials would reveal details of the experiments.

“I have to wait for the process to go through to clear my name and be able to talk,” Stone said. “I feel like a fish in a net--like a dolphin caught in a tuna net.”

UC Irvine’s court filing alleges that one or more of the doctors may have tried to slip after-the-fact patient consent forms into records under review.

“While we deeply regret having to take the unusual step of going to court to obtain these documents, this is a highly unusual situation,” Wilkening said.

“The doctors’ refusal to respond to our requests for materials jeopardizes the university’s public responsibility to uncover the facts with a thorough and accurate investigation,” she said.

The suit also accuses the doctors of taking medical equipment worth $53,000 and destroying documents.

Many patients pay for treatments in cash, and auditors have made several recommendations for correcting problems with security and cash controls.

School records show that the center reported income of $5.56 million from 1991 through the first three quarters of 1994. The doctors also collect salaries as UC Irvine faculty members. Asch earns $120,900.

UC San Diego also has begun an internal review of the Assisted Reproduction Technology program that Asch set up in 1993 and operated with his partners. University spokeswoman Leslie Franz said the review was prompted by the Irvine investigations.

The doctors are moving their practices to Fountain Valley Regional Hospital. They also have a clinic at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills.