Fertility Doctor Resigns From UCI : Medicine: On same day, university says it put him and two others on leave. He is accused of taking women’s eggs without their consent, but he denies any wrongdoing.

The founder of an internationally acclaimed fertility clinic said Saturday that he has resigned from the UC Irvine medical faculty amid allegations that he took eggs from patients without their consent.

At the same time, UC Irvine Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening announced that Dr. Ricardo H. Asch and his two partners at the UCI Center for Reproductive Health were placed on leave from the university, pending the outcome of investigations of medical and research practices at the center.

Also placed on leave effective Friday were Drs. Jose Balmaceda and Sergio Stone. It was unclear Saturday whether Asch’s resignation or the forced leaves occurred first.

“This immediate action was necessary in light of new information concerning allegations against physicians in the Center for Reproductive Health,” Wilkening said in a prepared statement.

She was referring to a recent accusation by a clinic patient that one of the patient’s eggs was given without consent to another woman, who subsequently gave birth.

Through his lawyer, Asch on Saturday made his first public response to the allegations, denying any wrongdoing and accusing the university of shirking its responsibility in the wake of complaints that have surfaced. He said he resigned Friday because UC Irvine has created a “police-like atmosphere” at the clinic that has made it impossible for him to continue practicing medicine “in a quality fashion.”

Asch’s lawyer, Lloyd Charton, said Saturday that the doctor had not been informed of the university’s action. “It is just another indication of [UCI’s] irresponsible behavior,” he said.

Asch is “indignant and outraged” by the attack on his reputation and denies having knowingly violated the wishes of any of his patients, Charton said. He added that Asch denies breaking any human research regulations set by the university or the federal government.

Charton said his client, one of the nation’s foremost fertility experts, contends that if any administrative mistakes were made at the clinic that led to the complaints, UC Irvine should share in the blame.

The university has severed its ties with Asch’s clinic, which must move out of UCI Medical Center in Orange by June 2. On Tuesday the university sued Asch, alleging that he attempted to alter patient files that would show whether he had taken eggs from patients without the donors’ consent.

The university also contends that Asch and his partners at the Center for Reproductive Health have conducted unapproved research on patients and have been withholding from authorities patient files and embryology reports.

Balmaceda and Stone could not be reached for comment Saturday. Asch was out of town for the weekend, but faxed his resignation to the university at 5:30 p.m. Friday, his lawyer said.

Also Friday, the university hand-delivered letters to the homes of all three doctors, informing them of the leaves, said Fran Tardiff, a university spokeswoman. She did not know what time the letters were delivered.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael Capizzi said his staff planned to meet Monday with UC Irvine police and Medical Board of California investigators to review the allegations.

Asch’s lawyer denied that his client had used a woman’s eggs without her permission in 1993 and only last month asked her to sign a retroactive consent form. The allegation was included in court documents filed by the university Tuesday.

“I have not recently gone to anyone asking them to sign a consent form for procedures done in the past and deny any report to the contrary,” Asch said in a statement read by his lawyer. “Not only have I not done it recently, I have never done it in my career. And furthermore, I have never asked anybody to change a medical record.”

Charton also said Asch “absolutely never harvested eggs from a woman and then used those eggs intentionally in contradiction to the instruction of the patient.”

The lawyer said Asch is not certain of the identities of the women who have made these charges.

“He would love to know the identity of the people who anonymously point a finger at him and accuse him of wrongdoing, because he would like to confront them and explain to them that they are wrong, inaccurate,” Charton said.

The lawyer said his client, as a pioneer in fertility medicine, had “dedicated his entire career to helping people” and until now had not paid much attention to the importance of making certain that legal protocol was followed at his clinic.

“All of a sudden he finds himself involved with a nest of lawyers and all of a sudden he finds himself understanding that he has to focus more upon legal forms, consent forms and authorization forms,” Charton said.

Asch gained international prominence by pioneering the GIFT procedure, in which a woman’s eggs and a man’s sperm are placed in the woman’s Fallopian tubes, where conception occurs naturally.

Charton said Asch had taken for granted that others were keeping track of embryos and records. “He thought the administration at the university and the clinic were handling that to the satisfaction of the patients,” the lawyer said. “It was always his impression the office was run professionally enough that these administrative details were being properly and ethically handled.”

Under the clinic’s contract with UC Irvine, Charton said, the university had agreed to provide administrative assistance.

Asch had no choice but to leave UC Irvine, his lawyer said.

University officials “have made it unreasonable and untenable for him to continue his practice of medicine with them,” Charton said. “They have seized records and charts and created a police atmosphere with security guards.”