A Scandal Exceeds State Borders : UC Irvine fertility controversy invades Wisconsin; is there no end?
Finding an end to the UC Irvine fertility scandal proves ever more elusive. The disclosures keep coming. Auditors from KPMG Peat Marwick say Dr. Ricardo H. Asch, a former UC Irvine fertility specialist, took at least two dozen eggs and embryos from patients at UC San Diego and gave them to a University of Wisconsin researcher without approval from either patients or UCSD.
The new allegations lend further support to the conclusion that fertility practices must be under tight administrative controls and follow strictly enforced consent rules. The work must also occur in an atmosphere of respect for patients.
The scandal widened to UC San Diego last summer, and the new disclosures provide details about the extent of allegations of research misappropriation. The basic issues involving consent are the same, whether eggs were taken with the intention of producing babies or for furthering research.
What the UCSD-to-Wisconsin connection demonstrates is the latitude that apparently existed for things to go wrong. Inattention to administrative details, or outright buck-passing, enabled transfers to take place without proper documentation.
The Asch defense essentially has been that he was the talent and that it was up to others to manage the details. The University of Wisconsin says it took Asch at his word on consent and was duped.
For researchers like those at that university, it should now be apparent that such transactions are no different from having consent forms on file in, say, the nurse’s office of a school. Nor can those who work at the front of medical advances be excused from accountability. Rather, they must be held to exacting professional and legal standards. Taking eggs improperly is theft, after all.
Researchers also need to be mindful that they are trafficking in people’s dreams. Universities that enter this field must know that their own credibility will be on the line. On the frontiers of human reproduction, the trust implicit in the physician-patient relationship remains paramount.
