Asch Alleges UCI Officials Failed to Fix Policies

The physician at the center of the UC Irvine fertility scandal accused the university’s top administrators of failing to correct faulty patient consent procedures for as long as two years, according to grievances filed Thursday with the University of California and UCI’s Academic Senate.

In a three-page document, Dr. Ricardo H. Asch alleges UCI Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening and Vice Chancellor Sidney Golub learned of possible misappropriation of eggs as early as 1992, but kept the information secret from doctors at the Center for Reproductive Health. Asch suggested the consent procedures could have been revamped had he been made aware of the allegations.

In response to the grievance filing, Wilkening issued a one-word press release: “ridiculous.”

Medical experts have said physicians are ultimately responsible for obtaining patient consents.

Asch and his physician partners, Jose P. Balmaceda and Sergio Stone, are accused of taking the eggs and embryos of scores of women without their consent and implanting them in others. The doctors are the subject of at least seven investigations.

UCI has accused them of insurance fraud, financial wrongdoing and research misconduct. All three deny any deliberate malfeasance.

In Orange County Superior Court, Michael and Mary Winburn filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging their eggs and embryos were stolen and given to a woman who later gave birth.

The couple sought fertility treatment in 1989 at a UCI affiliate in Garden Grove. They are among more than 40 couples suing the doctors and the university in the scandal.