US doctors accused of misusing embryos

Reproductive medicine in the US is being shaken by a scandal that involves one of its foremost leaders. Dr Ricardo Asch, a developer of gamete intrafallopian transfer and author of six textbooks, is one of three Californian fertility specialists accused of taking eggs from patients, fertilising them, and then implanting the embryos into unrelated women.

His codefendants are Dr Jose Bulmaceda and Dr Sergio Stone; all three are members of the faculty at the University of California at Irvine. The three are also accused of selling embryos to research laboratories. So far, at least 17 women and couples have filed suits against the doctors and the university.

In 1992 staff members of the fertility clinic began to suspect that embryos were being misappropriated. …