If going through infertility wasn’t enough, now a clinic used wrong sperm. My heart goes out to the individuals this happened to.
A TOP fertility clinic used the wrong sperm to fertilize eggs on at least THREE occasions earlier this year.The Sun – London,UK
Embryos belonging to the couples, who were being treated at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, had to be destroyed and their treatment cycles abandoned.
The blunder was discovered because one of the couples was also undergoing PGD – screening to ensure their child would not carry a life-limiting gene defect.
Doctors checking the embryos for gene faults realised they could not have been produced using sperm and eggs from the couple named on paperwork. The other mistakes emerged when worried staff then ran checks on all embryos created the same day.
Danger
But fertility watchdogs have known since 2006 that slack laboratory rules meant there was a danger eggs could be fertilised with the wrong sperm.
In December 2006 HFEA inspectors raised concerns about sperm samples for more than one patient being in the lab when samples were being processed.
Guy’s & St Thomas’ IVF unit … warnings
Fertility expert Lord Winston said he was shocked that more than one sample was in the lab at any time.
“We never, never did that when I was working at Hammersmith.
The HFEA asked for a risk assessment, but did not impose any conditions on the clinic’s licence ordering doctors to tighten up their procedures.
But an inspection carried out in February 2008 revealed the clinic was still in danger of using the wrong sperm to fertilize eggs.
Inspectors noted: “The centre employs the practice of having all unprocessed sperm samples in the work area at one time.”
It added, this was “not compliant” with HFEA rules, but it went ahead and renewed the hospital’s licence without imposing any additional conditions.
Lord Winston said: “It’s a horrifying thing to happen once, you would have thought if it had happened before they would be absolutely scrupulous about making sure it didn’t happen again.”
Josephine Quintavalle of the campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics said: “The casualness is just dreadful.
“We don’t even know if this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
The HFEA says it hopes to issue a statement tomorrow on the blunder and its role in monitoring the clinic.
A spokeswoman for the Guy’s and St Thomas’ said the hospital was introducing electronic tagging of sperm, eggs and embryo to beef up controls.
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