More Control Urged Over Fertility Field

IRVINE —  The field of assisted reproduction has ethical perils and requires more rigid oversight, a noted specialist in the field told colleagues and students at UC Irvine on Wednesday.

“It has to be obvious that more controls are needed,” said Johns Hopkins University physician and ethics panelist Edward E. Wallach in the opening address of an ethics conference organized by UCI following its nationally publicized fertility clinic scandal.

In a talk that traced the moral history of the field, Wallach pointed out that the scandal is only one of many controversies to arise from the fast-developing technology. And while publicity about the field’s ethical missteps often reflects poorly on its vast accomplishments, it can “help to keep us on the straight and narrow path,” he said.

Patients come to physicians with a trust “bordering on worship,” Wallach said. “We cannot allow ourselves to betray that trust.”

Wallach proposed creating some type of regulatory body similar to one in the United Kingdom that licenses clinics and keeps tabs on their research.

“Granted, the U.K. has a much more homogenous population,” Wallach said. “Nonetheless, this type of regulatory body is a model to be adapted.”

Wallach’s address began a three-day conference in which the science and ethics of reproductive technology will be discussed by 28 nationally and internationally recognized scholars, researchers and clinicians. The gathering, attended mostly by students and those working in the field, was intended to “do something positive” following the fertility clinic scandal that jolted the entire infertility industry, UCI officials said.

Three doctors at UCI’s former Center for Reproductive Health have been accused by the university of stealing eggs and embryos from scores of women and implanting them in others. They also face allegations of research and financial misconduct. The trio deny knowingly doing anything wrong.

“The question before this conference is how to provide ethical standards and guidance to avoid future reprehensible acts, said UCI Associate Chancellor Paul H. Silverman.

“As a community of peers, we must identify acceptable and unacceptable practices and provide guidance to patients and administrators and families as their roles evolve in shared decision-making about health care.

“We must also be prepared to bring censure on those practitioners who do not do the right thing.”