In 1995 a mix-up that occurred at a prestigious fertility clinic in the Netherlands made front page headlines around the world, and was a featured segment on NBC's Dateline. A Dutch couple who had visited the clinic for in vitro fertilization became the parents of twin sons, but later discovered that one of their sons was not entirely their own. His biological father was not the Dutch man, but a man from Aruba, who along with his wife had sought reproductive assistance from the same clinic on the same day as the Dutch couple.

Was this just an isolated mishap? Apparently not - a more recent mix-up that occurred at the New York City office of a reputable reproductive specialist has been followed by the press since the first report of it surfaced in March, 1999. The incidents below, reconstructed after the fact, are excerpted from articles that appeared in The New York Times that spring.

The mix-up began in April, 1998 when Deborah Rogers and Donna Fasano arrived separately at the midtown Manhattan offices of Dr. Lillian Nash to undergo embryo implant procedures, the follow-up to in vitro fertilization of their eggs. After her procedure 10 of the Rogers embryos remained, and Dr. Nash and her colleague (Dr. Michael Obasaju, who assisted with the implantation procedure) recommended to Mrs. Rogers that these embryos be frozen and stored in case they were needed later.

One month later, Mrs. Fasano was pregnant with twins, but Mrs. Rogers had not conceived.

In late May, 1998 the Rogerses were informed by Dr. Nash that a mistake had occurred - some of their embryos had been implanted in another woman. At about the same time, she notified the Fasanos of a mishap in Mrs. Fasano’s implantation procedure – that she was implanted not only with the 4 of her eggs that had been fertilized by her husband, but with at least several of another couple's embryos.

At the time, Dr. Nash did not reveal to the Rogerses the identity of the woman who may have received their embryos, nor to the Fasanos the identity of the biological parents of the embryos that were erroneously donated to them.

Subsequent press accounts highlighted another aspect of the couples’ identities not revealed to them at the time by Dr. Nash – the fact that the Fasanos are white, and the Rogerses are black.
 

Questions for Group Discussion:

• At this point, how can the 2 sets of prospective parents tell who is the biological mother of the two fetuses? Is paternity testing needed as well? Would this determination have to wait until after the twins are born?
• Is there a procedure that would allow for determination of the race of the fetuses?
• Only 2 of the many embryos placed in Mrs. Fasano were successfully implanted. What potential impact did the mix-up have on Mrs. Fasano's ability to successfully raise her own embryos?
• What recourse do the Fasanos and Rogerses have?

On to Stage 2

Comments, suggestions, or requests to ud-itue@udel.edu. "http://www.udel.edu/inst/problems/embryo/" Last updated June 19, 1999. Copyright Deborah Allen, Valerie Hans, and Barbara Duch, Univ. of Delaware, 1999.