Loss of eggs, embryos brings call for oversight
The loss of 4,000 eggs and embryos at the University Hospitals Fertility Clinic in suburban Cleveland in March was, according to a preliminary investigation, largely preventable. The Ohio Department of Health found the facility had issues with record keeping of temperatures and liquid nitrogen levels in their cryotanks and had only one designated point of contact for problems with the tanks.
Ohio Democratic State Sen. Joe Schiavoni is working on legislation he hopes will help prevent such disasters in the future and introduce penalties for fertility clinics that violate the new safeguards.
In a phone interview this week, he said the bill would incorporate recommendations from various stakeholders with whom he and his staff have been meeting, including the American College of Pathology; American Society of Reproductive Medicine; RESOLVE, which represents patients around the country; as well as University Hospitals.
Schiavoni, a father of a 5-year-old and 4-year-old, said he was moved to action when he heard from families affected by the tragedy. In one case, the father had passed away since the embryos were put in storage. In another case, a woman had cancer and was unable to produce more eggs.
“For many families there is no second go-round here,” he said.
When he and his staff started looking into what happened at University Hospitals, he said, they found “a lot of holes.”
Assisted reproduction is largely self-regulated in the United States, in sharp contrast to the United Kingdom, Sweden and other countries where governments keep detailed data and conduct regular monitoring of clinics. The fertility industry has argued this is sufficient. Many lawmakers have historically not been eager to jump into the field because of fears that whatever they do will get caught up in the inflammatory politics of conception and abortion.
Some states do have laws regarding surrogacy. Several are debating “personhood” amendments that give embryos the same right as people. Utah in 2015 passed a law that gives adults 18 and older who were conceived from donors access to the medical histories of their biological parents.
But legislation that attempts to create oversight and accountability of the dayto-day operations of fertility clinics is rare.
Schiavoni is acutely aware of these sensitivities and emphasizes the bill focuses only on cryostorage and does not attempt to regulate reproduction in any other way. His legislation is important, because it is one of the first attempts to try to create detailed rules governing how clinics operate, what they must report to the state — and to provide strong consequences for those that do not comply.
“I’ve been pretty clear in my political views that protect a woman’s right to choose. I try to not get into this conversation when it comes to the protection of these embryos and eggs, but it is part of the conversation. Some of the victims I talk to feel like they lost a child,” he said.