Fertility

The UC Board of Regents have quietly settled a dozen lawsuits stemming from fertility fraud uncovered nearly 15 years ago -- drawing closer to an end a scandal that has dogged UC Irvine and left behind dozens of heartbroken couples. Shirel and Steve Crawford recently deposited their $675,000 settlement, minus legal fees, but it brought them little peace. In the late 1980s, in the midst of what many consider the country's worst fertility scandal, the Crawfords believe their embryos were given to a woman referred to in documents as "Mrs.

Even as the birth of octuplets at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center drew attention and applause from around the country, questions arose Tuesday about whether the mother's doctors did enough to prevent such a risky pregnancy. The chances that the eight babies born Monday were conceived naturally are infinitesimal, infertility specialists and doctors in maternal-fetal medicine say.

An Ohio woman who gave birth to a baby boy after a fertility clinic implanted her with the wrong embryo is a "guardian angel," the boy's biological parents said Saturday. Paul and Shannon Morell of suburban Detroit said in a statement that they would be "eternally grateful" to Carolyn Savage, of Sylvania, Ohio, for her decision to give birth to their child despite the clinic's mistake. "We will be eternally grateful for his guardian angel, Carolyn Savage, and the support of the entire Savage family," the Morells said.

When the identity of Nadya Suleman's fertility doctor was made public this week, the Internet lit up with angry commentary. Many called for Dr. Michael Kamrava to be stripped of his medical license -- or worse -- for providing the fertility treatments that led to Suleman's 14 children, including last month's octuplets. Rosalind Saxton had a different reaction.

A few months after Dr. Michael Kamrava helped Nadya Suleman become pregnant with octuplets, he transferred at least seven embryos to another patient. She was in her late 40s and wanted just one baby. Now she's five months pregnant with quadruplets and hospitalized at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, according to several sources familiar with the situation. The new case could add to concerns about Kamrava's practice and about whether the fertility industry needs more regulation.

In the wake of the recent study linking soy to reduced sperm concentration in men, newspaper and Internet headlines proclaimed the health food a cause of male infertility. It's true that the study was the largest so far to examine soy's effects on sperm, but the findings don't mean male fans of tofu burgers and soy milk need to abandon the foods just yet. The research on soy and sperm is in its preliminary stages -- and so far, highly conflicting.

It's NOT something I'm entirely proud of, but I can't seem to stop myself from doing it. Each week, when my teenage daughter's copy of Us Weekly magazine arrives, I'm compelled to read it. Last week's cover story really grabbed my attention: "It Was in Vitro! The Untold Story Behind Angelina and Brad's Twins."

The oldest woman ever to give birth deceived doctors to get the fertility treatment that enabled her to have twins at 67 last month, a British newspaper said Sunday. Carmela Bousada, who gave birth to twins Christian and Pau on Dec. 29, apparently convinced a Los Angeles clinic that she was 55, the cut-off age for its in-vitro fertilization program, Britain's News of the World said. "They didn't ask for my age or my passport.

The walls of his Westwood Village fertility clinic are lined with happy snapshots of moms and dads proudly showing off their little bundles of joy. But there was little jubilation Monday for Dr. Vicken Sahakian as he acknowledged that one of his patients had become the world's oldest new mother. "Congratulations? It was unintentionally successful," Sahakian said. "She lied to me. She falsified records, knowing my cutoff for single women is 55....

A prominent fertility scientist whose firm owns Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles is embroiled in a plagiarism dispute that straddles two continents, has triggered legal battles in South Korea and has raised questions about the practices of a leading U.S. fertility journal. Dr. Kwang-Yul Cha, whose company also owns fertility clinics and a large hospital in Seoul, is listed as the primary author on a medical paper that appeared in December 2005 in the U.S.