Fertility Drugs

Resolve: The National Infertility Assn. http://www.resolve.org Background: Founded in 1974, and now comprising some 50 chapters nationwide, Resolve is a vast, nonprofit support system for men and women with fertility problems. Its Web site functions as a library and advocacy center for consumers and fertility professionals. What Works: Resolve has been operating a national infertility hotline for years, and its experience shows.

I have octuplet derangement syndrome. Ever since Monday, when an unidentified woman gave birth to eight babies at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center near Los Angeles, I've been obsessed. And not in a good way. Sure, there were a lot of grinning doctors at news conferences early in the week, when they announced that the delivery had gone off without a hitch and all the babies were breathing on their own.

Despite mounting evidence of improper human egg transfers at UC Irvine's famed fertility clinic, Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening told auditors to hold off pursuing the allegations in May, 1994, according to confidential university documents. The documents contradict Wilkening's statements about when she first learned of the improper egg transfers and raise questions about her role in the unfolding scandal.

Fertility experts and medical ethicists reacted with shock Thursday to the latest allegations against a renowned UC Irvine trio of fertility doctors, with several also admitting to fears that the extraordinary case could have a devastating impact on their largely unregulated field. But if the allegations against Dr. Ricardo H.

A smiling little girl, eyes twinkling behind Coke-bottle glasses, opens the door of her brand-new home in a tract alongside the orange groves on the outskirts of Riverside. Her brother, smaller, thinner, but with the same sunny countenance, chatters merrily by her side. From the look of it, the boy could be a year younger than his sister. In fact, the two were born but a moment apart, and they had company. Five more babies emerged from the same womb, all under 2 pounds. One was stillborn.

It was a year of sobering ill will in Orange County in 1985. There was the county's worst environmental emergency, the introduction of a cold-blooded killer and a terrorist bombing that left one man dead. But there was a brighter side, too: If you commute on the Costa Mesa Freeway, if you think you might be arrested, if you're a goat, 1985 was probably a good year for you. When you think back on 1985 in Orange County, you will think of these happenings.

In a stunning attack Thursday on three of its most prominent doctors, the University of California accused a team of fertility specialists of transplanting patients' eggs without consent, conducting human subject research without permission and prescribing a fertility drug not approved by the government. The blistering legal complaint by university officials broadens misconduct allegations filed last week against Dr. Ricardo H.

U-2 test pilot Robert Rowe and his wife, Diane, both 39, were still hoping for a large family after seven years of marriage. Monday they got one, as Diane Rowe gave birth to the first quadruplets born in the Antelope Valley. "We always wanted a big family, but we just didn't expect it to happen all at once," she said after giving birth by caesarean section at Antelope Valley Hospital.

Patti Frustaci, who gave birth to septuplets nearly six years ago after taking a fertility drug, has delivered twins produced with the help of the same drug, her lawyer said Wednesday. Patti and Sam Frustaci became parents of a boy and a girl, Jordan Browne and Jaclyn Lee, on Dec. 21 at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, attorney R. Browne Greene said.

Italians voted Sunday in an emotionally charged referendum to repeal restrictions on fertility treatment and embryo research, but low turnout looked set to make the election invalid. At the end of the first day of the two-day poll, only 18.7% of eligible voters had cast ballots. Barring a surge in turnout today, commentators said, the referendum will fail to reach the 50% turnout needed to make it valid.