IVF botched Embryos destroyed by liquid, lawsuits

Patients have filed eight lawsuits against CooperSurgical, a major fertility company, which recalled the defective product.

CooperSurgical, a major medical supplies company, is facing a wave of lawsuits from patients who say one of its products destroyed embryos created through in vitro fertilization.

Fertility clinics around the world have used this product, a nutrient-rich liquid that helps fertilized eggs develop into embryos. This week, federal regulators made public that the company had recalled three lots of fluid used by clinics in November and December. The number of affected patients is unclear, although experts estimate it is in the thousands.

On Thursday, a Virginia couple filed a lawsuit against the company, the eighth in Virginia. two months with families in the United States. Collectively, the patients claim to have lost more than 100 embryos that had been bathed in the defective product, called culture media.

The plaintiffs claim that all three batches of media were missing. a key nutrient, magnesium, a defect that prevented their embryos from developing and rendered them unusable.

The company declined to comment on the lawsuits.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a recall notice Wednesday saying nearly 1,000 vials of culture media were affected, about half of which were purchased by clinics in the states -United. The filing said the company had notified affected clinics on Dec. 13, telling them that "performance issues may result in impaired embryonic development" and asking customers to stop using the product.

We are having difficulty retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode, please exit and log in to your Times account, or subscribe to the entire Times.