Earlier this month, a fertility doctor who practices in the Chicago area received a warning letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding testing and screening practices at the doctor’s clinic. The warning, which has also been posted on the agency’s website for the public to view, claims that the doctor’s clinic failed to meet certain requirements when testing potential egg donors.
The Chicago doctor has issued a response since the warning letter from federal regulators was made public earlier this month. He claims that he has addressed the agency’s concerns about practices at his clinic and that none of his patients were ever harmed as a result of the clinic’s failure to properly screen and test egg donors for sexually transmitted diseases.
The fertility doctor claims that practices at his clinic have been sufficient and that government regulators simply found his testing and screening practices for egg donors to be different from the way in which the agency would like such screenings to be conducted. However, the FDA claims that during its investigation of the doctor’s clinic, the agency found “significant deviations” in screening and testing requirements for egg donors at the clinic.
Although it is very rare for STDs to be spread during fertility treatments involving the donation of women’s eggs, fertility clinics are still required to screen donors for certain STDs, like gonorrhea, chlamydia and HIV, in order to avoid any possibility of spreading an STD from an egg donor to another patient who is undergoing fertility treatments. But when the FDA investigated the Chicago doctor’s clinic over the summer, investigators discovered that the clinic had not been properly screening egg donors for STDS.
According to reports, none of the doctor’s patients have been harmed by the alleged deviations at the doctor’s clinic. The doctor claims that his clinic has addressed the FDA’s concerns since the investigation was conducted.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, “FDA: Fertility doctor didn’t test donors for STDs,” Carla K. Johnson, Nov. 7, 2012
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