UC Irvine Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening expressed to Regents her frustration and outrage in investigating three UCI doctors who allegedly took eggs and embryos from patients without their consent at a now-closed fertility clinic.
"This case has been an exercise in frustration in the search for truth," Wilkening said during a presentation on the Center for Reproductive Health at the Nov. 16 Regents meeting in San Francisco.
"The lack of cooperation by the Center for Reproductive Health doctors and the lack of documents have been obstacles to the search for truth, and have been encountered by all who sought the facts -- UCI, the Regents, the state auditor, the state Legislature, and most importantly, the patients," she said.
The UC doctors who ran the clinic -- Ricardo H. Asch, Jose P. Balmaceda and Sergio Stone -- have refused to turn over records, including patient charts, to UCI or to a panel of independent medical investigators convened by Wilkening.
The controversy over the clinic began in February 1994 when a UCI Medical Center employee raised allegations of misconduct. UCI immediately began an investigation into the allegations. During the course of the investigation, additional allegations emerged that the doctors may have taken eggs and embryos from women without their consent and transferred them to other women, who also were unaware of the circumstances in which the eggs and embryos were taken.
Wilkening characterized the situation as "one of the most reprehensible acts that any physician can do: violating the trust between doctor and patient . . . what three UCI fertility doctors allegedly did, if proven to be true, is so depraved that it is hard to grasp.
"While this case raises legal and policy issues, it's important not to lose sight of the university's first priority, which is to identify patients who have been affected and contact them. Next to outrage over these acts, my other overwhelming emotion is anguish for the women and their families who languish in uncertainty over what happened to them," she said.
Since the allegations of misconduct surfaced in 1994, Wilkening has authorized investigations by three outside teams of experts composed of physicians, financial auditors and human resource specialists.
"At each step of the way, as investigators uncovered more information about the scope of the doctors' alleged wrongdoing, each allegation was diligently pursued," she said. "When the evidence supported certain allegations, we notified appropriate agencies and eventually law enforcement agencies. At each step of the way, we moved aggressively to take action."
UC President Richard C. Atkinson told Regents that Wilkening has tackled one of the most difficult problems on a UC campus and has exhibited integrity and leadership in guiding UC Irvine through these problems. A prompt investigation led to the closure of the center's clinic, suspension of the three faculty members, changes in the leadership of the UCI Medical Center and adoption of several oversight measures intended to minimize the occurrence of a similar situation, Atkinson said.
UC Irvine recently obtained a seven-page list compiled by the clinic's former embryologist containing the names of more than 200 patients. The patients are being contacted by UCI to determine whether they gave their consent to egg or embryo transfers. UCI also is trying to locate and contact 94 other patients whose names appeared in documents that accompanied the seven-page list.
"Although the information in the seven-page list and raw data are not enough to say for certain if a transfer was consented or not, we are taking the approach that all of these patients deserve to be informed. We want to contact all of these patients to offer assistance and to try to determine if their transfers were consented," Wilkening said.
In September, a federal task force under the direction of the U.S. Attorney obtained a search warrant and raided the physicians' homes and offices to obtain records that the university has been seeking. The records, however, still are not available to UC because they are part of the federal criminal investigation of the clinic. The doctors have denied any wrongdoing and Asch and Balmaceda have left the country.
During the Regents presentation, Wilkening pointed out that all three doctors were placed on leave in May 1995, but are still being paid. Asch and Stone are tenured faculty and Balmaceda is a professor in residence, which requires a one-year notice for termination. UCI served Balmaceda with a termination notice in July 1995.
"Even if doctors Asch, Balmaceda and Stone are convicted of criminal wrongdoing, they would still have tenure until the Academic Senate and Regents took action," Wilkening said. The most severe step Wilkening can take is place the doctors on leave with pay, pending formal disciplinary action by the Academic Senate, which is "frustrating to me and for the members of the public who have voiced concern about this," she said.
"I strongly support the concept of tenure, and it works well for virtually all of the faculty who are law-abiding," Wilkening told Regents. She recommended that Regents consider a policy action that would pertain in rare cases, such as criminal misconduct or failure to cooperate with a legally mandated investigation.
With the criminal investigation of the clinic now in the hands of federal authorities, Wilkening said that UCI is focused on "identifying and contacting any patients who may have been victimized by these reprehensible acts and providing whatever assistance we can to them. These are the people who have suffered the most from this tragedy." More information regarding the UCI fertility clinic investigation is available from UCI on the World Wide Web at the following address: http://www.uci.edu/fc/.