California couple sues fertility clinic for allegedly implanting an embryo with a deadly cancer gene and trying to cover it up

Jason and Melissa Diaz hoped to protect their children from the deadly cancer genes they both inherited.

Melissa has a BRCA-1 mutation that increases her risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. Jason has a CDH1 gene mutation that makes him very susceptible to developing hereditary diffuse gastric cancer.

When they decided to try for children, the Whittier, California couple opted for in vitro fertilization at HRC Fertility in the hope that their children could avoid the genetic mutations that had affected their families and themselves. But according to a new lawsuit filed on Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the family instead faced a medical nightmare.

According to the lawsuit, the couple’s one-year-old son has the same rare CDH1 genetic mutation as Jason.

The Diazes allege in their lawsuit that the fertility clinic deliberately implanted an embryo with the CDH1 gene mutation, even though the Diazes specifically worked with the clinic to ensure they could have children without this particular mutation and then tried to cover up their mistake.

“Never in a million years did I think this could happen,” Melissa, 31, said at a press conference on the lawsuit. “We are heartbroken at what our beloved son will have to go through because of the behavior and lies of the HRO.”

In 2018, when they got married, 32-year-old Jason was diagnosed with hereditary diffuse stomach cancer. When chemotherapy didn’t work, he underwent a gastrectomy – the complete removal of his stomach, the lawsuit says.

“Life after gastric surgery is extremely hard,” Jason, now 37, said at a press conference, citing eating and digestion problems that affect his daily life.

He also has two aunts who died of stomach cancer when they were in their forties. says in the lawsuit.

The Diazes knew they didn’t want their children to face the same hardships. According to the lawsuit, the couple explored their IVF options before choosing HRC Fertility and Dr. Bradford Kolb, who is also a defendant in the lawsuit.

HRC Fertility, founded in 1988 and owned by China’s Jinxin Fertility Corporation, operates nine branches in southern California. HRC Fertility the site boasted that Kolb “internationally known for his expertise in complex reproductive issues” and “patients from all over the world come to HRC Fertility Pasadena to see him,” the lawsuit says.

HRC Fertility and Kolb were also sued in 2022 by a same-sex couple who claimed that a female embryo was mistakenly implanted into their surrogate mother when they stated they wanted a male embryo.

During their first meeting with Kolb in December 2018, the couple told the doctor they intended to avoid passing on genetic mutations that increase cancer risk, court documents say.

Melissa underwent two separate egg retrieval procedures, from which HRC Fertility’s embryology lab created five embryos, according to the lawsuit. In August 2020, a clean embryo was implanted without the CDH1 mutation and the BRCA-1 gene, but Melissa had a miscarriage.

According to the lawsuit, none of the remaining embryos were free from mutations. They were all carriers of either CDH1 or the BRCA-1 gene, but the Diazes decided to implant a male embryo with the BRCA-1 gene on their next try, as the boy was less likely to develop breast cancer, the lawsuit says.

In September 2021, the Diaz had a baby boy and the families threw a huge party, believing they had “broken the curse” that had been following them, the lawsuit says. But their joy was short-lived.

The lawsuit says the couple decided to try for a second child in July 2022 before Melissa had to have her spay removed as a precaution due to the high risk of cancer.

When she asked her new IVF coordinator for a copy of her embryo report, the couple discovered the embryo they had implanted and now their “happy joyful boy” carries genetic mutations for stomach and breast cancer, the lawsuit alleges. According to the lawsuit, the embryo report even contained handwritten notes stating that the transplant carried a mutation in the CDH1 gene.

According to the lawsuit, Melissa emailed the new coordinator, writing, “The reason we did IVF was to eliminate the stomach cancer mutation, if not both genetic mutations. mutation. Could you double check that this is the correct report for our embryos?”

The coordinator did not respond for several days, the lawsuit claims. Eventually, after numerous emails and phone calls, someone from HRC Fertility called Melissa and admitted that HRC had made a serious mistake, court documents say. According to the lawsuit, an HRC Fertility representative asked Melissa and Jason to come to the HRC Fertility office for a “sit-down meeting”.

In a statement, an HRC spokeswoman said the Diaz family had been conducting genetic testing and counseling outside of HRC fertility and with the outside. The spokeswoman said the reproduction center maintains the professionalism and expertise of its medical staff.

“They wanted to transfer a male embryo, which we did in accordance with the express wishes of the family and in accordance with the highest level of care,” the spokeswoman said.

Melissa said that when HRC finally returned her full medical records, the handwritten notes were gone: “We asked for clarification three times,” she said. “When HRC finally sent in the entries, they were crossed out. It was shocking that my own health worker changed my records to show that they knew they had done something wrong.”

According to the lawsuit, the boy now has more than an 80% chance of developing stomach cancer.

Jason said he wouldn’t want anyone to suffer from cancer like he and his family did, but he loves his son more than anything and will be by his side during his journey.

“I know somehow we will get through this with strength and grace,” he said. “But there must be justice.”

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