IVF mistakes that would have confounded King Solomon

 IVF helps many people welcome children into their families, but also makes possible mistakes that would have confounded King Solomon.

Haaretz has the story:

Israeli Court Orders Birth Mother to Give Toddler to Biological Parents After IVF Mix-up by Chen Maanit
"A woman in her third trimester of pregnancy discovered that she had been implanted with the wrong embryo two years ago. An Israeli judge has ruled that the toddler, now two years old, be raised by her biological parents."  

 

HT: Itai Ashlagi 

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And another, on this side of the ocean, from the NYT:

An I.V.F. Mix-Up, a Shocking Discovery and an Unbearable Choice
Two couples in California discovered they were raising each other’s genetic children. Should they switch their girls?   By Susan Dominus

"Wolf believes that the public becomes aware of only a fraction of the errors that occur in fertility-clinic labs. In Zoë and May’s cases, as in the case of the twins carried by the Korean American woman in New York, the mistake was apparent because the children were a different race from the birth parents. In most instances, parents who accept and bond with their baby may never suspect something is wrong. Even when discovered, such mistakes rarely make the news. “Most of my cases you never hear about, because we settle them before we file lawsuits,” Wolf said. “And the settlement agreements have confidentiality agreements, because the clinics want to ensure that there will be no negative publicity as a result of its error.”

"I.V.F. procedures are underregulated relative to most medical procedures, says Dov Fox, a law professor at the University of San Diego with a focus on bioethics. States do not mandate that fertility clinics report preventable and damaging mistakes when they happen, as is required of hospitals. Some emblematic problems, Fox told me, included clinics or labs relying on pen-and-paper labeling systems and faulty screening measures; Wolf cited a failure of clinic employees to respond to alarms on the freezers that store embryos. “I sometimes think of our lawsuits as the policing of the fertility industry,” Wolf said, “because nobody else is holding them accountable.”

"Now heavily dominated by private equity, the industry is rife with for-profit, high-volume fertility clinics operating in a regulatory dead zone. Oversight of fertility clinics has been limited, Fox said, because of the challenges it poses politically: Although many conservatives would like to impose restrictions, including limiting the number of embryos a lab can create, they have historically not wanted to jeopardize efforts to restrict abortion by also attacking I.V.F., which is broadly popular. Many Democrats, meanwhile, have been reluctant to regulate the industry for fear of opening the door to restrictions that might, for example, limit who is eligible for I.V.F. (as in some countries, where gay couples are excluded). Fox expects that the overturning of Roe v. Wade will lead to new scrutiny of I.V.F., which might ultimately threaten its wide availability."