Top Fertility-Product Manufacturer Under Pressure to Inform Public About Scale of Disaster After Secretive Recall.
LOS ANGELES – JANUARY 4, 2024 – CooperSurgical faces multiple lawsuits over the recall of its embryo culture solution, which is used for in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures at clinics across the world and was later discovered to kill embryos. The victims’ attorney, Adam Wolf of the law firm Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise (Peiffer Wolf), called on the company to inform the public about the scale of the disaster. The recall notice was not released publicly by CooperSurgical, and the ramifications of the global recall are massive.
The lawsuits were filed in the Superior Court of California by Peiffer Wolf (Lawsuit 1, Lawsuit 2) on behalf of two Los Angeles couples whose embryos were killed. CooperSurgical, a subsidiary of The Cooper Companies, is one of the largest producers of assisted reproductive technology products in the world.
Adam Wolf, partner at Peiffer Wolf, said: “Many affected patients have not been properly informed, and CooperSurgical has not publicly disclosed how many embryos have been killed due to this disaster. The families deserve answers. This is not a problem that CooperSurgical can sweep under the rug. Human embryos are precious and irreplaceable, and the families are utterly devastated.”
According to the lawsuits, CooperSurgical issued a recall of several lots of its embryo culture media, including at least LGGG Lots 231020-018741, 231020-018742, and 231020-018743. However, the company intentionally did not disseminate any notice of the recalled lots publicly.
In the cases of both couples, their embryos suddenly stopped growing or proved non-viable just shortly after their fertility clinics created their embryos. Their fertility doctors were surprised by the highly unusual result. After investigating, the doctors learned that CooperSurgical’s embryo culture solution caused the destruction of the embryos. The doctors confirmed the embryos had been viable prior to coming into contact with the solution, and then were killed. Couples may no longer be able to have biologically related children as a result.
Embryo culture solution plays a pivotal role in the IVF process. During IVF, eggs are extracted from a woman’s ovaries and fertilized with sperm to create viable embryos. The process of extracting human eggs from a woman is grueling, typically requiring significant medication, ultrasound monitoring and other scans to check the development of the eggs, and a surgery procedure to collect the eggs. Sperm is mixed with the eggs in a laboratory to create embryos, and the culture solution is used to allow the embryos to grow.
Peiffer Wolf currently represents additional people whose embryos were lost after coming into contact with CooperSurgical’s recalled embryo culture solution. Those lawsuits will be filed in the coming weeks.
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MEDIA CONTACT:
Max Karlin at (703) 276-3255 or [email protected].
Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise is a national law firm with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Cleveland, Youngstown, St. Louis and Detroit. Visit www.LostEmbryos.com for more information.
