Wellington, New Zealand – A woman in Australia unconsciously gave birth to a baby from a foreigner after receiving the embryo from another patient from his in vitro fertilization clinic due to a “human error”, the clinic said.
The mixture was discovered in February when the City of Brisbane Clinic found that biological parents had too many embryos in stock, said supplier, Monash FIV, in a statement provided on Friday. The staff discovered that an embryo of another patient had been wrongly and transferred to the biological mother, said a spokesperson.
The Australian media reported that the baby was born in 2024.
The company, one of the largest Australian IVF suppliers, said that an initial investigation had discovered any other error of this type. His declaration has not identified the patients involved nor disclosed the details of the child care.
“We all at Monash IVF are devastated and we apologize for all those involved,” said CEO Michael Knaap. “We will continue to support patients during this extremely painful period.”
The “human error” was made “despite strict laboratory safety protocols”, according to the press release. The company said that it had reported the episode to the regulator concerned in the state of Queensland.
Monash FIV opened its doors in 1971 and saw patients in dozens of locations throughout Australia. Last year, the company paid a collective appeal of more than 700 patients, making no responsibility, after its clinics destroyed potentially viable embryos.
The clinic paid a regulation of Australian $ 56 million ($ 35 million).
The rare cases of mixtures of embryos have been reported before, especially in the United States, Great Britain, Israel and Europe. A woman from the American State of Georgia in February filed a complaint against a fertility clinic after giving birth to a baby from a stranger.
Krystena Murray made the error after the baby’s birth because she and his sperm donor were both whites and the child was black. Murray said she wanted to raise the baby, but voluntarily gave her biological parents 5 months after she was told that she would not gain legal control for her guard.
In Australia, each state establishes its own laws and rules governing the use of IVF, which, according to the defenders, puts patients in danger of error or surveillance. The Queensland Parliament adopted its first laws regulating the sector in 2024.
The measures will establish a register for all people designed in a clinic and made the destruction of the medical history of illegal donors. The change followed an official report which castigated the storage of frozen sperm donations in Queensland, finding that almost half of the verified samples were medium or high identification and recommend thousands of people.
The States and the territories of Australia “must see if their regulations are up to the task,” Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said on Friday.
“Confidence must be brought back and it is imperative that occurs.”
