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E.V. Fertility Doctor Told to Stop Two Procedures

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 March 2006, 15:01 CST

By Jonathan Athens, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

Mar. 5--A nationally known Scottsdale fertility doctor under investigation by the state medical board has agreed to stop using two fertility procedures the board says are dangerous when done to excess.

The Arizona Board of Medical Examiners said Dr. Jay Nemiro's techniques result in his female patients having twins, triplets or other multiple pregnancies at a higher-than-average rate. That increases the risk to mother and infants, the board said in an agreement with Nemiro reached about two weeks ago.

Nemiro is a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist with the Arizona Center for Fertility Studies. He was named a "Top Doc" by Phoenix Magazine in 2003.

The well-known area fertility doctor made national headlines last year when Teresa Anderson of Mesa, one of his patients, volunteered to serve as a surrogate mother and ended up giving birth to five boys.

Anderson, who now lives in Leander, Texas, could not be reached for comment. She said in a Wall Street Journal article in October the ordeal left her resentful of Nemiro.

Both Nemiro and the board stated they could not comment until the investigation is finished. A spokesman for the board declined to give any specifics on the scope and extent of the investigation, which it began in early May after receiving an anonymous complaint.

The details of the dispute are spelled out in a Feb. 17 consent agreement between the board and Nemiro. Although Nemiro agreed to stop using two particular fertility procedures, he disagreed there was a danger. By entering into the agreement, Nemiro gave up his right to take the dispute to court.

The techniques in question are so outdated, medical instructors stopped teaching them several years ago, said Scottsdale fertility doctor Nathaniel Zoneraich.

In one of the procedures, the doctor moves the woman's unfertilized eggs from her ovaries to her fallopian tubes, where the eggs are fertilized. In the other procedure, the doctor removes the woman's eggs, fertilizes them in a lab, then transfers the fertilized eggs -- now embryos -- to her fallopian tubes.

The board agreement states that Nemiro was using these two procedures in just over half of his cases, while the national average for using them is less than 1 percent. If Nemiro continued performing these two procedures "in excess of the national average rate, there is a danger to public health and safety," it stated.

Zoneraich said those procedures used to yield a higher success rate than in vitro fertilization, but as medicine perfected in vitro fertilization, those two procedures became outdated. The procedures also put female patients at higher risk because patients must be anesthetized twice and undergo surgery twice, he said.

In vitro fertilization is the process by which the doctor removes the eggs, fertilizes them in a lab and then places the embryos in the woman's uterus through her cervix without surgery.

Board spokesman Roger Downey said Nemiro's case will go before the board at a yet-to-be-determined date.

The board may decide to dismiss the case, take disciplinary action or issue a nondisciplinary advisory letter to Nemiro, Downey said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

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DJ,

Source: The Tribune

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