RICHMOND, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In response to a lawsuit filed in September 2020 by a California woman who was a victim of fertility fraud, Dr. Michael S. Kiken, a resident of the Richmond suburb of Glen Allen, admitted that he inserted his own sperm into the woman, resulting in the birth of both of her children.
Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane & Conway’s Adam Wolf, a leading U.S. lawyer handling fertility, IVF, and related genetic material lawsuits, is representing Katie Richards, the San Francisco-area mother, in the case against Dr. Kiken.
Wolf said: “It is highly disturbing and chilling that Dr. Kiken is attempting to sidestep responsibility for his very serious acts of fertility fraud by claiming that he—our client’s doctor—was her ‘anonymous’ sperm donor. Not only did Dr. Kiken commit the medical equivalent of rape twice, but now he is making the most insulting legal defense I have ever seen.”
Katie Richards learned via home DNA testing that both of her children were the result of her fertility doctor, Dr. Michael S. Kiken, secretly utilizing his own sperm in her fertility treatments. Despite Kiken’s assurances, the sperm was from neither a healthy nor anonymous donor.
Ms. Richards said: “I have to live knowing that Dr. Kiken violated me, and that my children – whom I love dearly – are a result of his disgusting conduct. All of our memories, and all of the memories that we have yet to make are forever tainted.”
Dallas resident Julie Druyor is the daughter of Katie Richards. She said: “I used to look in the mirror and recognize who was looking back at me. Now, sometimes I look in the mirror and don’t even recognize myself. Sometimes, I see ‘him.’ Sometimes, I see the man who violated my mother’s trust and turned our worlds upside down. I’m a product of my mother’s abuser.”
Kiken holds medical licenses in numerous states and has practiced in California, Pittsburgh, the greater Washington, D.C. area, Richmond, VA, Lynchburg, VA, and Martinsburg, WV. Here is what is known from the public record about Dr. Kiken’s recent activities:
- He resides in the Richmond suburb of Glen Allen, VA.
- As recently as September 2020, Dr. Kiken was under contract to provide gynecological services to inmates at the Virginia Correctional Center for Women in Goochland. Dr. Kiken received more than $500,000 over the last six years from the State of Virginia to provide services to the State’s female inmates.
- He also practiced medicine recently at the Johnson Ob Prenatal Center in Lynchburg, VA.
- During 2006–2007 Dr. Kiken owned a home in Martinsburg, WV and practiced at Shenandoah Community Health.
- He moved to Virginia where he became licensed in 1998. That license is listed as active through 2022. Dr. Kiken owned a home in Fairfax, VA in 2000–2001 and appears to have practiced during that time in the Northern Virginia/greater Washington, D.C. area.
Wolf said: “The actions of Dr. Kiken and the other doctors committing fertility fraud are horrific. The gross misconduct committed by these doctors is a profoundly intimate betrayal. The United States is on the brink of uncovering thousands of fertility fraud cases, in which IVF/Ob Gyn doctors have abused their position of trust and authority by secretly using their own sperm in carrying out fertility treatments. We have to decide as a nation that the Wild West days for the IVF/fertility industry are over. That is why we are renewing the call for federal regulation to rein in an industry run amuck.”
In the last six years, attorney Adam Wolf has handled hundreds of cases regarding IVF/genetic material that have involved well over 1,000 victims. In 2019, Wolf spearheaded the Peiffer Wolf push for national legislation to rein in the abuses of IVF and fertility clinics.
Most of the individuals who are the product of fertility fraud will be 30-45 years old, reflecting the advent of inexpensive and widely available home DNA testing kits, such as Ancestry.com and 23andMe, which are often purchased as holiday presents. Wolf noted that families across America may be just a Christmas gift away from learning about a dark and unexpected part of their genetic past.
In August 2019, Peiffer Wolf published The Fertility Center Regulation Crisis in the U.S., a report calling on Congress to impose a system of tight and highly transparent IVF clinic oversight. In addition to identifying several glaring weaknesses and the general lack of regulatory oversight of the IVF/fertility centers in the U.S., the Peiffer Wolf report identified the much tougher government standards in the United Kingdom as an excellent model for this nation.
ABOUT PEIFFER WOLF CARR KANE & CONWAY
The law firm Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane & Conway maintains offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Cleveland, St. Louis, Austin, and New Orleans. In addition to handling numerous fertility fraud cases, Peiffer Wolf has handled a multitude of cases in which medical professionals and facilities were accused of either destroying or losing eggs, embryos and other genetic material.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
A streaming version of a related September 16, 2020 news event is available at https://lostembryos.com/ivf-fertility-misconduct/.