Jason and Melissa Diaz had hoped to protect their children from the deadly cancer genes they had both inherited.
Melissa has the BRCA-1 mutation, which increases her risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer, and Jason has a CDH1 gene mutation, making him highly susceptible to developing hereditary diffuse gastric cancer.
When they decided to have children, the Whittier, California, couple opted for in vitro fertilization at HRC Fertility in the hopes their kids could avoid the genetic mutations that had affected their families and themselves.
But according to a new lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the family got a medical nightmare instead.
The Diazes claim in their lawsuit that the fertility clinic knowingly implanted an embryo with the CDH1 gene mutation, even though the Diazes had specifically worked with the clinic to ensure they could have children without this specific mutation, and then tried to cover up its mistake.
Melissa and John Diaz are suing HRC Fertility after they say the clinic implanted an embryo carrying a deadly cancer gene and tried to cover up the mistake.
In 2018, the same year the two got married, then-32-year-old Jason was diagnosed with hereditary diffuse gastric cancer. When chemotherapy didn’t work, the lawsuit said he underwent a gastrectomy — a full stomach removal. He also has two aunts who died of gastric cancer while in their forties, the lawsuit said.
The Diazes knew they didn’t want their children to face the same challenges. According to the lawsuit, the couple researched their options for IVF before choosing HRC Fertility and Dr. Bradford Kolb, also a defendant. Opened in 1988 and owned by the Chinese corporation Jinxin Fertility, HRC Fertility operates nine locations throughout southern California.
During their first meeting with Kolb in December 2018, the couple told the doctor they intended to avoid passing on the genetic mutations that put them at higher risk for developing cancer, court documents said. According to the lawsuit, Melissa underwent two separate egg-retrieval procedures, from which HRC Fertility’s embryology laboratory created five embryos. In August 2020, a clear embryo with neither the CDH1 mutation nor the BRCA-1 gene was implanted, but Melissa miscarried.
None of the remaining embryos were mutation free, according to the lawsuit. They all either carried the CDH1 or the BRCA-1 gene, but the Diazes chose to implant a male embryo with the BRCA-1 gene on their next attempt, as it was less likely a boy would develop breast cancer, the lawsuit said. In September 2021, the Diazes welcomed a baby boy, and the families threw a giant party, believing they had “broken the curse” that had plagued them, the lawsuit said. But their joy was short-lived.
When Melissa asked the new IVF coordinator for a copy of her embryo report, the couple discovered the embryo they had implanted, now their “happy joyful boy” carried both the stomach and breast cancer genetic mutations, the suit alleged.
According to the lawsuit, Melissa emailed the new coordinator, writing, “We did IVF to eliminate the gastric cancer mutation if not both genetic mutations. We have been so stressed thinking of what our son will go through because of this genetic mutation. Please double-check that this is the correct report for our embryos?”
The coordinator did not respond for several days, the suit alleged. Eventually, after numerous emails and phone calls someone from HRC Fertility called Melissa and admitted that HRC had made a serious mistake, court documents say.
According to the suit, the baby boy now has a more than 80% chance of developing stomach cancer. Jason said he wouldn’t want
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