An Italian fertility doctor placed under house arrest after a spanish woman reported that her eggs were removed without her consent. Severino Antinori was arrested at an airport in Rome on Friday .
Authorities stated that the woman, a nurse, had entered Antinori’s clinic to inquire about a job. However, once she arrived, her phone was taken and she was forced under anesthesia where her were eggs removed following hromone treatment for an ovarian cyst. The BBC has provided a slightly different version of events, reporting that the 24 year old was was already working at Dr. Antinori’s Matric Clinic in Milan.
ANSA, the Italian News Agency, quoted Antinori as denying the allegations, stating that the are “out of this world”.
Antinori also appeared on a TV show and denied that the eggs were taken against the woman’s will. However, Newsday has reported that the police has placed an embargo on a number of embryos at the clinic in order to determine if the woman’s eggs were used to create them.
Italian MP, Donata Lenzi said that
The arrest of Severino Antinori is extremely serious because it indicates the existence of a market in eggs that will not stop at anything.
This is not the first time that Antinori has made headlines. He was accused in 1994 of implanting an embryo in a 63 year old post-menopausal patient (Rossana Della Corte) who has become one of the oldest women in history to give birth to a child. In addition to Rossana Della Corte, 62 year old child psychiatrist Patricia Rashbrook also became pregnant after being treated by Antinori.
Antinori graduated from the the University Of Rome La Sapienza with a degree in medicine in 1972 and has publicly taken controversial positions over in-virtro fertilization (IVF) and human cloning. He set up his own clinic in Rome in 1982 and in 1986 pioneered the use of a process called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).
