Three men who claim their sperm was destroyed while it was being stored by Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation filed an emergency motion today to protect records and to inspect the hospitals’ cryopreservation system.
The men had their sperm frozen because they suffer from illnesses or were facing medical treatment that could make them infertile, lawyers for Corboy & Demetrio said today in a press release.
In one case, a 33-year-old suffered from leukemia and was told radical chemotherapy treatment would likely make him sterile. In a second case, a 26-year-old who suffers from an illness that could render him sterile preserved his sperm because he planned to one day become a husband and a father, according to the release.
The third man, 48, preserved his sperm because he also suffers from a condition that could make him sterile.
On April 21 and 22 — a Saturday and a Sunday — a cryogenic storage tank used for long-term storage of sperm samples malfunctioned and a round-the-clock alarm system attached to the unit failed to alert technicians, according to a press release from the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation. The press release said the information in it is attributable to Dr. Phillip Roemer, the chief medical officer of the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation.
