Fourth Dutch gynecologist caught using own sperm in fertility treatments

A gynecologist at the Carolus Hospital in Den Bosch also used his own sperm for fertility treatment, fathering at least one child between 1977 and 1985. With that, Henk Nagel is the fourth fertility doctor in the Netherlands to inseminate women with his own sperm without permission, De Volkskrant reports.

Piet-Hein Buiting, chairman of the board of the Jeroen Bosch Hospital, into which the Carolus Hospital merged, called Nagel's actions "incomprehensible and inadmissible." The hospital informed the Healthcare and Youth Inspectorate and asked for an independent investigation. People treated by Nagel can report to the Jeroen Bosch Hospital, Buiting said. "We want to support them and investigate whether there are other cases."

The case came to light last year when a donor child reported to the Jeroen Bosch Hospital. He said that while trying to find his biological father, DNA investigation resulted in "careful matches with blood relatives of the former gynecologist." The hospital approached Nagel for a kinship investigation, which showed that he was indeed the donor child's father. He confessed to using his own sperm in three other fertility treatments. It is unclear whether any children were born there.

"He told us that he was doing it to help the intended parents," Buiting said. "And that he would never do it again from today's perspective."

The Nagel revelation follows three comparable cases. Last week it was revealed that Leiden gynecologist Jos Beek inseminated women with his own sperm and fathered at least 21 children at the Elisabeth Hospital between 1973 and 1986. Jan Wildschut did the same in the Sophia Hospital in Zwolle, now the Isala Hospital, fathering at least 47 children between 1980 and 1994. And fertility doctor Jan Karbaat fathered at least 70 children using his own sperm at his fertility clinic.