Japan Doctors, Patients Sue Organization

TOKYO - A group of Japanese doctors and patients sued a national medical society on Wednesday for blocking a prenatal test that screens for genetic diseases, and demanded $691,000 in compensation.

The lawsuit, filed at the Tokyo District Court against the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is the first to ask the courts to consider whether a fertility treatment is constitutional, said Dr. Yahiro Netsu, who runs the Suwa Maternity Clinic in central Nagano Prefecture (state), northwest of Tokyo. He is one of two doctors and nine patients named as plaintiffs in the case.

The court dispute is the latest battle to emerge in a country where births using modern fertility services are mostly off-limits.

Japanese law doesn't prohibit prenatal testing or fertility treatments. But ethical standards set by the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology impose strict limits on procedures. Few doctors will risk being expelled to provide such services to patients.

Wednesday's lawsuit centers around a test called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, which was first introduced a decade ago.

Doctors normally use the test to check eggs and early embryos for genetic diseases such as Down syndrome, and can weed out those that come up positive.

When the test is done during in vitro fertilization - which involves removing a woman's eggs, fertilizing them in a laboratory and transferring them into the uterus - it lets doctors select the healthiest embryos for implantation, raising a woman's chances of getting pregnant, plaintiffs' lawyers wrote in court documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Although the society's guidelines allow pre-implantation genetic diagnosis of embryos or eggs to try to prevent certain genetic diseases from being passed to children, they bar doctors from using the test to determine a baby's sex. The society must approve all tests.

None has been allowed, Netsu said.

Netsu and other doctors say the tests help parents avoid the possibility of liftetime medical expenses for sick children. Critics say the technique lets parents make choices about the traits they want a baby to have.

The United States allows the testing, while a few European countries such as Austria and Switzerland ban it.

Among the plaintiffs are five Japanese women who want to receive the prenatal tests and a doctor who had performed several on patients, the court documents show. The society expelled the doctor in April and rejected their requests.

"I have tried to work within the society to change the rules but nothing has changed. We are suing so patients can benefit," said Netsu, who was the first doctor in Japan to disclose that he had delivered a healthy baby from a surrogate mother in 2001. He was reinstated to the society in February in an out-of-court settlement after being expelled from the society six years ago.

Officials from the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology couldn't be reached for comment.