Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, August 15, 1993                   TAG: 9308150043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA                                LENGTH: Medium

AFTER 5 YEARS, COUPLE EXPECTS CHILD BY A NOVEL PROCEDURE

In October, he'll become the first baby in the United States born through a novel fertilization technique - a single sperm injected directly into his mother's egg.

"I've got a Polaroid of my four little embryos I had implanted . . . and one day we'll be able to tell him, `One of these was you,' " said Claudia Simpson, who failed to conceive for five years before direct sperm injection worked on the first try.

"We'll tell him all about how he was conceived a little differently," added her husband, Pat, who already envisions taking Hunter onto his weekly television series, TNN's "Backyard America."

Direct sperm injection is a new infertility treatment for men unable to father children because of weak or insufficient sperm. A single sperm is injected into a human egg under a microscope. Three days later, the resulting embryo is implanted into the mother's uterus.

"It's almost foolproof," said Dr. Michael Tucker of Reproductive Biology Associates in Atlanta, who treated the Simpsons. "All you need is one sperm."

Dr. Andrew van Steirteghem of the Brussels Free University in Belgium developed the method last year. He has reported 100 births.

Two U.S. clinics - RBA in Atlanta and the Genetics and IVF Institute in Fairfax, Va. - began offering the treatment this year. Claudia Simpson and two other RBA patients are due to deliver this fall. The Virginia institute claims the first twins, due in February, and two other early pregnancies.

The Virginia institute learned the technique from the Belgians; Tucker developed his own, slightly different method. Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta also will begin performing the procedure this fall, when a doctor who studied under van Steirteghem arrives.

"It's a major breakthrough," said Dr. Joseph Schulman, director of the Virginia clinic, who predicted the method will spread quickly.

But other doctors caution that while promising, it's too early to know just how effective direct sperm injection is. "The technique is so delicate that it can destroy the egg," said Dr. Veronica Ravnikar of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

"And the question will always be, is there some potential for genetic defects?" added Dr. Lisa Hasty of Emory University School of Medicine.