Duke University fertility doctor impregnated numerous patients with his sperm

A woman seeking answers to her health concerns discovered that her parents were the victims of fertility fraud, in which the doctor inseminated her unsuspecting mother with his own sperm — a practice he carried out on multiple patients.

Key Takeaways:

• Summer McKesson submitted her DNA to 23andMe after experiencing genetic health problems that did not run in her family.

• She discovered she had seven half-siblings, and that her parents' fertility doctor was her biological father.

• The doctor claimed that a medical resident was the sperm donor, but he had actually used his own sperm.

The Details:

Summer McKesson told WKRC she had always felt different from her family, but she couldn't have imagined the reason why.

Beyond being taller than her family members and looking different, as an adult, she began experiencing serious health problems that didn't make sense. She struggled to breathe, her blood did not clot well, and eventually, she was diagnosed with Marfan syndrome, which is a genetic disorder affecting the connective tissue. People with Marfan's are typically very tall and thin, and can have life-threatening heart problems.

But the key factor was that the condition is genetic.

McKesson's parents, Laurie and Doug Kruppa, were not carriers, so McKesson turned to the DNA testing company 23andMe for answers. Her results showed she had seven half-siblings, which only made her more confused. "I did it to see if it would give me any health insights because there is a health component to it, and little did I know what I would find out," she said.

She reached out to her newly found half-siblings for answers, and after a month, someone replied, encouraging her to look into Dr. Charles Peete. He had been her parents' fertility doctor at Duke University Hospital.

McKesson's father, Doug, had undergone a vasectomy during a previous marriage, so the couple chose to use a sperm donor and go through intrauterine insemination (IUI) to have children. Peete told them the donor was a medical resident, and the couple had three children using donor sperm.

But rather than use a medical resident as they had agreed, Peete had used his own sperm. The Kruppas had no idea.

Doctor used his own sperm to impregnate fertility patient: ‘I felt like a science experiment’

Later, the children sat down with Laurie — Doug died when McKesson was a teenager — and broke the news. “We thought maybe the two girls were definitely related because they came 16 months apart. So, we just thought maybe it was a resident that was still there,” Laurie Kruppa said. “My son was born two and a half years later, so we thought it had to be somebody different." She added, "I was really glad they were all true siblings."

As time went on, however, she became angry and felt violated. "When I started thinking, I got much more upset about the ethics of it. I’m pretty sure he was my father’s age… This is like getting raped by your father," she said.

It's a feeling that McKesson shares. “Ultimately, the hardest thing to process once you started putting the pieces together was that I was a product of a crime, that I was the product of medical rape,” she said.

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Zoom In:

McKesson was able to connect with another of her siblings, Jim Harris.

Initially raised as an only child, Harris turned to 23andMe when his mother broke the news that he had been conceived using a sperm donor, and he connected with Peete's biological daughter who was raised by him, and was not a product of fertility fraud. Peete's daughter said she was stunned and horrified, and thought there must be more to the story.

Dr. Ken Fortier was mentored by Peete, and told CNN that it was common for doctors and medical residents to donate their own sperm during the 1970s and 1980s and that they were often asked to do so. Yet, he said what Peete did was decidedly beyond the pale.

“There wasn’t anything taboo about it [sperm donation]. There were people in the department who specialized in infertility that tended to have a kind of cadre of donors, and they usually were the best people that were generally healthy," he said, but added, "The idea … the thought of using one’s own sperm … that surprised me."

So far, it is believed that Peete fathered at least 12 children, though more could still be unidentified. McKesson is trying to reach more of her half-siblings, as Marfan syndrome is not life-threatening if caught and treated. Without treatment, however, life expectancy is significantly shorter.

“My hope in sharing my story is that if I have any other half-siblings out there, that I could save their life by knowing my medical history,” she said. “I’m trying to do the right thing.”

Peete died in 2013, but his family and Duke University have refused to cooperate with any investigation. Since fertility fraud is not a crime in North Carolina, McKesson and Harris have little chance of getting justice.

"I don't know how many patients over 30 years were treated. Duke needs to tell all the mothers," Harris said. "I'm asking to help people, I'm asking for transparency."

McKesson agreed, adding, "I probably have a lot of other siblings in their forties as well that need to know."

Why It Matters:

Fertility fraud is shockingly common, particularly among patients who sought help conceiving in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, so-called "mega-donors" are being discovered more and more often.

With the rise of DNA services, many donor-conceived children and couples have learned that they were defrauded by the fertility industry. But while Peete's victims have struggled to get justice, others have not. Here are just a handful of the known fertility fraud cases:

• A Detroit doctor fathered hundreds of children.

• Another pair of doctors fathered 75 children between them.

• An Idaho woman sued her doctor, David Claypool, after a DNA test revealed that her daughter is Claypool's biological child instead of that of an anonymous sperm donor.

• Dutch doctor, Jos Beek, inseminated patients with his own sperm, fathering at least 21 children.

• In 2022, a woman who took an at-home DNA test learned that her biological father was her parents’ fertility doctor, Philip Peven. Peven had thrown away the sperm that had been provided to him by the woman’s mother.

• Also in 2022, a federal court jury in Vermont awarded a woman damages after her fertility doctor used his own sperm to impregnate her.

The Bottom Line:

All of these horrific stories were able to happen because the fertility industry is largely unregulated, centering the wants of adults over the rights of children.