No criminal case in embryo mix-up

(ANSA) - Rome, July 30 - Italian prosecutors on Wednesday said that the embryo mix-up that occurred in December 2013 at Sandro Pertini Hospital in Rome does not constitute a felony and requested the criminal case to be dropped.
    A complaint was filed in April 2014 to prosecutors by one of the couples involved in the case of assisted-fertility treatments that led to a woman carrying twins not genetically hers. According to Law 40 of 2004, the law under which the charges were filed, only administrative and civil fines are possible, should the person responsible for the mix-up eventually be identified. The embryos were mixed up because the surnames of the two couples involved were very similar, police said.
    Following the discovery of the mix-up in April, the assisted-fertility clinic at Pertini hospital implemented new procedures to prevent such errors from repeating, including assigning each patient an ID code and treating no more than three aspiring mothers on the same day.