In-vitro fertilization is a lifeline, a remarkable medical advancement that allows countless individuals and couples struggling with infertility a chance to experience the joy of parenthood. For so many of us, IVF isn’t just a medical procedure; it’s a deeply personal journey filled with hope, sacrifice and an often heavy emotional toll. Yet, alongside the promise that IVF holds, we face a growing crisis: political efforts to limit access to reproductive care and, even more concerningly, the alarming pattern of avoidable failures within the fertility industry. Both trends threaten to unravel the delicate dreams of hopeful parents everywhere.

We’ve been affected firsthand by one of these failures. We recently filed a lawsuit that contends our embryos, created with great care, were destroyed by a defective culture solution manufactured by a company called CooperSurgical. In that heartbreaking instant, our chance at a biological child was stripped away — not due to a natural complication but due to a preventable failure caused by corporate negligence. And as we’ve learned, we are not alone.

Infertility affects millions worldwide, touching lives in ways that few fully understand. The World Health Organization estimates that 1 in 6 people globally will experience infertility, while recent Pew Research findings indicate that 42% of Americans have either undergone IVF themselves or know someone who has. Those numbers reflect the vast reach of this struggle, which is why it’s crucial to establish safeguards in the fertility industry.

Instead, we’re seeing dangerous legal shifts that threaten the rights of IVF patients. Earlier this year, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos should be considered children under the law, prompting the Alabama legislature to pass a bill that supposedly aims to protect access to IVF.

However, this new law does the opposite for families like ours. By granting doctors, clinics and IVF manufacturers immunity from criminal and civil litigation — even in cases of proven negligence — it removes the very protections patients need most. Rather than supporting hopeful parents, this misguided law shields an industry that has already demonstrated troubling carelessness with the hopes and dreams of families.

The impact of such protections is staggering. Thousands of families beyond our own have suffered due to incidents like ours, joining other high-profile cases such as the Pacific Fertility Center’s tragic loss of 4,000 embryos and eggs. When these kinds of devastating failures occur, patients should have the ability to seek justice, accountability and closure. Shielding the industry from responsibility essentially tells families like ours that our losses don’t matter, that our grief is inconsequential.

These blanket immunities do more than harm hopeful parents; they encourage the fertility industry to cut corners, favoring profits over patient care. IVF is already an emotionally and financially costly process. Patients put their trust in fertility companies with the understanding that every step will be handled with the utmost caution, professionalism and empathy. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and when something goes wrong, the fallout can be life-altering.

The solution is clear. Instead of sweeping protections for IVF manufacturers and providers, we need policies that focus on the well-being of families. Fertility care should be accessible and safe, with regulations that prioritize patient safety and prevent catastrophic failures. Hopeful parents should have the opportunity to seek justice when failures arise — not be left powerless by legal loopholes that protect corporations at their expense.

As IVF becomes a more accessible option for family-building, it’s critical to create a regulatory landscape that supports those who seek it. We call on lawmakers, health care providers and fertility companies to consider the weight of their responsibilities. Let us build a future where patients are protected, where the industry is held accountable, and where the dream of creating a family is met with compassion, diligence and respect.

Kearsten and Zachary Walden, of Norfolk, are plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by Lieff Cabraser and co-counsel against CooperSurgical alleging the company’s culture solution destroyed their embryos in the IVF process.

As the article notes, for Tiseme, this work is deeply personal. In her youth, she used hair relaxers, a common practice among Black women aiming to conform to prevailing beauty standards. Zegeye recounts the discomfort and risks associated with these products, such as scalp irritation and burns. Her experiences, combined with findings from a 2022 federal study, underscore the severe health risks associated with these products, particularly as they relate to reproductive health. Representing over 8,500 injured clients, the multidistrict lawsuit seeks accountability from major beauty companies like L’Oréal and Revlon, highlighting the widespread impact of hair relaxer products and the critical need for regulatory improvements.

Zegeye’s dedication to this cause is fueled by her personal connection and professional focus on reproductive health and environmental justice. In partnership with the Equal Justice Society, Lieff Cabraser seeks to hold major beauty corporations accountable for the harm caused by their products. As the legal proceedings move forward in Chicago, this case continues to shed light on the broader cultural pressures Black women face regarding beauty standards and the significant health risks posed by products like chemical hair relaxers.

For more details, read the full article on the San Francisco Chronicle website here.

Learn more about the Hair Relaxer-Cancer Injury Litigation.

About Tiseme Zegeye

A partner in Lieff Cabraser’s San Francisco office, Tiseme Zegeye specializes in individual and class actions focusing on women’s health issues, and in employment discrimination cases. Prior to joining Lieff Cabraser, Tiseme was a Staff Attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, where she litigated to protect women’s reproductive rights. Previously, she was a Legal Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union Women’s Rights Project in New York, where she worked to fight gender discrimination in employment, education, and housing.

As reported by Law360 (subscription), plaintiffs represented by Lieff Cabraser and numerous co-counsel were successful in defeating L’Oreal, Revlon, and other companies’ attempts to get thousands of coordinated hair relaxer-linked cancer injury lawsuits dismissed at the pretrial stage of proceedings.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland ruled injury and other claims from over 8,000 separate lawsuits could proceed, including negligence, strict liability for design defect and failure to warn, breach of warranty, unjust enrichment and wrongful death. Judge Rowland did dismiss four fraud-based claims, but held that the bulk of plaintiffs’ claims should move forward.

“The allegations read as a whole give rise to the inference that defendants’ conduct proximately caused plaintiffs’ injuries: more is not needed at this stage,” Judge Rowland said, noting that the consumers also alleged that the companies “knew or should have known that phthalates and other [endocrine-disrupting chemicals] in their hair relaxer products significantly increase the risk of cancers and other negative health conditions.”

The lawsuits, which were consolidated in Illinois in February, generally accuse L’Oreal and other companies of selling hair relaxation, or lanthionization, products that caused or increased the risk of women developing uterine, ovarian or breast cancer, endometriosis, uterine fibroids or other injuries to the reproductive system.

The hair relaxer products at issue can be applied by cosmetologists or at home, and they temporarily straighten and smooth hair in a process that can cause burns and lesions on the scalp and allow hair relaxer chemicals to enter the body, according to the plaintiffs.

Read the full story on Law360.com (subscription link).

About Lieff Cabraser

Lieff Cabraser represents over one hundred women who have been diagnosed with cancer after using hair relaxers. Their lawsuits are consolidated with thousands of others in federal court in Chicago in front of Judge Mary M. Rowland, which allows plaintiffs to litigate collectively against the companies responsible for these products. Judge Rowland created a Plaintiff’s Leadership Committee to manage the collective litigation, and appointed Lieff Cabraser’s Kelly M. Dermody to serve on the Plaintiff’s Executive Committee based on her experience and leadership in complex litigation and women’s rights.

Learn more about Lieff Cabraser’s work on the lawsuits on behalf of women who allege their gynecological cancers are related to their long-term use of hair relaxer products.

The Court rejected J&J’s argument that the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and/or the Federal Trade Commission Act barred the state court claims. The unanimous Court found that J&J was misreading the FTC Act, citing that “the exclusion of labels from its false advertising definition was more narrow” than J&J argued. Plaintiffs also presented evidence to the Court showing that J&J secretly ghostwrote the science on which much of the FDA’s letters relied, and that J&J fed the disingenuous “science” to the FDA in improperly unreported meetings.

The decision affirms the lower court’s denial of summary judgment, clearing the way for the talc consumer fraud case to proceed toward trial in Mississippi.

The Plaintiff Mississippi Attorney General is represented by Lieff Cabraser partners Wendy R. Fleishman and Avery Halfon, along with co-counsel at Porter Malouf.

Read the full article on Law360’s (subscription) site.

Contact a Talc Fraud and Cancer Injury Lawyer at Lieff Cabraser

If you, a friend, or a family member are a long-time (6 years or more) user of talcum powder products made by Johnson & Johnson or another talc product manufacturer and have received a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, you have the right to seek fair compensation. Please call us today at 1 800 541-7358 or visit our Talcum Powder Ovarian Cancer Injuries page to contact Wendy Fleishman or Tiseme Zegeye about your talc injury case.

We will help you gather the information and file the claims needed to seek recompense for any injuries, suffering, or related harm, and we will review your claim for free, confidentially, and with no obligation on your part.

In an 88-page statement of decision, San Diego Superior Court Judge Eddie Sturgeon found that J&J and its subsidiary Ethicon Inc. had violated the state’s false advertising and unfair competition laws, writing that the state had “proven by a preponderance of the evidence that defendants deceptively marketed their pelvic mesh products in the state of California and that their marketing was likely to deceive reasonable doctors and reasonable lay consumers, including potential patients and their friends and family, about the risks and dangers of these products.”

Read the full article on Law360’s (subscription) site.

Transvaginal Mesh Injury Attorneys at Lieff Cabraser

If you have suffered serious injuries or complications from a surgery involving transvaginal mesh, you are not alone, and Lieff Cabraser can assist you in evaluating your legal options. We have female attorneys and nurses in our San Francisco, New York, and Nashville offices who represent women across America injured by transvaginal mesh. Learn more about Vaginal Mesh/Bladder Sling complications and lawsuits and your legal rights.

An identical admitting privileges law in Texas was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court just two years ago in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 136 S. Ct. 2292 (2016). The Court held that the Texas admitting privileges requirement imposed numerous obstacles to access to abortion and provided no health benefits to women, resulting in an “undue burden” on women’s right to abortion. Id. at 2311-13.

Despite the Court’s binding precedent, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the identical admitting privilege requirement, Louisiana Act 620.

Under the Court’s undue burden standard, the real-world impact of the abortion restriction’s burdens must be considered. This amicus brief centers the perspective of the women most at risk under Act 620, black women. Black women in Louisiana disproportionately live under extreme circumstances of disadvantage, including higher rates of poverty, un-insurance, intimate partner violence, and reproductive coercion. Act 620 will place substantial and wide-ranging burdens on black women’s ability to access abortion care, including greater driving distances, longer wait times, and higher costs. Considering these real-world impacts of Act 620, Amici argue that Act 620 should be struck down as unconstitutional because it will impose nearly insurmountable burdens on black women’s abortion access while providing no countervailing health benefits.

“Our firm is proud to work with Professors Khiara M. Bridges and Dorothy E. Roberts, and all of the reproductive and racial justice scholar amici, to bring focused attention to the devastating and disproportionate impacts on black women that this unconstitutional law will impose,” stated Tiseme G. Zegeye, attorney for amici.

Amici are the following scholars:

• Kathryn Abrams, Herma Hill Kay Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law;
• Aziza Ahmed, Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law;
• Khiara M. Bridges, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law;
• Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law and Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Columbia Law School;
• Kimberly Mutcherson, Co-Dean and Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School;
• Priscilla Ocen, Professor of Law, Loyola Law School;
• Radhika Rao, Professor of Law and Harry & Lillian Hastings Research Chair, UC Hastings College of the Law;
• Dorothy E. Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School;
• Cynthia Soohoo, Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law;
• Patricia J. Williams, University Distinguished Professor of Law and Humanities, Northeastern
  University School of Law;
• Ruqaiijah Yearby, Professor of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law.

Read a copy of the Amicus brief.

The recall follows thousands of lawsuits by plaintiffs who claim Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder was contaminated with asbestos which caused ovarian cancer after usage. “At multiple trials, J&J experts have testified asbestos hasn’t been detected in the talc in its baby powder in many tests over 40 years.”

Read the full article here on The Washington Post’s site

Video: Important Information for Women Concerned About Talc and Cancer