Octuplets doctor 'was negligent'

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The Beverly Hills fertility doctor who octuplets mother Nadya Suleman claims helped her conceive, has been formally accused of negligence and being in violation of professional guidelines.

The California Medical Board. said fertility doctor Michael Kamrava acted ''beyond the reasonable judgment of any treating physician'' by repeatedly providing fertility treatment to a woman identified in its complaint only by the initials ''NS''.

Ms Suleman, dubbed ''Octomom'' after the births, has previously identified Dr Kamrava as her physician. The complaint says his patient became pregnant with octuplets. Ms Suleman gave birth to the world's longest-living set of octuplets on January 26, 2009. She had six other children.

Dr Kamrava is accused of gross negligence in three instances: transferring too many embryos, repeatedly transferring fresh embryos when frozen ones were available, and failing to refer Ms Suleman for a mental health evaluation.

He is also accused of giving Ms Suleman too much of a hormone while stimulating in vitro fertilisation, poor record-keeping and ''failure to recognise that NS's behaviour was outside the norm and that her conduct was placing her offspring at risk for potential harm''.

Calls to Dr Kamrava's office were not returned. However, his lawyer, Peter Osinoff, said fertility patients were not typically screened for mental health problems ''unless there is overt evidence of pathology, and there was not overt evidence of pathology. That will be our argument.''

He said Dr Kamrava wanted to continue practising medicine.

The complaint reveals Ms Suleman underwent a long series of fertility treatments from 1997 to 2008 under Dr Kamrava's care.

Dr Kamrava continues to advertise his services to Los Angeles' large Iranian expatriate community. For the past nine years, he has paid for air time on Los Angeles' Iranian radio station, KIRN 670AM, where he hosts a live, weekly call-in show.

He tells listeners he is the inventor of a method that improves chances of pregnancy by using a hysteroscopy to guide the fertilised egg to the uterine linin, adhering it with an ''embryo glue''.

- AP