WEBVTT - The Baby Project 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:07.040 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:13.920 This series features conversations about pregnancy, complications and loss. Please 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:19.360 take care while listening. It's October of twenty twenty three. 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:22.160 I want you to meet Kendall. She works the front 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.200 desk at one of kind Body's Chicago clinics. Her title 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:27.360 is patient coordinator. 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.280 And that week I was on mail duty. So that 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.239 means that you have to go to open up all 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.839 the mail. You have to distribute it where it goes 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:40.000 for the doctors. And so I opened it and we 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:42.080 do peruse them like we do have to read them 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:44.320 because they're like if we don't read them, then we 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:46.159 don't know how to trickle it up or what to 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:46.720 do with it. 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.839 This part of the job was usually pretty mundane, but 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:55.000 on this day, a letter addressed to doctor Angie Beltzos, 0:00:55.360 --> 0:01:02.240 Kind Body's chief medical officer stopped Kendall cold. Kendall isn't 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.880 her real name. Like others in this series, she asked 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:07.200 us to give her a pseudonym when speaking about the company. 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.560 So I read this in the office and my jaw 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:17.400 hit the floor because I was like, what do you mean. 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.040 What do you actually mean? We're doing this? 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:27.320 Kendall couldn't hide her disbelief. Her coworker immediately. 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:31.520 Noticed and she was like, what are you reading? And 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.400 I was like, dude, I literally looked at her out. 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.400 I don't know what I'm reading because I was so 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:42.600 taken aback by this letter, and so I gave it 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.640 to her and she was like Jesus Christ, and I go, 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:48.600 what am I supposed to do with this? What am 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:49.640 I supposed to do with this? 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:52.920 The letter was sent by a woman who said she'd 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.960 been an egg donor and she was writing to Warren 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.200 doctor Beltzos about the man she donated her eggs too, 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:05.520 a billionaire named Greg Lindberg. The woman had donated her 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.320 eggs to Greg back in twenty eighteen, and she had 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:10.920 the procedure done at a Chicago clinic which was then 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.600 run by Bios, a fertility chain that Angie Beltzos found 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.760 it before it was acquired by kind Body. I asked 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:18.920 Kendall to read the letter. 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.720 Hello, doctor Angeline Belzo's this masters pertains to your patient Greg. 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.560 I am one of his egg donors that went through 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:27.880 Bios in twenty eighteen. 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.200 The woman then references a phone call she says she 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:35.040 made to doctor Beltzo's back in twenty twenty, I called you. 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.120 To disclose the truth regarding my egg donation experience at BIOS. 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:40.760 I informed you that I had undergone the egg donation 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:44.399 under duress and had been deceived by mister Lindbergh, who 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.600 had failed to fulfill the promised compensation for the egg donation. 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:54.079 The woman calls the entire egg donation experience quote completely 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.360 unethical and traumatizing, and she references other women who she 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.560 says were also pressured to do things they were uncomfortable with. 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.000 The letter goes on to say. 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.400 That Limberg continued to have more children from other donors 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.720 and surrogates after the woman reached out to doctor Beltzoe's 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.320 and that during some of that time, Lindberg was in 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:16.720 prison for bribing an insurance commissioner. 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.480 Mister Lindbergh currently has at least five or more egg 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.120 donors involved in different clinics across the USA. The number 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.040 is increasing. In twenty twenty two, mister Lindberg managed to 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:31.320 re create twins through surrogates while incarcerated in a federal prison, 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.160 indicating that his family is continually expanding through the helps 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:36.400 of these fertility clinics. 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.040 Over the last six years, Lindberg has had nine children 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:47.160 with the help of donors and surrogates. Documents I've reviewed 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.880 show that three of Lindberg's babies were born while he 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.680 was in prison, and two of them with the help 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:58.040 of BIOS and later Kind Body. I've also seen surrogate 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.440 contracts that Limberg electronically sign from behind bars, which listed 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:07.160 doctor Baltzos as the designated medical provider and Lindbergh as 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:12.080 the sole intended parent. In February of twenty twenty two, 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.560 Kind Body bought Bios and the clinic continued to play 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:19.000 a crucial role in Lindberg's baby project. Out of the 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.120 six additional children Lindberg went on to have since that time, 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.839 three of them were born through surrogates treated at Kind Body. 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.719 The letter continues with the woman saying she and other 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.800 egg donors are concerned that Lindberg is lying to them 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:34.600 about what is happening with their eggs. 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:36.920 The woman says he. 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.880 Originally promised to tell her when he used her embryos 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.839 and whether any children were created, but she says she 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.080 doesn't trust him to be honest about that. She ends 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:48.400 it by writing. 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.960 I sincerely hope that you took my phone call in 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.039 twenty twenty seriously and kept ethics in mind, and that 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:57.000 you have not assisted mister Lindberg in his efforts to 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:58.279 create additional children. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:04:59.560 Sincerely, the patient. 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:05.159 So the letter addressed to kind Body painted a disturbing 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:08.520 picture of what it suggested the company was taking part in. 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:13.000 Kind Body said that it didn't acquire bios until years 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.800 after the first stages of Lindberg's baby project. It declined 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.760 to comment further for this podcast. Doctor Baltzos didn't respond 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:27.640 to interview requests from Bloomberg and iHeart podcasts. You're listening 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.800 to IVF disrupted the kind Body story. I'm your host, 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:37.240 Jackie Devalos. 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:38.720 You've heard how. 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.720 Kind Body is a fertility chain that operates like a startup. 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:44.640 Much of its funding came from venture capital and private 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:48.559 equity firms, and it's push to expand quickly, to open 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.320 more clinics, to bring in more patients, and to make 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:56.520 more profits. Its founder, Gina Bartesi, compared the company to 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.760 a rocket ship to the moon, and she once suggested 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.000 to a group of employees that they would make so 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:06.480 much money they'd each have their own private jets. But 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.960 the move fast and break things mentality is a dangerous 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:14.760 game when you're talking about IVF and women's bodies, their embryos, 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.039 and their hopes of creating a family are all on 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:22.560 the line. In the previous episode, we heard from women 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.960 who felt kind Body push them into procedures they didn't need. 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.520 Now we'll hear about kind Body burning through cash and 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:34.000 taking on patients that other clinics were hesitant to treat. 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:42.039 We'll be right back. Let's get back to Kendall. She's 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.480 the kind Body employee who was working the front desk 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.240 in a Chicago clinic. She was holding this letter that 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.279 was sounding the alarm on a billionaire, Greg Lindbergh and 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:56.680 what he called, quote the baby Project. She had never 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:58.880 met this woman who wrote the letter and had never 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.960 seen Lindberg in person, but Kendall does remember when lind 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:04.680 Berg's name first came on her radar. 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.360 I remember I was trying to collect payment for one 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:11.920 of the services and I couldn't collect the payment, and 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:13.600 they're like, oh, do this, this, this, this, and this, 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.280 and I was like, okay, well I did that. So 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.600 I had to call my manager and then my manager 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.640 was like, oh ha ha, we do it this way 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:25.840 because he's in prison. 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:34.800 And I was like, Dad is so weird, Kendall said. 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:36.160 Some things were off. 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:41.040 Lind Berg's assistant coordinated appointments for egg donors and surrogates. 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:42.960 This was widely known at the clinic. 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.640 She remembered one day when one of linn Berg's surrogates 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:47.760 checked in for an appointment. 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:52.040 I would do my normal Greek for hi, welcome in. 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:54.600 Can I have your first and last? And I just 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.000 remember she wouldn't make eye contact with me. She kept 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.480 saying everything, but she was looking down. She wasn't trying 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:05.360 to not connect, but she wasn't trying to involve herself. 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.600 And the assistant was doing a lot of the talking too. 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:11.720 This wasn't how it usually worked. 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:18.760 Normally, the intended parents would come with the carrier and 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.840 if the partner is available, they come. But it was 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:26.320 just all very strange, just strange behavior, strange how we 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.480 danced around the looke holes. It was almost like everything 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:31.760 was catered around him. 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.240 Lindberg built his fortune first through his private equity firm 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:39.600 ELI Global, which bought businesses in a wide range of 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:44.719 industries medical coders, travel firms, a seller of sports collectibles. 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.439 But it was buying up insurance companies that made Lindberg 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.760 a billionaire. In twenty twenty, a consulting firm pegged his 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:57.080 net worth at his highs, about one point five billion dollars. 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.040 Over the past several years, he's been convicted in federal 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.600 court twice for bribery, and he pleaded guilty in a 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:07.520 third case in November of twenty twenty four for money 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:11.880 laundering and fraud. These charges stem from a two billion 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.240 dollar scheme to funnel money from his insurance companies to 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:19.400 use for his personal benefit. Right now, he's facing as 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:24.679 much as thirty years in prison. By contrast, Lindbergh's baby 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.600 project didn't seem to break any laws. He made a 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.480 plan to have as many as fifty children through a 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:33.720 web of egg donors and surrogates. 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:35.400 I pieced this. 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.720 Together by reviewing thousands of pages of company documents, legal, 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.800 medical and financial records. I also conducted dozens of interviews 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:50.280 with Lindberg's former employees, clinic workers, ex girlfriends, egg donors, 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:57.160 and surrogates. Lindberg sent egg donors to clinics in California, Illinois, Nevada, 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:01.079 and Barbados, but the majority of his owns and surrogates 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:05.520 at least eleven received treatment at the clinic in Chicago 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.480 that was run by Bios, and then kind Body, a 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:13.520 clinic in Los Angeles not related to kind Body, also 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:17.720 did a lot of fertility procedures on Lindberg's behalf. I 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.360 wrote about this baby project in a story with my 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.800 colleague Sophia Alexander that was published last year in Bloomberg 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:28.560 Business Week. Lindberg participated in interviews for the article, but 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.160 in the months leading up to publication, he cut off 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.280 contact and filed a lawsuit against me and Sophie in 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.680 state court in Florida, alleging defamation, slander, and interference in 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.880 his business relationships. After the article actually ran, he sued 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.280 us again, this time in Florida Federal court, making more 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.880 or less the same allegations. In May, he asked the 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:52.680 state court to dismiss that case, saying it was largely 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:56.240 duplicative of the federal case, and then in August, the 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.440 federal court dismissed all of his claims against Bloomberg and 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.600 me and Sofia. I should also know I reached out 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.679 to Lindbergh again while preparing the series and told him 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:07.960 what I was planning to report about him, and he 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:13.200 didn't respond back at kind body. Kendall was stunned by 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.720 the egg donor's letter, so she took this problem to 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:17.559 her superiors. 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:19.800 I'm going to bring it to my manager and her 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:24.720 higher up her manager, and so I brought it up 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.400 to them. They had me scan it over to them, 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.640 and it was basically like, okay, well we'll handle this now. 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.960 Were you expecting what kind of reaction? Were you expecting 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:38.120 shock and awe? 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.240 Definitely shock and all, but there was no shock and 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.480 there was no awe, Like it was just like another 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:46.320 day run of the mill for them. They were just like, 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:52.000 oh yeah, totally. And I was like, this is huge, 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.360 and I go, should I present this letter to doctor 0:11:55.440 --> 0:12:00.200 Beltzo's And I remember my manager specifically telling me do 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:04.480 not give it to doctor Beltzos, and so I was like, 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:05.959 what can be done. 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:08.320 I spoke to the woman who sent the letter to 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:12.680 doctor Beltzos. She was one of Lindbergh's egg donors. She 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.240 didn't want to be recorded for this podcast for fear 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.640 of retribution, but she told me that when she spoke 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:22.400 with doctor Beltzos in twenty twenty, the doctor suggested she 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.719 should watch YouTube meditation videos and relax. I reached out 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.120 to doctor Beltzo's last year before my investigation was published, 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.440 and again for this podcast. She has not responded to 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:37.280 any requests for comment. The woman also told me that 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.840 the letter she sent in October of twenty twenty three, 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.640 the one Kendall saw, was also sent to other leaders 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.200 at kind Body, including Gena Bartesi. 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:47.760 No one replied to her. 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:55.080 Gina Bartesi declined to comment for this series. I wanted 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:58.080 to know more about how Lindbergh's baby project was seen 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.600 by other fertility clinics and doctors. In the course of 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.160 my reporting, I learned that Lindberg had actually been denied 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:09.319 treatment at another fertility clinic. It happened when he first 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.520 embarked on this quest in twenty eighteen, he went to 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:16.880 Duke Fertility Center. Lindberg was upfront about what he was doing. 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:18.360 He wanted to. 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.720 Have four surrogates pregnant. At the same time, he told 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.640 the doctor at Duke that he had already arranged for 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.480 a woman to be paid one point five million dollars 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.360 to donate her eggs, and one of his assistants would 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.920 carry the first baby. According to three people who were 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.080 involved in the baby project at this time, the doctor. 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:38.200 Refused to treat him. 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.680 They said she was troubled by what she heard, but 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.480 I wanted to know why she wouldn't talk to me, 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:49.320 so I interviewed more than two dozen doctors, embriologists, and psychologists. 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.840 I wanted to understand what a fertility clinic is supposed 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.880 to do when something like this comes up. There are 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.880 some enforceable guardrails on who can donate eggs. The FDA 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.720 requires fertility clinics to collect a donor's medical history and 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.520 test for infectious diseases. The rest is left up to 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:12.560 the American Society for Reproductive Medicine or ASRM. It's an 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:16.840 industry group for fertility clinics. They craft guidelines on what 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:21.400 to do or not to do for themselves, so essentially 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:26.440 they're self policing, and these are just guidelines, suggestions, really 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:32.320 not hard and fast rules. For example, they strongly recommend 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.800 that the egg donor undergoes an extensive psychological evaluation, which 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:41.000 probes into everything from work history, financial stability, and a 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:45.520 history of mental illness. Experts say a proper evaluation can 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.960 take anywhere from an hour to several sessions, and it 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.040 should take longer if the donor knows who she's donating 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.160 to One of the goals is to see if she's 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:59.920 being pressured into donating. Doctor julianne's Wifle is a psychologist 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.960 specializing in reproductive health at the University of Wisconsin. I 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.160 met her last year at the fertility industry's biggest annuel gathering. 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.160 Doctor's Swifele served on the ethics committee at ASRM for 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:15.040 six years, so she's seen her fair share of complicated cases. 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.840 She said that when she counsels her patients, she's trying 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:21.720 to gauge whether the woman donating her eggs is making 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:23.000 a well informed decision. 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:26.800 One of the big things you're also trying to make 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.520 sure isn't going on is a level of coercion, either 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.640 overt or assumed. But that doesn't mean you really want 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:34.120 to do it. 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:34.960 But are you? 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:36.880 Are you in a position where you can say no? 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:41.160 If somebody can't say no, it doesn't really feel like 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:43.160 a free choice any longer. 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:46.360 There isn't a cap on how much egg donors can 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.400 be paid for their eggs. Most donors are paid somewhere 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:53.800 between eight and twenty five thousand dollars. Lindbergh was paying 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.240 his donors as much as one point five million dollars. 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.440 Doctors I spoke to said this would be a major 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.200 red flag because for some donors that amount of money 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.560 is kind of impossible to pass up. Another thing that 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.160 Lindbergh wanted to do was to have multiple women pregnant 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.840 at the same time. Doctor's wifele said this should have 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:19.840 also raised concerns. She stressed that a doctor's responsibility is 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.120 to all of the patients, the donor and the surrogate 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.520 and the intended parent, not just the one paying the 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:31.360 clinic fees. A surrogate's needs need to be carefully considered too, 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.400 because the process of carrying someone else's child isn't just 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:40.480 physically taxing. It can also be emotionally complicated. If you 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:44.360 have multiple donors and multiple surrogates at the same time, 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:48.400 there might be a tendency to treat them like things. 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.200 We have to treat the carrier as a human who 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:56.240 could be harmed, and I don't want carriers to be harmed. 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.840 And intended parents, I'm really trying to get a sense 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:03.400 of are they going to respect this person, Do they 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.160 see them as a whole human They're not just I'd 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.280 never use the word oven. Oven is a piece of 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:10.919 equipment you know this is a person. 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.440 There was another problem with Lindbergh's baby project. His first 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.719 surrogate was his assistant. She had worked for him at 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:19.760 his private equity firm. 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:23.840 You can't have an employee of yours beer carrier, because 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.920 that is coercion like, because she will feel she can't 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:29.520 say no right because now she's at risk of losing 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:30.080 her job. 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.480 Lindbergh was able to do what he did because without regulation, 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:41.240 America's fertility industry is a marketplace for almost anything is 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:42.720 possible if you have enough money. 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.639 When it comes to third party reproduction, we're in a 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:48.080 really weird, sticky place. 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.840 That's doctor Brian Levine. He's a founding doctor at CCRM 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:55.640 New York. It's part of a big chain of fertility 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:57.320 clinics that is owned by private equity. 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:00.280 And the reason is weird and sticky. He has this 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:06.040 unregulated and unchecked. There is no national registry in America 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:10.000 to know how many times someone has donated X, nor 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:11.760 how many times someone has donated a sperm. 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.640 And yet, even to doctor Levine, Greg Lindberg stood out. 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:18.720 I've never had a patient say to me, I want 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.240 to get three D surrogates pregnant in one year, never 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:23.960 seen it, never had it happen. I've heard of it, 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:26.639 but I've never actually had that clinical experience. 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:31.560 What Lindbergh wanted went beyond anything doctor Levine had encountered 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:35.919 in his career. Multiple donors at the same clinic, surrogates 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:41.000 who were employees, payments that dwarfed normal compensation. But the 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:43.320 system has no mechanism to stop it. 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:50.280 There's no laws. It's an unregulated space. There's laws by 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:53.159 the FDA, the Fund and Drug Administration, there's laws of 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.399 reporting by the CDC, the Center for Disease Control, But 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:58.560 when it comes to who has the opportunity to work 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:02.040 with a surrogate, it's very clear that is up the 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:03.480 discretion of the treating physician. 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.960 Lindbergh's efforts might sound extreme, but he's taking part in 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.919 a small but high profile trend wealthy men having a 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:17.480 large number of children to fulfill their reproductive ambitions. Elon Musk, 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:21.159 who has fathered at least fourteen children, has repeatedly warned 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:25.040 about population collapse and urged more people to have more babies, 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:31.440 calling it quote the biggest danger civilization faces. Then there's Paveldurov, 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.720 the founder of Telegram, who said in a June interview 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.520 that he has fathered over a hundred children by donating sperm. 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:42.760 As long as the IVF industry remains largely unregulated, there's 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.680 little to stop the next billionaire with the baby project 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:51.120 from finding a willing clinic to help. Doctor Levine says 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:55.640 Greg Linberg's baby project at kind Body pointed to institutional failure. 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.600 A lot of things just kind of went through holes, 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:02.680 and the holes just lined up in this one scenario 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:06.800 where they person went from checkbook to baby. And I 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.520 will argue that leadership starts at the top, and so 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.600 that was pervasive in this clinic where it happened with 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.119 multiple individuals, even though they were all assigned to one 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:19.720 intended parent. I would argue that there was a dangerous 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:23.080 culture that occurred within that clinic. And I would worry 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.560 about the other outcomes that have happened there as well 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:27.320 that aren't being reported to you. 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:30.520 For the woman who tried to sound the alarm with 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.640 her letter, going through the courts wasn't going to yield 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:37.720 the accountability she wanted. She felt the clinic bore some 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.720 responsibility because after all, she was. 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:41.400 A patient too. 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:46.560 She'd warned doctor Beltsos multiple times, there were no consequences 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:50.760 for Limberg. Kendall, the kind Body employee who opened the letter, 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:55.040 was frustrated that the clinic wasn't doing anything. She told 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:57.960 her superiors, she told her colleagues. 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.280 And so I was like, what can be done? And 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:04.160 I was talking to my other coworker who was well 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:07.440 aware of this situation, and she goes, we just don't 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.639 do anything about it. We just don't just leave it. 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:14.560 And I was like, no, that's not right. What struck 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:16.159 me was like reading that letter. I was like, this 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.280 woman is in pain, and I can't imagine her experience 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:20.439 and what she had to go through. 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:25.880 According to Kendall, Lindbergh wasn't the only patient that kind 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:29.879 Body was accepting that other clinics were hesitant to treat, 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:34.600 like women in their fifties or patients who were considered 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:37.159 too overweight to be eligible for IVF. 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.040 Working at kind Body, we were like the dumpster fire. 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:42.000 That was our model, Like you would come to us 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.920 if everyone else denied you, because we would put you through. 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.840 Kind Body framed this as a point of pride by 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:52.000 They're telling they were expanding access to anyone who wanted 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:56.080 to have a baby, But to Kendall, after everything she 0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:00.480 had seen. This wasn't out of compassion, It was at greed. 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:04.960 I just saw over and over and over again, them 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:09.800 pushing through these geriatric patients that were not getting the results, 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.800 and then every single time they just changed protocol to say, oh, 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.199 next time it will be it. But then you have 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:21.000 some patients that are going through twenty one rounds being older, 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:24.760 and they're just told oh, next time, Oh, next time, 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:28.760 But no one's having the real conversation and being transparent 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.760 with these patients. There was women in their fifties and 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:34.000 men in their seventies. 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:37.439 At this stage, the chances of getting pregnant are lower, 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:41.560 so these older patients often ended up spending more money 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.160 on IVF than people in their thirties and forties. 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:47.560 There was so much that fell in between the cracks, 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:53.520 because again it was kind of like get them in, retrieve, transplant, 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:56.000 get them out, like that was that was it. And 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.119 I do think a lot of it got lost in 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:02.800 lost in between, you know, just because so many people 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:04.919 are coming in, but we're not looking at I don't know, 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:07.879 we're not keeping the morality compass in mind. Like I 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:10.080 do think a lot of times morals were thrown out, 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:13.480 and just the price tag was what was making the 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:16.520 doctors keep going. I do have people in my life 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:17.680 that were looking into fertility. 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:19.399 I said, do not go to kind Body. 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:23.440 So this is the thorny situation that the IVF industry 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:27.359 finds itself in. In this series, you've heard from many 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:31.040 patients who feel they've been harmed and disillusioned employees who 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:34.119