American Experience

Narrator: In Washington, federal agencies placed an unofficial moratorium on IVF funding.

Dr. Howard Jones, Fertility Expert: The progress of IVF in America of course was greatly impeded by the fact that the National Institutes of Health, the greatest granting agency there is, or at least with the greatest amount of money, would not entertain any applications for IVF. It was clear that IVF opponents prevented federal funding for IVF.

Narrator: At Columbia Presbyterian, administrators grew increasingly concerned that Shettle’s research might jeopardize the hospital’s reputation.

Arthur Caplan, Bioethicist: This was a very conservative place. It prided itself on being -let’s put it this way-not first to get there but maybe second to get there. But that was okay because the people who got there first didn’t always know what they were doing.

Narrator: Shettles’ superiors repeatedly warned him not to cross the line into human experimentation.

Robin Marantz Henig, Author: If any one individual does research that goes against some regulation, like does human research without asking for permission, then all the federal grants are endangered.

Narrator: The job of protecting Columbia Presbyterian’s interests fell to Dr. Raymond Vande Wiele, chair of the OB/GYN department.

Arthur Caplan, Bioethicist: Ray Vande Wiele was very conservative, strongly oriented toward moral values, particularly religious values. This is a guy who is the captain of the ship. He was a guy who was large and in charge.

Narrator: Vande Wiele demoted Shettles to a low profile position with few responsibilities. But, Landrum Shettles was not easily deterred. He still had access to a lab and continued his IVF research. Great scientists, he believed, advance science by defying conventional thinking.

In January, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade to legalize abortion and unleashed one of the most polarizing debates in the nation’s history. The course of IVF in America would now become entangled with the controversy over the status of the embryo.

Father Richard McCormick (archival): It seems that in order to achieve a successful fertilization in vitro in the laboratory, a number of fertilized ova must be there and of course only one is going to go through the process of embryo transfer into the uterus. Now, what will you do with these discards? What are they?

Arthur Caplan, Bioethicist: So when the subject came up to do in vitro fertilization, you might have to do research on an embryo, that immediately raised the question: Well, what is an embryo? That immediately raised the question: When does life begin?

Margaret Marsh, Historian: You have increasingly vocal anti-abortion forces saying “in order to create an embryo that you might be able to transfer into a woman’s uterus, you have to destroy all these embryos on the way to doing research, and you’re engaging in murder.”

Narrator: Opponents of abortion began pressing the federal government to ban embryo research. Landrum Shettles, believed, it was now or never. If he didn’t act quickly, the government might move to prohibit IVF. That fall, he agreed to try the procedure on a couple from Florida.

Doris and John Del-Zio had been married for five years. Doris had a daughter from her first marriage. Still, she wanted a child with John.

John Del-Zio: I felt that the bad portion of life was behind me, and that we’ve got something ahead that we might look forward to and-and make a future of it for both of us. We were both divorced. I thought this might be the time to start fresh.

Narrator: But, a ruptured appendix had left her fallopian tubes mangled and scarred — leaving Doris infertile.

Doris Del-Zio: When they tell you that you are incapable of conceiving a child, it’s horrible. I’m not giving John a child. It’s my failure. It’s not John. It’s my failure.

Narrator: Doris underwent three painful surgeries to open her damaged tubes. Each attempt failed. Her surgeon, Dr. William Sweeney, urged her to stop.

Doris Del-Zio: He said, “I really think you’re crucifying yourself with all this surgery you’re doing.” He said, “I know you want a baby, but you got to accept the fact that you just can’t have a child.” And I just could not accept that fact.

Narrator: Reluctantly, Sweeney decided to tell Doris about Landrum Shettles and the risky, new procedure he was developing to bypass damaged fallopian tubes.

Shettles could take an egg extracted from her ovary, fertilize it in a Petri dish and return it to her uterus.

Doris Del-Zio: As a child I had polio. And I always believed that because of the doctors helping me overcome the polio, that they were put up on a pedestal, and that they can do anything, and that they were able to help me walk again, and live a normal life, that they were going to help me with this.

John Del-Zio: We thought that this guy is the guy, this is the man that’s going to make a success of what we wanted, and we thought nothing about not going ahead with it.

Narrator: Landrum Shettles told no one at Columbia Presbyterian he was proceeding with an experiment in human IVF. Alone in a 16th-floor lab, he mixed Doris’ egg and John’s sperm in a test tube — and placed it an incubator set to 98 degrees. Later that day, a young scientist unexpectedly entered the lab.

Georgianna Jagiello, Geneticist: She saw this unusual test tube that looked kind of dark brown red, with a red stopper, which meant it was a chemical test tube, non-sterile. And she came to my office and said, “I want you to look at this because I don’t know what this is. And perhaps it shouldn’t be there.”

Narrator: At 8:00am the following morning, Raymond Vande Wiele learned of the experiment taking place down the hall from his office. Vande Wiele was enraged.

Arthur Caplan, Bioethicist: I can’t imagine that Vande Wiele wasn’t freaking out that if this experiment hit the papers, that it could adversely impact Columbia’s funding, it could get some sort of legal authorities in there to say, “What are you doing, making this thing in the lab,” and that the PR alone could be damaging to the department.

Narrator: Vande Wiele ordered a staff member to remove the test tube from the incubator, knowing it would destroy the specimen. Then, he went searching for Shettles.

Arthur Caplan, Bioethicist: I happened to be in the hallway up where OB/GYN was, and all of a sudden here comes Landrum Shettles flying down the hallway at almost a run — if not running, then close — and he zooms around the corner. And I’m sort of, “Whoa, what was that?” And he’s trailed within 30 seconds by Raymond Vande Wiele, who’s a much bigger guy, and this is more like a large semi coming down the hallway at a pretty fast clip. And he’s red-faced, and he’s mad, and he’s muttering. And he goes whipping around the corner, clearly after Shettles.

Narrator: When Vande Wiele caught up with him, Shettles knew his career at the hospital was over. The maverick scientist was forced to resign. Several hours later, John Del-Zio was called away from his wife’s bedside to take a phone call from Dr. Sweeney.

John Del-Zio: And Dr. Sweeney says, “Somebody at Columbia removed the test tube from the incubator, and we had to abort the whole thing.” I said … I asked him, “No part could be salvaged?” He said, “No, no. It’s … just forget about the whole thing.” And we were both stunned. And he said to me, Dr. Sweeney said to me, “I don’t know what to tell her.”

Narrator: As evening settled over the city, Doris lay alone in her hospital room. The phone rang. It was Landrum Shettles.