A former physician in Washington state has voluntarily surrendered his license after a woman in California claimed to have DNA evidence that proved the fertility doctor used his own sperm to inseminate her over 10 years ago.
The startling allegations against Dr. Christopher Herndon surfaced in a publicly available report from the Washington Medical Commission, along with a notice on the commission’s website that his license was “voluntarily suspended.”
A summary of evidence against Herndon reviewed by Law&Crime on Wednesday indicates that the complaint from the woman in California was first lodged with the commission this April. The woman alleged she was a patient of Herndon’s while he was practicing reproductive medicine as a fellow in training in California in 2009.
During that visit, the woman said she chose sperm from the same donor she had used to have her first child and the procedure was successful, leading to the birth of her second child in 2010.
But when both of her children’s DNA was tested, the woman said she learned they did not share the same biological father. This triggered a search and a gamut of tests. The woman said she used an ancestry tracking service and located a “familial connection” that had the same last name: Herndon.
A private investigator was hired, and in the end, Herndon’s former patient made a startling revelation.
The “familial connection” was her doctor’s sibling, the records state.
According to the summary of allegations, Herndon “replaced the donor sperm” she selected for her artificial insemination with his own and without her consent or knowledge.
Now that Herndon has surrendered his license, he cannot renew it or attempt to reinstate it in Washington at any time.
According to the Seattle Times, Herndon worked at the University of Washington Medicine Center Reproductive Care clinic starting in 2017. Until this September when he resigned, he was also an assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UW.
As recently as 2021, according to a post from the National Infertility Association on Facebook from 2021, Herndon received an award recognizing him as an “early leader in the movement to expand access to fertility care.”
